A Perfect Circle, after being on hiatus for six years, will reunite in November to do a theater tour on the West Coast.  The highly anticipated shows will be featuring a surprise for their hardcore fans.  In each city the band will be playing all three albums of theirs in their entirety.  Maynard James Keenan, frontman of A Perfect Circle said, in each city we will do three nights.  The first night we will perform “Mer de Noms,” on the second night “Thirteenth Step” and on the third night “eMOTIVe.”

Keenan said that theaters were chosen by the band because they don’t expect fans to return after waiting so long. There isn’t any way we will sell arenas out.  It’s been six years since we were around.  We need to start over.  The shows will be intimate, small theater gigs.  Just us five, basically, trying to make a connection with each other.

In 1999 the band was formed by Keenan and Billy Howerdel, Tool guitar tech and former roommate.  The two co-wrote their Top Ten “Mer de Noms” album.  In 2004, after releasing “eMOTIVe,” a covers disc, Keenan’s focused shift to Tool, his original band, along with Puscifer, a new project.  Meanwhile Howerdel established Ashes Divide.  Howerdel said, personally I think it would have been great every 24 months for A Perfect Circle to release a new album.  However that’s not how this was set up from the start.

The 2010 lineup of A Perfect Circle features Howerdel, Keenan, Josh Freese, drummer, James Iha, formerly the guitarist for Smashing Pumpkins, and Matt McJunkins, bassist.  The live performances, according to Keenan, won’t be faithful, necessarily, to the albums.  Keenan said, I don’t know how that could be.  When different people are added into the mix, things will probably sound different.

According to Keenan he has invited former band mates, including bassists Jeordie White and Paz Lenchantin as well as Troy Van Leeuwen, guitarist, to stop in for a visit at the shows.  Keenan said for some of our shows, depending on the scheduling and timing, Jeordie, Troy and Paz  will be sitting in for one or two songs.  Howerdel and Keenan both say that new material is being worked on and that they are trading ideas via email.  Keenan said, we never really stopped writing.  We’ve always bounced music back and forth.  It just seemed to be the right time for us to regroup.

A Perfect Circle doesn’t have a record label that is over seeing them.  Keenan said, it’s a good time for me to take the things I learned from being with Puscifer in terms of being independent, which is do a couple songs at one time, then build from there slowly, maybe back to  where things were before.  The hardest thing is not to fall back into our same old patterns of how we were approaching things before.  Howerdel said the clock is still ticking.  We do intend to play one or two new songs during the shows.

Keenan is hoping the band will keep touring after November.  He said, maybe not with this same format.  Maybe several regular week tours rather than multi night album shows.

Several other projects have been lined up by the two.  Howerdel is hoping to record another album with Ashes Divide soon.  Keenan has been hard at work on the DVD set of “Puscifer: Season One.”  He describes the series as being in the style of “Adult Swim” with live and studio footage along with animation mixed all together.

For Tool fans, a follow up for their 2006 album “10,000 Days” shouldn’t be expected any time soon.  According to Keenan he’s been so busy with his Arizona winery that he hasn’t had time to give that band of his much thought.  Keenan said, it hard to think about those things when you are fighting pests, weather, hippies and roadies.

The fall schedule for A Perfect Circle will include 3 nights at Tempe Marquee Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, 3 nights at Avalon Ballroom in Los Angeles, 3 nights at Showbox’s Market in Seattle, 3 nights at the Fillmore in San Francisco and 2 nights at the Pearl in Las Vegas (eMOTIVe will not be played).

2010 A Perfect Circle Concert Tour
November 2010
4 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre (Mer de Noms)
5 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre (Thirteenth Step)
6 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre (eMOTIVe)
8 – Los Angeles, CA – Avalon (Mer de Noms)
9 – Los Angeles, CA – Avalon (Thirteenth Step)
10 – Los Angeles, CA – Avalon (eMOTIVe)
12 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market (Mer de Noms)
13 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market (Thirteenth Step)
14 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market (eMOTIVe)
16 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore (Mer de Noms)
17 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore (Thirteenth Step)
18 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore (eMOTIVe)
20 – Las Vegas, NV – The Pearl (Mer de Noms)
21 – Las Vegas, NV -The Pearl (Thirteenth Step)

Further Reading: