A Perfect Circle

A Perfect Circle

A Perfect Circle, often referred to as APC, is an alternative rock supergroup formed by guitarist Billy Howerdel and Tool front-man Maynard James Keenan. The band's latest line-up featured Jeordie White of Marilyn Manson and formerly of Nine Inch Nails tour line-up, on bass, James Iha, formerly of The Smashing Pumpkins on guitar, and prolific session drummer Josh Freese, who is also known from Nine Inch Nails tour line-up.

Although the group never officially disbanded, A Perfect Circle has been on hiatus since 2006, having not written new material, toured or recorded; but the band's personnel have kept busy with other projects.

History

Mer de Noms (1999–2001)

A Perfect Circle is the brainchild of Billy Howerdel, a former guitar tech for bands such as Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Fishbone and Tool. He played demos of his music to Tool's singer, Maynard James Keenan, who offered himself as vocalist should Howerdel ever form a band. Although initially hesitant about this, as he originally wanted a female vocalist, Howerdel eventually agreed and A Perfect Circle was formed in 1999. They were then joined by bassist/violinist Paz Lenchantin, guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, formerly of Failure and drummer Tim Alexander, formerly of Primus. After some rehearsals and warm-up shows, the band hit the studio. Alexander was soon replaced with session drummer and member of The Vandals, Josh Freese, but his performance can still be heard on the album version of the song "The Hollow".

After finishing their debut album, Mer de Noms (French for "Sea of Names"), and playing a handful of shows in California, they hit the road, opening for Nine Inch Nails on the 2000 Fragility v2.0 tour. Upon completion, they embarked on a number of headlining tours all over the world, and played the Canadian touring festival Summersault in the Summer of 2000. To distinguish himself from his persona with Tool, Keenan wore long wigs on his otherwise bald scalp for all of A Perfect Circle's music videos, photo shoots and live performances.

"Judith", the first single from the Mer de Noms album, is about Keenans's mother, who suffered a stroke when he was 11. The song "Renholdër" reads Re:D.Lohner backwards, referring to Danny Lohner.

Thirteenth Step / Emotive (2002–2005)

While preparing for their second album, APC lost two of its members, Paz Lenchantin & Troy Van Leeuwen. Lenchantin left to join Billy Corgan's new band Zwan, while Van Leeuwen left to become the new guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age. These two were soon replaced by ex-Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White (also known as Twiggy Ramirez), and guitarist Danny Lohner, who had been involved in the production of both records thus far. However, Lohner didn't quite fit as a second guitarist, and performed only on the track "The Noose" on the second album. The band opted to leave touring duties to their newest addition, former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha.

The band released their second album, Thirteenth Step, on September 16 2003, and toured throughout North America, Europe and Japan for the remainder of the year. In 2004, the band continued touring in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Europe, concluding touring in the late Spring in the United States.

A third album, Emotive, was released on November 2, 2004, which contains anti-war cover songs of artists such as John Lennon and Joni Mitchell. Emotive was recorded with various different past and present members of the band, but mostly by Keenan and Howerdel. The song "Passive" that appeared on the album was adapted from the defunct band Tapeworm, also known as The Tapeworm Project. Tapeworm was essentially a project involving Keenan, Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) and Danny Lohner. The project never fully developed, perhaps due to contractual conflicts that could not be negotiated. During several shows on their tour in early 2001, A Perfect Circle played a cover of an unreleased Tapeworm song, then apparently titled "Vacant", sometimes referred to as "Perfect Enemy". The song remained unreleased by any artist until it appeared on Emotive as the song "Passive".

On November 16, 2004, the band released the DVD and CD set entitled aMotion. The set contains music videos of the singles, some previously unreleased videos, and some b-sides and remixes.

Hiatus (2006–present)

The future of A Perfect Circle remains uncertain. They are currently on hiatus, partly due to Keenan's commitments with Tool. They experienced a considerable amount of downtime during the recording, release and tour for Tool's previous album Lateralus, which made the band extremely dynamic in terms of its members. During the downtime, other members of the band sought other projects, and thus were unavailable when A Perfect Circle reformed.

For now, Keenan is touring with Tool and working on his side project, Puscifer, for which he released the first album, V Is for Vagina, on October 30 2007. Howerdel and Freese have formed a new band called Ashes Divide with Maynard Keenan's son Devo Keenan. Freese and White toured with Nine Inch Nails, White rejoined Marilyn Manson, and Iha is currently touring with Vanessa and the O's in Europe.

When asked about A Perfect Circle's future, Billy Howerdel stated in a May 2006 interview with MTV, "[Maynard and I have] talked about it lightly. A few months ago, it was like, 'If we did A Perfect Circle again, I'd want to do this or that.' It was a benign conversation. I think we both entertain the fact that it could happen again, but for right now we don't have any plans to do it again. We're focusing on what we're doing now. A Perfect Circle is done for now."

The band's official website was updated September 19 2006 with the following message: "The Sleeper Must Awaken: Peace. Sorry it's been a while since we've posted. Been busy. Billy is hard at work on his solo project and I'm on the road with Tool, working on the www.puscifer.com website, and making wine in between all that. No telling when Billy will be finished with his new material, but what I've heard is very promising. I forgot to post lyrics for 13th step and Emotive so I'll get on that soon. Check back often. Peace out. mjk". There was another entry dated September 30 2006, announcing the launch of www.puscifer.com. As of June 2008, there have been no further updates to the site.

Possible return

A November 2007 issue of Spin featuring Keenan read, "... he teamed with guitarist Billy Howerdel on A Perfect Circle, a diversion that let Keenan romp on a less dark rock landscape and yielded its own financial riches — low-hanging fruit he's been happy to let wither. Will there ever be another APC album? 'Um, no,' is his reply. 'Maybe, someday, a song on a soundtrack. But an album? No.' "

In a December 2007 interview with Revolver, as he discussed the other members of A Perfect Circle's recent activities and also hinted at the possibility of a reunion, Keenan stated:

The real problem with running Tool and A Perfect Circle at the same time was they both operate the same way. They're both live touring bands with a label, still working under the old contract mentality. So I thought it was time to let A Perfect Circle go for now and let Billy explore himself. It's tough for a guy who went from being a guitar tech [for Tool] to being in a band with a pretentious, famous singer and having to live in that shadow. It was important for Billy to go and do his own thing and really explore his own sound and let people hear what he has to say and how he would do it on his own, and then we'll get back and do some A Perfect Circle stuff.

— Maynard James Keenan, Revolver, December 2007

In his May 2008 Puscifer newsletter, Keenan stated that A Perfect Circle, though on hiatus, is "still alive and well" but did not mention his own future involvement with the band.

Band members

Stable members

• Billy Howerdel - guitar, vocals, bass on several tracks on Mer de Noms
• Maynard James Keenan - lead vocals
• Josh Freese - drums since 1999, and on all tracks except "The Hollow" on Mer de Noms
• James Iha - guitar on Emotive and touring musician
• Jeordie White - bass on Thirteenth Step and Emotive and touring.

Others

• Danny Lohner - helps with engineering and fills in for different instruments as necessary. Has made some contribution to each album.
• Paz Lenchantin - bass on Mer de Noms, vocals, strings, piano on Mer de Noms and Emotive
• Troy Van Leeuwen - guitar on Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step
• Tim Alexander - drums for a short time in 1999, and on "The Hollow"

All members had some contribution or another to aMotion, and all are listed in its liner notes in the above order.

Last lineup

Owing to Iha and White's commitments elsewhere, the "Passive" video featured the lineup of Keenan, Howerdel, Freese, Lohner and Lenchantin. An aborted performance of that single scheduled for The Tonight Show was cancelled at the last minute, and would have included the same members.

Howerdel had mentioned in November 2004 that the next incarnation of the band would definitely contain Keenan and himself, and most likely Josh Freese, though as of 2008 it is not known if there will be another A Perfect Circle ensemble.

Discography

Album	Year	Billboard 200 peak	RIAA certification
Mer de Noms	2000	4	Platinum
Thirteenth Step	2003	2	Platinum
Emotive	2004	2	Gold

Compilation appearances

Track	Soundtrack	Year
"Judith (Renholdër Mix)"	Underworld soundtrack	2003
"Weak and Powerless" (Tilling My Grave Mix)
"The Outsider (Renholdër Apocalypse Mix)"	Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack	2004
"Weak and Powerless"	MTV2 Headbanger's Ball: Volume 2	2004
"Passive"	Constantine soundtrack (film appearance only)	2005

Music videos

• "Judith" from Mer de Noms (directed by David Fincher)
• "3 Libras" from Mer de Noms
• "Thinking of You" from Mer de Noms
• "Weak and Powerless" from Thirteenth Step (directed by Brothers Strause)
• "The Outsider" from Thirteenth Step (directed by Steven Grasse of Bikini Bandits fame)
• "Blue" (Contest Winner) from Thirteenth Step
• "Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums" from Emotive
• "Imagine" from Emotive (directed by Gerald Casale)
• "Passive" from Emotive (directed by Brothers Strause)
• "Weak and Powerless (Tilling My Grave mix)" from "aMOTION" and the "Underworld" soundtrack.

Singles

Year	Title	Chart positions				Album
		U.S. Hot 100	U.S. 100 Airplay	U.S. Modern Rock	U.S. Mainstream Rock
2000	"Judith"	105	-	5	4	Mer de Noms
2000	"3 Libras"	-	-	12	12	Mer De Noms
2001	"The Hollow"	-	-	17	14	Mer De Noms
2003	"Weak and Powerless"	61	60	1	1	Thirteenth Step
2003	"The Outsider"	79	75	5	3	Thirteenth Step
2004	"Blue"	-	-	21	19	Thirteenth Step
2004	"Pet"	-	-	-	-	Thirteenth Step
2004	"Imagine"	-	-	26	26	Emotive
2005	"Passive"	-	-	14	14	Emotive

External links

• A Perfect Circle.com – official website
• A Perfect Circle at LyricWiki
• Interview with Billy Howerdel at College Crier
• 2003 Interview with Josh Freese at Music Frisk