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A Perfect Circle
Published: May 2004
Story: Jeff Royer
Photo: Press Photo |
Not many people would argue that A Perfect Circle has the corner of
the market when it comes to mopey, macabre modern rock. The
hard-hitting pseudo-goth rockers are simply shrouded in mystery and
darkness. And I mean that literally - in concert, frontman Maynard
James Keenan spends a good bit of time in a cage draped with a dark
curtain.
Judging by their music, you might expect these guys to spend their
downtime watching "The Crow" over and over and painting their
fingernails black. As it turns out, that's just one of many wrong
ideas people have about APC.
"We're all pretty upbeat. You caught me at one of my slowest moments
right now just because I've had no sleep in the last couple days. I
probably sound like a drag," chuckles drummer Josh Freese during an
interview with Fly Magazine. "But yeah, we all sit around and watch
'Dumb and Dumber' over and over on the tour bus. We're pretty
lighthearted guys in a way."
But being misinterpreted as a bunch of boring goth kids is small
potatoes; what really bothers Freese is the other main misconception
about A Perfect Circle: namely, that they're a side project. Despite
the fact that both he and Keenan are active members of other bands
(Keenan doubles more famously as the singer for Tool), Freese
maintains that all members of A Perfect Circle take the band very
seriously. Please, please don't call them a side project.
"We're just tired of hearing everyone go, 'This is a side project!'
It gets tiresome hearing it and it's annoying!" rants Freese, who, in
addition to drumming for A Perfect Circle, Devo, and punk legends The
Vandals, spends his free time as a hired gun for everyone from Guns
N' Roses to 3 Doors Down and Evanescence. "If it was a side project,
we would do it on weekends instead of dedicating two years to it and
making Tool sit around for two years."
Of course, the wind blows both ways. Since there's only so much of
Keenan to go around, once it comes time for him to shift his focus
back to Tool, the members of A Perfect Circle are left twidling their
thumbs for a couple of years. But a little boredom and stagnancy is a
price the band was willing to pay in order to work with Keenan.
"Sometimes you can get a bit itchy, but we knew this going into it.
It wasn't like a surprise. It wasn't like we got off the road the
first time and went, 'What do you mean you gotta go make a record
with Tool?'" Freese laughs. "We were like, OK, here's the singer from
Tool. We want to start a band with him, he wants to do a band with
us, he's dedicating time to it. But at some point, after we do a
record and do a bunch of touring, we have to come home and we'll have
to wait a while because he's gotta do another run with Tool."
Unfortunately, not all the members of A Perfect Circle were as
patient as Freese. During the gap between albums, both their
guitarist and bassist jumped ship. But a few quick phone calls later,
not only were the spaces filled, but the band became a bonafide
supergroup with the acquisition of former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist
James Iha and Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White (aka Twiggy
Ramirez).
"James and Jeordie are just two guys we knew, and they were both
available and they both were experienced," Freese shrugs. "If either
of them were a drag to be around, we wouldn't have hired them. We
would have kept on looking for somebody, because that's half the
battle, to be able to get along with somebody. Luckily, there were no
surprises. We started working with them and once we got out on the
road, they both ended up staying pretty true to the kind of guys we
thought they were."
Also during the lull, A Perfect Circle guitarist and mastermind Billy
Howerdel got busy composing the follow-up to the band's
platinum-selling debut. The resulting album, Thirteenth Step
(September 2003), has already yielded two huge singles in "Weak and
Powerless" and the current No. 1 rock track, "The Outsider."
"I think [the album's] heavier in mood and subject matter than the
first record," Freese says. "The first record was more of an obvious
sounding, regular rock record. This one is sometimes lighter and more
dynamic in the approach musically, but all of us think it's a heavier
record in the less obvious sense of the phrase."
On the strength of the first single alone, the album is already
nearing the platinum mark, and this new No. 1 hit shouldn't hurt
things any. But regardless of how Thirteenth Step sells, says Freese,
what really matters is the band's following, which is as huge as a
supergroup's should be.
"I kind of plan on not selling any records at all, so since we sold
almost a million records by now, that's amazing to me," he laughs.
"If we were the Chili Peppers, we'd be really bummed. 'Oh, our last
record sold eight million!' But we're one of the few bands that's
lucky enough to actually get to make money playing live. This band
does well enough live and we're confident enough as a band that we
knew, whether the record sold 10 copies or 10 million copies, we were
going to be able to go on the road and play shows regardless."
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