In a new interview, Tool and Puscifer frontman Maynard James Keenan has revealed that he contracted COVID-19 back in February, and he’s still “dealing with the residual side effects,” including lung damage.
Keenan got COVID-19 back in late February before it was officially declared a pandemic. “I kind of didn’t want to run around screaming it,” Keenan explains to AZ Central. “But it’s real. And there’s after-effects. I had to go through some major medications to undo the residual effects. Still coughing. There’s still lung damage.”
WHOA: Tool’s Maynard James Keenan suffering lung damage after contracting Covid-19 in February: https://t.co/FIEBw6ZuRL
— Loudwire (@Loudwire) October 9, 2020
In the interview, Keenan was asked if he was feeling alright now, to which he responded, “Well no. I still have the cough. Every other day, I have these coughing fits because my lungs are still damaged at the tips. And I just got over the inflammation that was going on with my wrist and hands. I had an autoimmune attack on my system in the form of, like, a rheumatoid arthritis.”
Keenan then went on to discuss the political polarization of wearing a mask “ridiculous.” “It’s just an absurdity,” Keenan continues. “We wear seatbelts. We don’t smoke in trains, planes or taxis anymore, or even restaurants. There’s reasons for those things. I don’t know. I feel like there’s this twist on the idea of personal freedom where somehow freedom is you being able to walk into anybody’s house and take a dump on their meal or shoot ugly things at their grandma. That’s not what freedom is.”
Puscifer is set to release their forthcoming album Existential Reckoning on October 30th.