Joe Rogan Experience #1887 - Maynard James Keenan
Joe Rogan (host), Maynard James Keenan (guest), Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Maynard James Keenan, Joe Rogan Experience #1887 - Maynard James Keenan explores maynard James Keenan on Wine, Jiu-Jitsu, Creativity, Aging, and Hustle Joe Rogan and Maynard James Keenan dive into a sprawling conversation that bounces from touring, jiu-jitsu, and strength training to winemaking, coffee, and creative process. Maynard explains how he balances three bands, multiple wineries, restaurants, and a new coffee project through logistics, delegation, and accepting long time-horizons, especially in agriculture. They explore how martial arts and farming shape his mindset, emphasizing discipline, self-awareness, and comfort with struggle and failure. The episode also promotes Puscifer’s pay-per-view concert films while unpacking larger themes of technology overload, population, cities, and finding a grounded, purposeful life.
Maynard James Keenan on Wine, Jiu-Jitsu, Creativity, Aging, and Hustle
Joe Rogan and Maynard James Keenan dive into a sprawling conversation that bounces from touring, jiu-jitsu, and strength training to winemaking, coffee, and creative process. Maynard explains how he balances three bands, multiple wineries, restaurants, and a new coffee project through logistics, delegation, and accepting long time-horizons, especially in agriculture. They explore how martial arts and farming shape his mindset, emphasizing discipline, self-awareness, and comfort with struggle and failure. The episode also promotes Puscifer’s pay-per-view concert films while unpacking larger themes of technology overload, population, cities, and finding a grounded, purposeful life.
Key Takeaways
Use physical training and heat exposure strategically as you age.
Rogan stresses that consistent strength training and sauna use become non‑negotiable with age to maintain muscle, bone density, and spinal health, recommending tools like the Reverse Hyper for lower back issues.
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Treat jiu-jitsu—and any hard skill—as a long-term, detail-obsessed practice.
Maynard focuses on one position at a time (e. ...
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Let the hardest thing you do re-wire how you approach everything else.
He calls jiu-jitsu the hardest thing he’s ever done and describes how learning to stay calm in bad positions, accept losing, and think like it’s chess instead of panic carries over into writing music, making wine, and handling life stress.
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Delegate ruthlessly but own the critical decisions in complex ventures.
Running vineyards and wineries across Arizona, Maynard relies on trusted people for execution while personally making key calls about planting, picking, and blends, showing how delegation plus clear decision authority makes scale possible.
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Respect terroir and time: good wine and good work cannot be rushed.
He breaks down terroir as an untrackable mix of soil, moisture, clone, pruning, weather, and farming choices—and notes that vineyards require years of upfront investment before a single bottle sells, demanding patience and long vision.
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Creativity improves when you listen more than you impose.
Describing his writing process, Maynard says each riff or song is like a training partner: he loops it endlessly, lets it “talk” to him, and responds rather than forcing a preconceived idea, which keeps his projects (Tool, APC, Puscifer) distinct and evolving.
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Consciously manage your relationship with technology and dopamine.
They discuss cutting screen time, deleting TikTok over surveillance concerns, and using phones as tools (recipes, repairs, education) instead of endless stimulus, arguing that most people lack a “user manual” for healthy engagement.
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Notable Quotes
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Jiu-jitsu does not come easy for me.”
— Maynard James Keenan
“If you can find one thing that’s harder than everything else, it’ll improve the things that come naturally to you.”
— Maynard James Keenan
“Once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things.”
— Joe Rogan (quoting Miyamoto Musashi, then extending the idea to jiu-jitsu, wine, and music)
“You can’t chase relevancy or you’ll wind up desperate and getting plastic surgery, trying to insert yourself into some stupid thing.”
— Maynard James Keenan
“Wine is like a time capsule. It’s something that happened on that day, in that place, made that certain way.”
— Maynard James Keenan
Questions Answered in This Episode
How has jiu-jitsu specifically changed the way Maynard approaches songwriting and collaboration compared to his early career?
Joe Rogan and Maynard James Keenan dive into a sprawling conversation that bounces from touring, jiu-jitsu, and strength training to winemaking, coffee, and creative process. ...
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What are the biggest mistakes he made in his first decade of winemaking, and how did they change his current process?
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How does Maynard decide which ideas become Tool, A Perfect Circle, or Puscifer songs, given his emphasis on listening to collaborators?
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In an era of streaming and short attention spans, what has he learned from Puscifer’s long-form pay-per-view concert films about what audiences still want?
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If he had to start over in today’s world—with the same personality but no fame—would he still choose the same combination of music, wine, and farming, or prioritize them differently?
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Transcript Preview
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Do you ever sauna? Do you do that?
I have a sauna, yeah.
Yeah?
Well-
Do you use it?
... it, it had, um ... Initially, it had issues 'cause it could... the ... It was like a sh- you know, janky-ass, uh, actual heater that, that died, and we had to try to get another-
Swap it out?
Yeah, we had to order another one. They like ... No luck with that company, so we just... It's like, "Huh, that company doesn't exist anymore." And so had to get a different one in there, but it's fine. It, uh, we just got done putting a bunch of the, um, oil on it, sa- sauna oil to kinda ... 'Cause Arizona, the, the sun just like cooks everything.
Cooks the fucking wood, so there's like ... It was cracking in spaces, so ... The real hardcore folks, they use the wood-fired sauna, old school, like you're cooking pizza.
Yeah. Well, they can do that.
Yeah.
I am not that guy.
Yeah, they sell those. I'm like, "That seems like a lot of work." Plus, you gotta kill trees.
And we, you know ... Uh, so we ... Um, you know, we use it quite a bit actually, uh, when it was, when it was running. Uh, but then like I was on the road, and then harvest, so we didn't bother with it until just now. We got it back running.
It's so good for you, man. It's so good. I just got out. I, I do it after every workout. It's like religious. I make sure I get in there right afterwards.
(laughs)
It's the best.
All right.
You're training hard there, fella. Well, y- y- John Danaher teaching you the finer points of triangles. That was fun to watch.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard on, uh ... As you ... I've discussed this before. Uh, being on the road is, uh ... It's hard to find consistent training. Consistent training is your gym, that instructor-
Yeah.
... in your city, your drive back and forth to your house, uh, doing two classes a day maybe if you can. You know, like that kind of thing, but like the road is like inconsistent. So, the only consistency I can, I can really rely on is picking a particular subject and going to people that I know that know how to do it.
Mm.
Rather than allowing them to go, "Hey, I got this cool thing where you go upside down and stand on your head and do a backflip and ..." Like, buggy choke. Don't ... Please, I don't ... I'm 58. Please don't try to tell me, tell me what a buggy choke is right now.
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