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This was done for A Perfect Circle's headlining tour in the US in 2001. It was cut from The Mercury due to space, ad sales, or whatever, which was ultimately all right. The interview was disastrous, I could barely get a word out of Billy Howerdel (APC's guitarist and one of the songwriters) and what he did say barely registered on my tape recorder. So, it's essentially a picture of me attempting to fill word count. Amusing, if nothing else. DOING A 180 by Jamie S. Rich A Perfect Circle I don't care if I sound shallow, but I really didn't want to like A Perfect Circle. You can tell me Tool are "intelligent metal" all you want, but I really can't stand them. Too many sludgy songs about Jesus blowing his whistle. So, when faced with A Perfect Circle—a hard rock band fronted by Tool's Maynard James Keenan—I was like, "Yeah, try selling that elsewhere, son." Let's be clear. Most of what they play on KUFO is godawful, and what's on KNRK isn't any different or any better. I mean, both stations worship Everclear, a band so rooted in buttrock that they think a chant of "I like pop, I like soul, I like rock, but I never liked disco" is actually clever. Like Nick from Backstreet Boys can actually bite the monster any harder than Art Alexakis. Please! Turn your baseball cap around and get the hell out of my face. So, color me chagrined when I blag my way into last year's Nine Inch Nails show to see if Trent can recapture 1989, only to find out Maynard's new outfit is the opening act. I mean, this guy's name is Maynard. Maynard!!! How am I supposed to take this seriously? Well, here's where I unveil my banquet of crow. A Perfect Circle were amazing. Their all too brief set was a masterpiece of rock epics. Wave of guitar crashed upon wave of guitar, the songs building to an emotional peak, imploding, and then riding on a slow, fizzy fade. This wasn't rock coming out of someone's ass (buttrock—get it?), but somewhere else entirely, somewhere much more divine. The genitalia connotations in the names of each of Maynard's bands are enough to show the difference. Hell, even Maynard, despite his clownish goombah pants, kicked major ass. I was converted. Ignoring my pigheadedness, the blame for my skepticism falls squarely on a Tool-obsessed media that's far too quick to ignore the genius of Billy Howerdel, the even-voiced guitar tech who'd written all the songs long before Maynard even signed on. It's from his gifted hands that the beauty of A Perfect Circle flows. His being relegated to second fiddle is a crime, but it's something Howerdel takes in stride. "I think it gets to Maynard more than me," he told me via phone. "I knew going into it that he was going to be in the spotlight. I got a lot of credit for this record just because Maynard was so adamant about it. If he hadn't said a word, no one might have noticed." This soft-spoken perseverance is likely the key to Howerdel's success. Content to stay behind the scenes, he bid his time, honed his tunes, and struck when opportunity presented itself. You can even hear it at work in the songs. Radio hit "3 Libras" starts soft, then slowly widens its focus, getting louder and more angry as it goes. Even if you don't notice it at first, its furious crescendos are likely to grab hold once they start rattling your speakers. "Sometimes it takes something shocking to get through," Howerdel explains. "Then you work your way back." It's hard to deny the correctness of that statement, given my own kick in the eye those many months ago; therefore, with A Perfect Circle coming back around, it's time to right the wrongs. If you've given up on Everclear's studied simple-mindedness and want to find a band that's gonna actually mean something to you, then go to this show. ("This'll be our show," Billy says. "It will be a different experience.") And if you want to know where the true soul of A Perfect Circle lies, get down front, position yourself next to Billy's amp, and experience the visceral power of pure guitar rock. Billy may be passive to ignorance, but that doesn't mean we have to be.
(c) 2002 Jamie S. Rich |