Blood Into Wine Page #5

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Or is that not suitable for you?

You want us to run out and get you some--

- This is fine.

- ...some paint thinner or something?

- No. l'm good.

- Or is there plenty of wine left?

- Plenty of wine.

- I have a question for you.

What kind of tool do you use to make wine?

- Only because I saw that note.

- Did you see what I said?

Yeah. Because you're talking

about the fish thing here.

"What kind of tool"?

I'm Tom Beaujour,

the editor in chief of Revolver Magazine.

We've actually been covering Tool

since day one.

One of the most important things

that Tool decided to do

and has managed to do

was not play the media game.

They've actually managed

to maintain an aura

of a unit of a band with a mystique.

Between Maynard's lyrics and the rhythms

and the way that the music evolves--

that Tool music connects with people

on a really massively

wide spectrum of levels,

which is why fans of theirs

remain with them as the y evolve.

And even with A Perfect circle,

he was more open

and, you know,

willing to do things on his own

because it was his own project.

When he's in Tool,

Maynard is part of Tool.

I think what Maynard

has always managed to do

is write lyrics

that you totally feel his suffering,

and you feel struggles, his evolution.

When you're writing songs

and titling them, you know,

"Stink Fist" or "Prison Sex,"

you know that you're pushing buttons.

But he is able to connect with people's,

like, inner Beavis and Butthead.

When he calls something "Stink Fist,"

he knows that it's disturbing

and provocative

and opens up a whole can of worms,

but he also knows that it's kind of funny.

I don't think any of Maynard's fans,

at least until recently,

had a vision of him as a happy

or, you know, well-adjusted person.

I'm very resistant to the idea of...

being a public servant

and it being my responsibility to educate,

because I'm not really qualified

to do any of those things.

I write these songs

to move through some pain

or work out some issues,

and if I'm successful in my art,

in my expression,

I shouldn't feel the same way I did

when I wrote those songs anymore,

and there should be a logical progression.

But if, as an artist,

I can express myself in some way

that ends up helping someone else

get through some hard times,

I guess that's--

that's great for everybody.

It helps other people.

The problem with

the music industry in general

is that artists get into it

because they have a desire to be desired,

and they have a desire

to scream their heads off

for whatever issue

happened to them in the past.

They weren't armed with the proper tools

to move through any trauma,

or they're a child of divorce

or, you know, lost their parents.

What they do is they end up just kind of

screaming their heads off,

and at some point, they get popular,

and now they're part of an industry

that is run by people who are

uneducated, emotional people.

In a way, it's kind of a dead end.

In this society, we expect those artists

to continue screaming

to the end of their days.

If you don't eventually feel better,

then I'm not sure

how effective your screaming was

and how your screaming

is going to help somebody else.

So I should work out of those issues

and move on to some other challenges.

And that's, for me, what the wine is.

I think I've moved

through a lot of the problems

that I've had in the past.

I don't necessarily want

to scream my whole life.

If the songs don't help me,

how are they going to help you?

So here I am, making wine.

It's a much more grounded experience

than being in a bus,

being surrounded by decadence.

I just returned from a short run with Tool,

which confirmed my suspicions

that it's very grueling on my body.

As soon as I got back, I collapsed

and got sick for a couple days.

It's very taxing, so I think it's--

I'm much happier in this setting,

doing these things.

Not that I don't enjoy making that art

and expressing those ideas.

But I just--

My body now feels more comfortable here.

It's...

It's more where I am

in my progression, in my life path.

This is just kind of

where I feel more comfortable now.

You can see the grapes

are going into veraison already.

Some of the little green spots

on these berries--

that's going to clear up over time.

Once these canes are more established,

we're seeing in some of the older vines

that you don't really get that anymore.

Once it kind of finds its way and it kind of

gets itself acclimated to the site,

over the course of, you know,

six or seven years, it kind of--

it kind of gets

what it needs to do to survive here.

And those green berries

will start to disappear.

Right now, though, this is the third harvest,

so it's still kind of finding its way.

And it's doing really well.

Hi. We're making wine in Arizona.

I know the first thought is cacti

and cement and all kinds of heat.

But we're in the high desert.

We get snow in the winter.

And it's actually a lot cooler

than, say, Paso Robles.

I'm sure you've had some wines

from the Paso Robles area.

We have more problems with cold

than we do with heat.

So, just to dispel that myth right away,

get on to the wine drinking.

This is the first wine that I actually made

with Eric Glomski in Arizona.

I actually lived in--

I moved to LA in around 1990.

It took only about five years for that

to sink in it was a bad idea.

So '95,

l ran screaming

from your lovely city toward Arizona.

Ended up in a small town

called Jerome, Arizona, in '95.

It didn't take long for me

to look at the slopes there

and realize that this is the place

to start planting grapes.

But I didn't really have

any wine background.

So, going into

this whole thing with Eric Glomski,

l'm kind of like

that drunk child with a loaded weapon,

bouncing around the winery going,

"Hey, let's mix these things together.

What does this taste like?"

And this is a direct result

of that clumsiness.

can you--

Did you hear all that in the back?

No.

Location, location, location.

Here's some food!

How do you find time

to, like, actually write music,

when you know so much about wine, like?

Well, honestly, I don't really know

that much about wine.

I'm learning as l go. And I'm learning

about the winemaking process over time.

It's going to take--

It'll take a decade or two

for me to really catch up with...

with all the hot air

that I'm throwing around.

It's a steep learning curve.

It's a quick learning curve,

and then it levels off,

and there's a lot of hard work

that occurs in that last 5%

to really get you to the next level.

But it's like music. It's about listening.

And, so, like, where do you see yourself

in sort of 1 5, 20 years?

Like, do you see yourself, like, performing

on stage or, you know, growing wine?

I think the stage performances

will end up being the fun part,

the break from the winemaking.

Wow. So wine is, like--

Gone for a few weeks, do some shows,

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