It’s been a good few years for musical projects starring Maynard James Keenan, with a clutch of great albums. Presumably Arizona Republic thought those would be the core part of their interview with him, but when they get to Covid Maynard dropped a bombshell: he’s had it, and he’s still suffering

 

“ I mean, I was still recovering from having gotten COVID at the end of February. I’m still dealing with the residual effects. But it was ugly. I survived it, but it wasn’t pretty. So I definitely had to deal with that,” he began.

 

“Um… yeah. I kind of didn’t want to run around screaming it. 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… 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. Basically, from what I understand, it attacks weird spots and it’s random. So that’s what I got. That was my prize.”