TOOL's MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN Delivers Speech At 'Phoenix Sparks' / 'Arizona Localism In Action' (Video)

TOOL singer Maynard James Keenan was one of ten of Arizona's most diverse and passionate local thought leaders who took the stage on Wednesday, June 10 at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix for Phoenix Sparks / Arizona Localism In Action. The event, hosted by Local First Arizona, brought these individuals together to each speak for five minutes on what inspires them to enrich and cultivate their communities, and showcase the work they are doing across Arizona.

In his speech, Maynard, winemaker and owner of Caduceus Cellars, said: "Most people spend their entire lives trying to avoid friction. Somewhere along the way, I found in myself a desire, a calling, to embrace friction, tension, transitions, changes… to work with them.

"You don't really need to be a mathematician or a psychic to understand that life is change. Life is friction. To some, that might be kind of a daunting realization. Mothers, if you've gone through childbirth — that would be why you're a mother — the friction there. Of course, the more enjoyable friction came nine months before, but then it continues through your life, all the way into our passing; that's always there. For some people, that's kind of a daunting realization, that gravity is going to win. Gravity doesn't cut anybody any slack. Or you can just choose to work with gravity, work towards those changes and kind of work and embrace that idea of the friction and work toward a solution — a life-affirming resolution."

Maynard went on to say: "For me, that's kind of what life is; life is working towards those resolutions. It's working with the tension and the friction, because that's what art is; that's where the art occurs. And the purest art, the best forms of art are those ones that actually capture that moment, that edge, and that's kind of what we have in Arizona, across the board — nice edges everywhere. A good example of that friction and tension: cello. You take wood, you bend it into impossible shapes, curves, angles, in places it doesn't wanna be — not breaking; just on the edge. And then you string it — not to the point of breaking; just on the edge. And then you take that bow and you place it across those strings. And there it is: the release, the art. Sonic joy, sonic sadness, sonic anger… all within that release."

He continued: "What's really appealing to me is people who actually can capture those moments, capture those frictions, those changes; that's very inspiring to me. That's why I do what I do — to witness those things, in whatever form. It can be on a canvas, it can be through a lens, it can through cuisine, it can be through music… And, in the case of what I've chosen… the path that I've chosen to go down… winemaking, and growing of grapes.

"World-class wine is grown on those edges, where things are very challenging. They are time capsules — not just capturing time, but capturing a place in that bottle. And as soon as you open that cork, you'd better be present for it, because it's going to change, because life is change. Nothing sits still, so pay attention to what's in that bottle, on that edge. The best wines in the world: hale, frost, late-spring frost, winter kill, humidity, hippies… it happens."

Maynard added: "The wine from very cozy growing regions kind of bores me. But the stuff that we're growing in Arizona, we're on that edge. We get those late-spring frosts, we get winter kill, we get hale, we get monsoons, we get haboobs, we get dust devils… we have all those things that are going against us to almost try to prevent us from bringing you that final product. That's why we're up here talking about it. We need you. We've done the hard work, we've done the heavy lifting. We know that Arizona is, in fact, that edge where those things exist. We make it through the late-spring frost, we make it through the monsoons, we make it through the hale… barely, on the edge. So we've done the heavy lifting; we found out that this is that region for those things. This is the thing that you can't take away. You can't move this to China. This is a local event. Now we're dug in. We've been doing it for decades. What we need from you is to do the easy part: drink it. Tell people about it. We need you. It's changed the entire economic landscape of Arizona. We are now here. We are players in the state. The capital has noticed that we're here to stay."

This event was in conjunction with the welcome activities for the national BALLE (Business Alliance of Local Living Economies) conference on localism, held this year in Phoenix. The 13th annual BALLE conference was a three-day event that explored how locally rooted economic systems solve environmental, financial, and social problems. Approximately 500 local business leaders, social entrepreneurs, community funders, policymakers and local economy leaders of all kind from across North America and beyond were expected to attend this year's BALLE conference. This was the first time that the conference came to Arizona.