A Perfect Circle is an American rock supergroup formed in 1999 by Billy Howerdel and Maynard James Keenan. The band's diverse musical style draws on various genres including progressive metal, alternative rock, art rock, avant-garde metal and post-grunge. Since its formation, A Perfect Circle has released four studio albums, a live album and a compilation album. The band also featured James Iha, Paz Lenchantin, Troy Van Leeuwen, Josh Freese and Matt McJunkins.
The band was formed after Keenan showed interest in some of the guitar and demo recordings that Howerdel had worked on. Keenan was looking for a new project to invest his time in, and see how it would turn out. It seemed the perfect connection, and soon after Keenan and Howerdel formed the band. Before the formation of the band they actually were both part of other bands in the musical scene; Keenan was the lead vocalist in the band Tool and Howerdel had toured as the lead guitarist and producer for other artist like Fishbone and Smashing Pumpkins.
The band began when Howerdel invited other musicians to fill out the line-up for their project and record an album in 1999. Troy Van Leeuwen, a guitarist and former member of Failure was among them. James Iha, a former co-founder of the Smashing Pumpkins, was also invited shortly after. The music writing process took place quickly with the help of bandmates Paz Lenchantin, who came soon after, and Josh Freese from the band the Vandals.
In 2000, the band released their first album titled ‘Mer de Noms’. It reached number 4 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 4 million copies worldwide. The CD has a mix of hard-rock riffs, deep and often prayer-like lyrics from Keenan, and a creative incorporation of electronics to further expound the band's unique sound.
The LP was a major success and caught rock fans and critics off guard in the success it had in mainstream music. It’s production was mainly done in the Los Angeles area and mixed in Chicago, bringing together the record producer Alain Johannes of Queens of the Stone Age and Dave Sardy of Oasis.
The next album to follow was released in 2003 and it was entitled ‘Thirteenth Step’. It took only one month to produce and no album promoted. Even with no promotion it managed to reach at number 2 on the Billboard albums chart. The album offered diverse styles of melodic music and references, to the drug rehabilitation process with its incorporation of 'the twelve-step-program' addressed by The Cure's 'Three Imaginary Boys'.
Later in the band’s career they released a series of Live Album Live: Five of a Perfect Circle’. The songs in this live album are different versions of the songs on their albums. It was important to release a live album since it showcased the bands musicality as a group and their improvisational experiments on stage.
In 2004, the band broke up citing creative differences. Keenan went on to focus more on his main band Tool, while Howerdel assumed control of Ashtar Command, another project of his at the time. It wasn’t until 2009 when they decided to get the band together for a series of concerts and US tours. They also announced the release of the compilation album ‘eMOTIVe’. For this album they compiled and remodeled controversial politically charged lyrics along with rare covers.
The band had gone through several indefinite hiatuses until announced in 2017, they were two studio albums in the making. In 2018 they released an EP with four previously untitled songs from their albums Thirteenth Step and Mer de Noms. And then finally in 2019, finally released their fourth album ‘Eat the Elephant’ after the break through of The Smashing Pumpkins’ reunion a couple of years before united by Billy Corgan.
Currently A Perfect Circle are touring and doing their own select set of festivals, apart from their work on their upcoming albums. The band have perfected their sound and carved out a monumental place for themselves in the music industry. Their beloved fans had been willing to form for years, even though country have sometimes blocked paths for them, but with albums such as Mer de Noms, Thirteenth Step, Emotive and Eat The Elephant a path for greatness stands ahead