The band’s history traces back to Billy Howerdel who used to be a respected guitar technician working for several bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Tool and Nine Inch Nails.  Billy became friends with Tool lead singer Maynard James Keenan in 1992 during Tool’s tours.

A Perfect Circle – The Rock Supergroup

“Many of the song titles on Mer des Noms (French for "Sea of Names") are actually names of real or mythological people. A lot of the names of the songs are actually people I do know in real life and some elements of their lives seem to be the same as elements in the lives or stories of mythological figures.”  - Maynard James Keenan

Band Formation

The band’s history traces back to Billy Howerdel who used to be a respected guitar technician working for several bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Tool and Nine Inch Nails.  Billy became friends with Tool lead singer Maynard James Keenan in 1992 during Tool’s tours. The two started the band after Keenan had heard some demos which Howerdel had recorded. They formed a band together by adding Tim Alexander on drums, guitar player Troy Van Leeuwen and bassist Paz Lenchantin.

They started jamming together according to Keenan’s down time with Tool schedule. They played at the Viper Room club in La in 1999.

Start of the Perfect Circle

A Perfect Circle released their first album under Virgin/Emi records called “Mer De Noms” in May 2000. It made a strong debut selling nearly 200,000 copies in the first week of release peaking in it No.4 on the US album charts. The album spawned several hit singles on the Modern Rock Charts and has gone on to fell a million copies.

They opened for Nine Inch Nails during the Fragility v2.0 Tour in 2000. Keenan would wear large wigs to distinguish himself from his other band Tool during concerts. The even headlined on several festivals and played various shows across the world. But it experienced considerable down time due to Maynard’s commitment with Tool. Tool released a highly success “Latealrus” and went on tour which practically stopped the activity of A Perfect Circle.  

The Sophomore

Due to the long downtime, the band went through line-up changes and James Iha, the lead guitar player of The Smashing Pumpkins joined A Perfect Circle. The band quickly moved into the studio and released their second album “Thirteen Steps” in Sept 2003. The single “Weak and Powerless” became a huge hit and reached No.1 on the Modern Rock Tracks.  The album reached No.2 on the US charts and has been certified platinum. The music was a departure from the heavy sound of the predecessor, A Perfect Circle were now in more melodic and complex production territory.

A Perfect Circle embarked on a nationwide tour in 2003 and went on a highly successful world tour. The band quickly recorded a group of protest songs to release an album of cover tunes to coincide with election day on Nov 2, 2004. The album included “Imagine” by John Lennon and “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye.

Though future projects have been lined up and in 2010 will see the release of some new singles.

• Did You Know: A Perfect Circle founder Billy Howerdel initially wanted a female lead singer

• Did You Know:  The first album title “Mer De Nom” is French and translates as “A Sea of Names”

• Did You Know:  The band have given music to several motion picture soundtracks like Underworld and The Invisible

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