Publication: Wall of Sound
Date: April, 2000
Transcribed by
Stu (stuniversal@hotmail.com)
Stu (stuniversal@hotmail.com)
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