During an interview with azcentral.com, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan revealed that he contracted COVID-19 in February and that he is still suffering from “residual effects” associated with the disease. He said the following while discussing the pandemic:
“Well, I’m not a delicate flower. You make the adjustment. ‘OK, well, we can’t do that. So what are we gonna do? Are we just gonna take this opportunity to unplug and kind of step back and reevaluate everything?’ It was good. 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 also added the following about his battle with the disease:
“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.”
He continued:
“Several of my friends, too. Very not old people, young people, in shape, runners, who contracted it as well. And they’re still dealing with some of the after-effects. I lost a few family members.”
He also had the following to say when asked if he is “feeling all right now?”:
“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. Basically, from what I understand, it attacks weird spots and it’s random. So that’s what I got. That was my prize.”