The band played some shows out west last year, but A Perfect Circle the new group fronted by Tool's Maynard James Keenan will introduce itself to the rest of the United States as the opening act on Nine Inch Nails' "Fragile v 2.0" tour, which kicks off tonight in Cleveland. The group's debut album, Mer De Noms, doesn't come out until May 23, but Keenan says he's looking forward to the challenge of playing new music in front of somebody else's crowd.
"I hope it's going to go well," says the vocalist, who helped form A Perfect Circle after hearing material that Billy Howerdel, a guitar tech with Tool, Nine Inch Nails, and Smashing Pumpkins, had come up with. "I would expect that we're going to have a rough road because, of course, everybody wants to hear Nine Inch Nails. They're not there to see us. But we played about a month of shows back in August, and the wonderful thing about that was rarely did anyone in the audience demand to hear Tool songs, which I thought was great. That kind of makes me feel like I was successful, that we attracted an audience that is forgiving and open-minded and will allow me to do this. So hopefully those people will be showing up at the Nails show, because we'll certainly need their support."

Keenan says A Perfect Circle "will definitely be a continuing project," but he's still very much a member of Tool, too. He reports that the group, which recently finished a lengthy period of legal haggling with its label, is writing new material, and that he plans to work on the songs while he's on the road with A Perfect Circle though he acknowledges that his Toolmates were not eager to have him traipse off with another band.

"We are definitely competitive people, so whether those guys will admit it or not, they definitely feel competitive," says Keenan, who recently got engaged to his girlfriend. "But at the same time, they totally understand and they're very supportive. The way things are looking, I'm probably going to spend the rest of the year doing this, but while Tool's writing [in Los Angeles], they'll be sending me out material on the road, with the hopes that I'll come back and spend two weeks rehearsing what we've come up with, and then we'll hit the studio."

Volume V, Issue II -- April 6 - May 2, 2000

When Billy Howerdel was writing the songs that would later become A Perfect Circles' debut, he had a very specific vision. It involved a female singer, lending her soft caress to songs that would be ambient, ethereal, and heavy. "I wanted to do soundtracks," recalls the guitarist, "I literally wanted to do a song, a 40 minute song that can be a score to a movie." And he adjusted more than a decade of songwriting accordingly, padding out songs and stretching them from four-minute pop, to textured voyages ten times their original length.

Then, while doing production work during the recording of Tool's Aenima epic, Howerdel met the band's frontman, Maynard James Keenan. Keenan liked what he heard of the guitarist's works in progress, and asked if he could contribute vocals. "I was thrilled," Howerdel laughs, sitting in a Los Angeles rehearsal studio where A Perfect Circle were preparing for their current tour with Nine Inch Nails. "I quickly got over the female voice thing! From there, things changed." Most specifically, the 40-minute embellishments were trimmed to a more svelte pop-format, with Keenan writing and recording lyrics for the 12 tracks that are now Mer de Noms [French for Sea Of Names].

Comparisons to Tool will come quickly and justifiably so, says the guitarist, as the band is a favorite of his, but the differences will also shine through with brilliant detail. If you were to liken Tool to a complex mathematical equation, you'd need a vast knowledge of finite and infinite numbers, positive and negative realms, and statistical ratios of dizzying proportions to fully comprehend their art. A Perfect Circle, on the other hand, deals in solely finite numbers. The equations are still complex, and at times staggering, but they're not beyond the realm of most listeners.

Musically, A Perfect Circle are as skilled a unit as any band could wish for: In addition to Keenan and Howerdel (a former tech with a resume boasting the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails and Tool), the band is rounded out by former Failure guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, drummer Josh Freese (Guns 'N' Roses, Paul Westerberg, Vandals and Devo) and bassist Paz Lenchantin, whose classical training also includes piano, violin, guitar and vocals.

According to Keenan who sports long hair in A Perfect Circle, a change from his shaven, painted ways in Tool the band's name is symbolic of, the five members' chemistry. "We went around and around trying to come up with a name for the band and nobody was happy with what everyone else was coming up with," the frontman says of the name. "Then Billy and Paz were listening to one of the basic demos and heard the line, 'A Perfect Circle.' In hindsight, it definitely makes sense. Here we are, five musicians doing what we do with other people and everything, and in an ideal situation when you come together with someone musically it's nice to have it work out. That's what you prepare for your whole life as a musician. You hope to end up with these people who are listening the same way you are, or are picking up the pieces you aren't picking up to complete the picture. I think that's what we have here." It's worth stressing that A Perfect Circle isn't just a one-off project for the band, who have been signed to a multi-album deal with Virgin Records. With a new Tool album not expected until at least early 2001, Keenan will have plenty of time to support Perfect Circle on the road while still fulfilling his obligations to Tool.

"It's just different, a different piece to who I am and what I'm working through," he says, noting that both bands are of equal priority to him. "This is definitely a much more vulnerable project. I think that's probably why it resonated so true for me, I was probably in that space where I was ready to open up a little more than I had in the past. Hearing what Billy had worked on just pushed me over that edge to go to the next step. It's definitely a new phase."

Film director David Fincher will return to his music video roots for "Judith," the first single from A Perfect Circle, the new group featuring Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and guitarist Billy Howerdel.

Fincher, who cut his directorial teeth in the late '80s and early '90s on such videos as Madonna's "Express Yourself," Paula Abdul's "Cold Hearted" [...], and Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun," apparently agreed to direct "Judith" after hearing the debut record from A Perfect Circle, titled "Mer De Noms."

The "Judith" clip will mark Fincher's first music video since filming The Wallflowers' "6th Avenue Heartache" [...] in 1996, and he plans to complete work on the video in between developing several film projects, including "The Black Dahlia" and "Rendezvous With Rama." Fincher's name has also been attached to two other films, "The Panic Room" and "Passengers."

A Perfect Circle has also landed the opening spot on Nine Inch Nails' upcoming tour, which kicks off on April 12 in Cleveland and is currently scheduled through a June 6 date in Anaheim, California (see "Nine Inch Nails Taps A Perfect Circle For U.S. Tour").

"Mer De Noms" is due out on Virgin Records on May 23.

Maynard James Keenan's Hollywood loft is a shrine to identity confusion. Red curtains, dozens of sticks of incense and statues of Eastern deities lend an aura of spiritual searching to his front room; at the same time, barbells and weights place him firmly in the cult of body worship. Then there are the soundproof walls and studio equipment of a rocker and artist, and finally a sense of clutter and an aversion to deep cleaning that give the room the look of a bohemian bachelor pad. Mr. Keenan is a former Army enlistee and art student best known as the reclusive, emotionally riveting singer for the heavy-rock band Tool. But on a recent afternoon he was in the clothing of a new group A Perfect Circle, of which he is also the singer. As further testament to his identity confusion, Tool was rehearsing in the back room of his loft while he was in the front, sitting with Billy Howerdel and giving an interview about A Perfect Circle, which is set to release its first record, on Virgin, on May 23.

A Perfect Circle began as instrumental compositions by Mr. Howerdel, a New Jersey native who met Mr. Keenan while working as a guitar technician for the hyperkinetic ska-rock band Fishbone. Mr. Howerdel went on to work as a guitar tech for with Tool, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Nine Inch Nails, and more recently worked as a computer engineer on Guns 'n' Roses' painfully gestating next album. All along he had been making connections and plotting his entry into the creative side of the music world. Two years ago he began writing the music that would become A Perfect Circle. At first he composed half-hour-plus songs that he imagined as soundtracks for visually rich movies like "City of Lost Children." Then he shortened his pieces and imagined them as tighter pop pieces sung by a woman. Finally Mr. Keenan entered the picture, writing lyrics to the songs and rushing Mr. Howerdel into a recording contract faster than he ever thought possible.

Some Tool fans may not be happy with A Perfect Circle, not because the music isn't as heavy and monochromatic as Tool's, but because there hasn't been a new Tool album since "Ænima" in 1996. With A Perfect Circle scheduled to tour as an opening act for Nine Inch Nails this spring, it would seem as though the Tool album would be delayed even further. Mr. Keenan, however, said that he did not believe A Perfect Circle would interfere with his more popular band. Though the others in Tool are said to have been upset with him for signing a new major label contract without them, Mr. Keenan denied this. "There's a range of emotions they've gone through," he said. "Most people's base reaction would be anger or jealousy. But they're very rational people, so they came back to accepting that this was cool."

Part of the new reason for the long wait for a new Tool record was a drawn-out legal battle between the band and its record label, with each suing the other. Tool claimed that its contract was no longer valid; the label claimed that Tool owed it seven more albums and million in damages. Last year, however, the lawsuits were dropped when Tool renegotiated its relationship and contract with the label, Volcano (which took over Tool's contract after the break-up of its former label, Zoo Entertainment). But a strong animosity towards the music business lingers in Mr. Keenan's mind. "I don't care if an artist only sells one record, the profits should be split at the very least," Mr. Keenan said. "This has gone on long enough, this system of having to pay for everything yourself and then getting only one-tenth of the money made o your art."

Comparing Tool and A Perfect Circle, Mr. Keenan said: "The music was very different, so I responded differently. The process that we go through recording with Tool is very organic, but at the same time it is very thought out. There is a very left-brain process of dissecting what we're doing and drawing from source material; it's very research oriented and esoteric. "With A Perfect Circle the process is far more mechanical and computer oriented, but at the same time it is also far more emotional and intuitive. Tool is more a left-brain masculine result, and this is more a right-brain feminine result."

The music on A Perfect Circle's debut album ranges from straightforward big-riff rock to heavy, droning soundscapes to clean, simple pop to hard, heavy emoting. Mr. Howerdel said he was happy with the results. "I didn't even know that a human could put lyrics to come of these songs," he marveled.

Transcribed by Amber

While Tool's long-awaited follow-up to 1996's "Aenima" continues to lurch forward, Keenan's other band, A Perfect Circle, has inked a deal with Virgin Records.Virgin will deliver the band's first album, "Mer De Noms," to stores on May 23 and the album's first single, "Judith," is expected to hit radio in April.

Virgin notes that the band (Keenan, guitarist Billy Howerdel, guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, bassist Paz Lenchantin, and drummer Josh Freese) also plans to tour behind the album this year, though details remain to be hammered out.

Howerdel, a guitar tech with Tool as well as the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails, produced and co-wrote the twelve songs comprising the group's debut.

The band made its official debut last August at Los Angeles' Viper Room and staged a larger coming-out party at last October's Coachella Art and Music Festival (see "Tool's Maynard To Roll Out 'Perfect Circle' At Coachella").

The folks at Virgin seem thrilled by the development, with Virgin Music Group Worldwide vice chairman Nancy Berry calling the album a "global priority for Virgin."

Of course, all this means you aren't likely to see a new Tool album anytime soon. Tool's manager, Ted Gardner, told MTV News that Maynard's work with A Perfect Circle is not interfering with work on the new Tool album, and that all parties were careful to give Maynard enough time to devote himself to A Perfect Circle without sacrificing Tool's next effort. Gardner said that the rest of the band is still writing and editing material for the next Tool album and that Keenan's Tool counterparts continue to be fully supportive of the singer and A Perfect Circle.

2000-03-06 Virgin signs A Perfect Circle

Signing Ends Intense Industry Speculation About Howerdel-Keenan Band March 6, 2000 Ð Virgin Music Group Worldwide is proud to announce that it has signed A Perfect Circle to a worldwide recording agreement.

The subject of intense industry speculation, A Perfect Circle is a new band formed by Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel. Keenan, the singer of the multi-platinum selling rock band Tool, is the groupÕs vocalist and primary lyricist; Howerdel, is the founder, guitarist and composer of the groups music. Rounding out the band are Paz Lenchantin on bass and Violin, Josh Freese (Vandals) on drums and Troy Van Leeuwen (ex-Failure, Enemy) on guitar.

The group made its first public appearance in August, 1999 at Los Angeles's Viper Room at a benefit for punk rock innovator Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks. Most recently, the band opened the Coachella Art and Music Festival in Palm Springs, CA.

The new album is entitled Mer De Noms and features twelve songs showcasing KeenanÕs remarkably intense and intimate vocals, the bandÕs focus and ferocity, and melodiousness not typically heard in the heavy alternative rock genre. The new album was written by Howerdel and Keenan, recorded and produced by Howerdel, and mixed by Howerdel and Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, U2).

Certain to appeal to fans of both heavy metal and alternative rock, Mer De Noms is scheduled for a May 23 release domestically and a May 22 release internationally. The first single, "Judith," is scheduled to go to radio April. A Perfect Circle will tour in support of the release later this year; further details TBD.

Comments Nancy Berry, vice chairman, Virgin Music Group Worldwide, "We are very excited that Billy and Maynard have chosen Virgin to be the worldwide home of A Perfect Circle. The groupÕs street credibility, powerful musicianship and unique sound rank them among the top rock/alternative artists today. A Perfect Circle will be a global priority for Virgin. We will give them the special attention and enthusiasm that Virgin is known for as we release Mer De Noms to deliver another worldwide success."

For your information, please contact,
Virgin Records Publicity Suzanne MacNary Ð New York Ð 212-253-3045
Yon Elvira Ð Los Angeles Ð 310-288-2419