In October 2015, Tool’s Maynard James Keenan announced that he was working on his authorized biography. The news came as a big surprise, and not just because Keenan was thought to be immersed in the band’s follow-up to 2006’s 10,000 Days when he wasn’t playing dates with his side band Puscifer, or laying the groundwork for new material with his other platinum outfit, A Perfect Circle. The shock and awe had more to do with Keenan’s reputation for being a very private individual.

Since the early days of Tool, Keenan has revealed little about his childhood or family in interviews, and has seemingly avoided the trappings of being a rock star. But A Perfect Union of Contrary Things, which came out this week and is currently #10 on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction best-seller list, is not a typical rock star biography. Co-written by Keenan and Sarah Jensen, the book doesn’t zoom in on childhood trauma, flaunt tales of alcohol and drug abuse, or revel in stories of sexual promiscuity. In addition, the book is as much an exploration of the paths Keenan took to get to the stage as it is an exploration of the experiences he has had since becoming a recognized musician.

YAHOO MUSIC: You’re not someone who grabs at every opportunity for publicity or recognition. Why did you decide to chronicle your life in an autobiography?

MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN: Turning 50, I was mentally chronicling what came before and what potentially might lie ahead. I wanted to have things on paper for family and friends. We’re quite a tight-lipped family – Irish Italian, post-World War II — and there were a lot of things I don’t know about my family because they just won’t talk about it. So I felt like it might be smart to put some of the things I knew on paper so that there’s at least a record of the pieces.

Many rock memoirs are first-person accounts based on many hours of interviews an artist does with the person helping him or her with the book. Why did you decide to write this book in the third person?

I worked with the writer of the book, Sarah Jensen, and I chose her because I felt like that’s how she was going to approach it. I’d had a few conversations and meetings years ago about this process and was immediately turned off by the beat and path I was seeing. There are some very good biographies out there, but they start to seem samey, especially some of the rock ‘n’ roll ones, which are just kiss-and-tell battle-scar memoirs. So I just felt like I needed someone from an outside perspective and somebody that grew up where I went to high school. It seemed like the right approach once we started working on it.

The book includes numerous interviews with teammates from your high school track days, peers from the Army, music industry friends, and co-workers from throughout the years. Do you feel they help create an authentic portrayal of who you are?

It’s definitely about pulling a thread on a sweater and unraveling a particular pattern. There are many more sweaters and many more threads to tug, but I feel like this presents a good start of that particular storyline. There’s a million storylines we could pursue, but it’s a pretty accurate representation of this trail of breadcrumbs.

Are you proud of the person who’s revealed in this book?

I would hope so. If you’re standing in your own skin, you better be OK with you are. I think that’s probably the hardest thing to look at. Have you made the right choices? And I think that’s what the book’s about – trying to make the right choices and following your instincts. As far as instincts are concerned, I’m proud of that person.

Looking back at all the memories you’ve recounted in the book, is there a period you look back at and say, “I really wish I had done that differently”?

No, not at all. Everything that you do is going to build on what you do next. So if you’re standing in a bad spot, it probably is based on some of the decisions you made. And if you’re still breathing, there’s probably still time to change that trajectory. You learn from those experiences and then go to the next step.

Discipline is a recurrent theme in the book. The first half of the book addresses finding your place, learning the rules and following them. Was that something that being in the Army instilled in you, or was it there before that?