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It’s Maynard who asked you to write his biography. How did that happen?
Sarah Jensen : I hadn’t seen Maynard in a while, and when he came through Boston to do a show, we made plans to get together and catch up. The night before the performance, we met for dinner at an Indian restaurant in Harvard Square. He looked across the table and asked me if I’d like to write his biography. Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that! He had been thinking about a bio for a while, and he decided he’d like someone to write it who actually understood him and where he’s from. And that’s important. The little town in Michigan where he and I are both from is just as much a character in the book as the people.

Did you publish something else before? Was it different or similar for that book?
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I’ve been a journalist, written poetry, and worked for a company that created catalogs and fundraising campaigns for schools and universities. But this was my first full-length book. Actually, it wasn’t much different from the other writing I’ve done. They all involve knowing what you want to say and saying it well, with all the commas in the right place. This just took a little longer than a haiku.

What was your approach here?
Maynard and I agreed early on that this wouldn’t be a typical rock-star biography. It wouldn’t be a book about Tool or a tell-all, but the story of Maynard’s journey. It hopefully would show that everyone’s life is a journey, and that the outcomes depend on the choices they make.

Did you meet Maynard for the content, phone him?
Maynard and I live on opposite sides of the country, so every Sunday we got on the phone, and he told me another chapter of his life. During the week, I worked on turning it into a story. He reviewed everything I wrote, and had final approval over it all.

Were there things more difficult to discuss with him, as there are some sensitive events depicted?
Maynard and I trust each other. That trust meant we could be open and honest with each other. We didn’t shy away from talking about sensitive areas, because it was all done to make the best book we could. Like he says: "If you’re going to do something, you do it. (…) You do it for the art."

         

And are there some subjects Maynard directly told you not to talk about?
The only rule we had was that we wouldn’t be critical of anyone. A book doesn’t have to have villains.

Did you have lots of research to do, and how did you proceed in order to interview all the people?
80% of writing a book is research. When Maynard and I talked, other questions would come up that relatives, friends or his colleagues probably knew the answers to. So I tracked these people down, interviewed them, and had them fill in details and verify facts. Everyone was very happy to help, and our conversations often led to even more things to research!
I had to look up a million little details too, such as the temperature on a certain date in Boston, the native trees of Oklahoma, and the setlist of the Cinquanta show in 2014. Google quickly became my best friend.
The non-writing part also included learning how to find an agent, how to read a literary contract, and the ins and outs of copyright law. I can’t imagine how biographers accomplished all this in the past without unlimited long-distance phone plans, digital voice recorders, and the internet!

You must have talked a lot to your brother too, as him and Maynard have been so close.
Kjiirt shared a lot of memories since he had been there for so many of Maynard’s pivotal moments. But even more important, he was my support system, always there with an encouraging word when I felt overwhelmed.

Yourself, when did you first meet Maynard? And what was your first impression then?
I had been hearing about him from Kjiirt ever since they had met in eighth grade in 1979, but I didn’t meet him until 1986. The two of them were going clubbing one evening, and Maynard came to meet him wearing black leather and sporting his Mulhawk; then I remember thinking: "Whoa! I want to get to know this guy!" After that, of course, he became a dear friend.

You later gave him Little, Big to read, which had a huge impact on him. Can you tell us more about this author and book, and Maynard’s reaction to it?
John Crowley is a Massachusetts author. It’s impossible to describe the book; it’s beautifully written, it unfolds like an ever-widening spiral, and it’s unlike any other book you’ve ever read. It’s about patterns, destiny, and portals to other dimensions. There’s even a talking trout, and the fact that he talks isn’t shocking or surprising. (really, it’s impossible to explain!) I read it once a year, and discover something new every time. After all, one of its lines is: "The further in you go, the bigger it gets."
I gave Maynard a copy to read when he walked from Massachusetts to Michigan in 1989. The book begins with the main character setting off on a long walk of his own, so I thought Maynard would be able to relate. It ended up pretty much changing his life.

   

Even if you surely know him well, did you discover more things about him during the writing?
I think the main thing I learned was about his work habits. Maynard is so successful at so many different things. Working on the book with him, I saw first-hand how he focuses on the task at hand, finishes it to the very best of his ability, and then moves on to another task; and he focuses on that just as completely. It was a good lesson to apply to my own work process.

There’s no direct explanation about Maynard’s lyrics, which was something that could be expected from him. Instead, there are dots that -by relying them- form at the end a big picture about him and his art(s), which is really interesting.
The book is full of what Maynard and I call 'breadcrumbs'. If you read slowly and closely, you’ll notice them: little hints that add up to larger ideas. Lyrics might not be written out word-for-word, but take your time when you read about things that happened in his youth, for example, and you’ll have reached that moment where you say: "Oh! So that’s where the image in that Puscifer song comes from!" The whole book is constructed as a puzzle that you can have fun putting together. (the title is a puzzle too!)

I was also surprised by all the details of everyday life, which brings the reader to immerse into the book like in a novel.
That’s a good way to put it. Yes, we wanted the book to be a story, not just: "He did this, and then he did that." Maynard’s biggest influences -John Crowley, Joseph Campbell- are storytellers. The magic of stories is that readers can make them own, and not just read them like a collection of facts.

How long did he take finally for the book to be done and published?
It was about 3 1/2 years from the day I started writing until publication day. A lot of that time was taken up with editing and proofreading. I think I read the finished manuscript 6 times before I felt confident enough to let it go to press. It’s so easy to miss typos and misspellings, and after you read something that many times, you don’t even see the errors any more. My friend Stuart volunteered to read it also, and he caught some mistakes that would have been very embarrassing had they not been found!

And how was the reception? Are there some things you would have done differently in retrospect?
Writers need to develop a thick skin before they look at reader reviews. Some of them can be quite brutal. But I take a deep breath and go to Amazon with the attitude that there are things I can learn from the most scathing review. Fortunately, many people have said positive things. The book also got great reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, and debuted at #10 on the New York Times best-seller list, so it turned out better than we ever dreamed!
This was such a fabulous experience, and I wouldn’t trade those years of constant work for anything. The only thing I would do differently is hire a housekeeper. Writing a book is the very hard work, and very intense. It doesn’t leave much time for cooking, and you hate to break the spell to scrub the kitchen floor!