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Page 1
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"Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys"...
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Page 2
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Maynard suffers a crippling identity crisis ...
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Page 3
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Group members play musical chairs to avoid any bloodshed ...
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Photo Gallery
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A Perfect Circle, live, in New York, 08.05.2003
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Browse Bands by Name
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 Bands Main
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For someone so uncomfortable with exposure, Keenan has made a strange career choice, fronting not just one band but two. Not only does he sing for a Perfect Circle, he's also the voice of the tribal, psychedelic math-metal band Tool. Over the past year, Keenan has discovered that being in two groups can be thoroughly exhausting and more than a bit perplexing.
"I totally have to keep checking my ID to make sure of where I am and who I am at any particular moment," he said in a nearly inaudible voice. "It's like having two completely separate families with different dynamics and different communication processes. It's very complicated."
It's also sometimes counter-productive. When a Perfect Circle began working on the songs for Thirteenth Step, Keenan was on the road with Tool. So Howerdel (who was once a guitar tech for Tool) arranged to send Keenan copies of works in progress, which he would write vocals for and then send back. The idea was good in theory, but in practice it didn't work.
"I found that you've got to either focus on one or the other," Keenan said. "To me, playing piano is doing two things at once because you're using two hands. I can't even walk and chew gum. So writing while I'm touring with another band is impossible and it was making me crazy."
Last winter, when Tool finally got off the road, Keenan started focusing single-mindedly on a Perfect Circle and the ideas began to flow. For most of the songs, Howerdel came up with the musical skeletons and Keenan fleshed them out with vocal melodies and lyrics. For Howerdel, who single-handedly penned the band's 2000 debut, Mer de Noms, the creative process was more frustrating and time-consuming thanks to his picky singer. But the collaboration resulted in a deeper, more developed sound.
Last go-round, Maynard simply added vocals to 12 completed tracks. This time he was much more hands-on, rejecting songs he didn't like and asking for others to be modified to fit his lyrical direction. "[Maynard] really wanted to take the time to investigate the songs and explore different ideas," Howerdel said. "It was a little more difficult because even if I felt passionately about a song and wanted to do it a certain way, there were other people's ideas to consider trying out."
"We just wanted to make sure it felt like we were getting to the next level of what we could be," Keenan said. "We wanted to push whatever ideas we had as far as we could push them and let the songs kind of develop on their own."
Thirteenth Step isn't nearly as catchy or immediate as Mer de Noms. Many of the songs are sprawling and atmospheric, some are claustrophobic, and few, besides the single "Weak and Powerless," feature hum-along hooks. It's the kind of disc you don't absorb through casual listening. As with Radiohead, Metallica or Tool, you have to focus while listening, and spin the songs at least two or three times until they sink in. Once they do, however, the album becomes a swirling, epic journey. Some of the songs, including "Pet" and "The Outsider," are turbulent and powerful, but most are more sedate than those on their first disc, expressing a Perfect Circle's vision through hazy textures, delicate guitar plucks and spacious rhythms.
"For me to make another hard rock record would be redundant," Keenan said. "So I'm kind of happy it didn't go that way, but we didn't force it that way."
"Musically, I think this one has more of a sound to it," Howerdel said. "The last one was a little more eclectic with a lot of different kinds of songs. This one fits together more as a complete album.
"You never know what a record is going to sound like until it's done," he continued. "There were a couple songs that tied into each other, but it wasn't written with any intention. What comes out is what comes out and if we're happy with it, we put our stamp on it."
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Photo: MTV News
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