Last week, Puscifer announced their first U.S. tour in support of the band’s latest album, Existential Reckoning. The record dropped in October of 2020, several months into the COVID-19 pandemic, which sent the world into its own existential reckoning.

Reflecting on Existential Reckoning, frontman Maynard James Keenan tells ABC Audio he feels the album “definitely reflected the time” of its release.

“I do have a lot of conversations with my friends, check in on ’em, see where they’re at,” Keenan shares. “I feel like that album definitely reflected a median feeling between most of my close friends. I feel like like we kind of captured that.”

With the pandemic now nearing the end of its second year, Keenan thinks Existential Reckoning hasn’t lost its relevance.

“That album’s still unfolding for us, still, right now,” he says.

Existential Reckoning is the most recent album Keenan’s released, following A Perfect Circle‘s Eat the Elephant in 2018 and Tool‘s Fear Inoculum in 2019. During the pandemic, Keenan says he hasn’t been working on new music as much as he’s been focused on his other career: wine-making.

“I think more than the audio, visual, three-dimensional arts, instead I’ve kind of turned more toward just the farming,” he says. “Just having that connection to with seasons and harvest, I feel like I kind of turned a little bit more toward growing — literally.”

Puscifer’s tour launches in June. Keenan’s currently on tour with Tool.

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