page: 
 title: Tool Singer Talks Side Project
author: Gary Graff

The band played some shows out west last year, but A Perfect Circle ó 
the new group fronted by Tool's Maynard James Keenan ó 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 ó 
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." 


Posted to t.d.n: 03/21/01 17:52:42