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<\/p>\nBilly Howerdel remembers the bad weather. He remembers the three New Zealand cities, the audiences waiting at the other end, and the small plane they had to charter when the conditions threatened to derail the entire journey.<\/p>\n
It has been more than two decades since A Perfect Circle crossed the Tasman, but the details have stayed with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played three cities in New Zealand, and it was great. I vividly remember those shows,\u201d Howerdel tells Rolling Stone AU\/NZ. \u201cOne show in particular, I think it was Wellington, the weather was so bad we had to rent a private prop plane to get to the gig. I had to borrow things. It was a whole adventure.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was all good. Everyone was up for the intrepid show at the other end of it, so it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Perfect Circle\u2019s return to Australia and New Zealand this December may be more carefully routed, but it is hardly leisurely. The band will arrive after performances in Mexico City, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, move across Australia and New Zealand, and then continue towards Japan.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in there, Howerdel expects they will get a single day to recover from the jet lag. It might be in Adelaide. After 13 years, he would have preferred a little more time. \u201cIt\u2019s great, but I just wish we had a little bit more time,\u201d he admits. \u201cWe\u2019re just in and out. We\u2019re hopping around the Pacific Rim.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band will arrive with a catalogue that has changed considerably since Australian audiences last saw them. A Perfect Circle have released an entire album, 2018\u2019s Eat the Elephant, without touring it here, and they have also returned with new single, \u201cStarless\u201d. More music is actively taking shape behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ll have a song, or maybe two, that we will be playing,\u201d Howerdel says. \u201cNo one there has heard any of \u2018Eat the Elephant\u2019, so that\u2019s exciting, to bring some of that back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Australian run includes sold-out arenas and more intimate spaces, including Sydney\u2019s Carriageworks. Howerdel is interested in what that difference might create, although he knows intimacy can be unpredictable. The smallest show of A Perfect Circle\u2019s recent European tour became his favourite of the run, but he is not convinced size alone was responsible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hit and miss,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re anything over 2,000 people, things get a little blurry towards the back of the room. When you get into 500 seats, things get super intimate and almost a little more intimidating.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re doing huge festivals, huge stages, and you become ingrained within the crowd, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet the most intimidating crowds Howerdel has faced were not necessarily the smallest \u2014 they were the ones filled with people he knew.<\/p>\n
After becoming a parent, he began encountering the parents of his children\u2019s friends at shows. Some had no idea he was a musician. Their presence could pull him out of a performance in a way thousands of strangers never could.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re thinking, \u2018What are [their] parents thinking right now as I\u2019m playing?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the only times I\u2019ve been taken out of the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
One woman attended the band\u2019s Hollywood Bowl performance believing Howerdel worked at the school, where he often runs the sound for assemblies and plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had no idea I was in a band,\u201d he recalls, laughing. \u201cI was like, \u2018I love that,\u2019 because I\u2019m always running the sound for the Christmas concert with the kids or the choir. That was my big reveal. That was my Clark Kent reveal.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is something appealingly ordinary in the image: one of alternative rock\u2019s most meticulous composers quietly mixing sound at a school concert while the people beside him remain unaware of his other life.<\/p>\n
There will be less chance of disappearing into the background this December. Puscifer will join A Perfect Circle as special guests, placing Maynard James Keenan at the front of two radically different performances each night. \u201cMaynard working double duty,\u201d Howerdel jokes.<\/p>\n
The arrangement means A Perfect Circle will be touring alongside a band firmly within its extended creative family. It also gives Howerdel the opportunity to watch Keenan shift between two distinct worlds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually do check out the opening band, but not every night,\u201d he says. \u201cThat one\u2019s almost going to be hard not to check out because Puscifer is so entertaining. They\u2019re friends, they\u2019re in the family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howerdel has witnessed a version of the transformation before. On the \u2018Sessanta\u2019 tour celebrating Keenan\u2019s 60th birthday, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Primus rotated through their sets while members of the other bands remained onstage, seated on couches as though watching a jam in somebody\u2019s living room.<\/p>\n
This time, Puscifer\u2019s own theatrical identity may make the line between the two performances more pronounced. \u201cPuscifer\u2019s so specific and so theatrical,\u201d Howerdel says. \u201cHe\u2019s in a different mode. He wears a different hat.\u201d<\/p>\n
How Keenan will shape A Perfect Circle\u2019s Australian set remains unknown, even to the person responsible for much of the music. \u201cThe setlist is Maynard\u2019s territory,\u201d Howerdel says. \u201cHe\u2019ll write the setlist to where he feels like he\u2019s going to be able to present the best\u2026 I stay out of the setlist game.\u201d<\/p>\n
That leaves several possibilities \u2014 early favourites, songs from Eat the Elephant, and new material that shows what A Perfect Circlesounds like in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cStarless\u201d offers the clearest indication so far. The song is immediately recognisable as A Perfect Circle, but it does not sound like the band attempting to recreate a particular era.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat one felt familiar,\u201d Howerdel explains. \u201cThe song came together quickly and without a lot of forethought into what it was. It felt at home, and where I\u2019d like things to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howerdel\u2019s demos can range from detailed arrangements to the equivalent of a scratch on a napkin. \u201cStarless\u201d was already well developed by the time he presented it to Keenan, largely because Howerdel was curious to discover where the vocalist would take it.<\/p>\n
That curiosity remains central to their partnership after nearly three decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m almost always surprised,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m working on a song right now. I\u2019m tracking a song \u2014 I took the break just to do this press \u2014 and his vocals on it are so not where I would go, which is the beauty of collaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what you want. You want someone to bring something that you wouldn\u2019t have thought of, and he\u2019s amazing at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being surprised by a collaborator is exciting when they add something unexpected. It is more difficult when they want to remove something you love.<\/p>\n
Keenan may hear an instrumental passage Howerdel considers an \u201cA-plus\u201d idea and ask him to alter it, or abandon it entirely. Accepting that request requires what Howerdel describes as both musical and social maturity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he\u2019s writing, he\u2019s got a story in mind, he\u2019s got a vibe in mind, and sometimes the heavier part or the lighter part just doesn\u2019t work in that place,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He points to \u201cGravity\u201d, from 2003\u2019s Thirteenth Step, as an example. Howerdel was deeply attached to the original instrumental, and disappointed when parts were reshaped. With distance, however, he understands why it had to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not an instrumental,\u201d he says. \u201cHe\u2019s got a story and a perspective in mind that it\u2019s still got to fit. He\u2019s got the experience, but also the self-respect to ask for what he needs to make the story the most compelling and be able to tell it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If collaboration depends on surrendering ideas, the writing process depends on capturing them before they disappear.<\/p>\n
The central riff in \u201cStarless\u201d arrived almost incidentally while Howerdel was watching television. He stopped, documented it and preserved the moment before it could be overthought.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moral of that story is to have some way to document what you\u2019ve got in mind so those ideas aren\u2019t fleeting,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s something nice about banging on the table, humming a melody, getting it down to your phone and then putting it in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entering the studio with the deliberate intention to create can sometimes produce the opposite result. Howerdel turns on his equipment, notices that something needs adjusting and begins tinkering. By the time the sound is perfect, the spark is gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just don\u2019t want to overthink it,\u201d he says. \u201cYou want to act upon what the moment has presented.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same philosophy applies to ideas that initially seem wrong. A lead line near the end of the bridge in \u201cStarless\u201d sounded so campy to Howerdel that he treated it as a placeholder, to remain only until he found something better.<\/p>\n
Instead, he changed its character, played it loudly and discovered that the part belonged.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forced it to work,\u201d he says. \u201cIt needed to be played loud and live for that to take shape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rule is there\u2019s no rules. Writing from absurdity, or writing with imperfection and embracing imperfection, is the way to break out of staleness.\u201d<\/p>\n
That willingness to tolerate imperfection may be especially important for a band whose catalogue has been dissected for decades. Howerdel is conscious of the framework around A Perfect Circle, but not beholden to a formula.<\/p>\n
He writes partly for himself and partly to draw the strongest possible response from Keenan. Sometimes that means presenting music he is not certain his collaborator will accept.<\/p>\n
On Eat the Elephant, \u201cHourglass\u201d and \u201cThe Contrarian\u201d both began that way. Howerdel wanted to show Keenan the colours he was interested in using. When Keenan responded enthusiastically, possibility quickly became pressure: now, the experiment had to become a song.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these things of process are a work in progress,\u201d Howerdel says. \u201cThey\u2019re imperfect. They\u2019re mysterious. I get a little bit superstitious about it, and I try not to do too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to do as much as I can without ruining what makes something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
A new A Perfect Circle record is now somewhere within that mysterious, imperfect process. Howerdel does not offer a date hint or big announcement, but the work is clearly moving.<\/p>\n
Asked whether more music will emerge after the Australian tour, he suggests fans may not even have to wait that long.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d he says. \u201cYou might even get one more during. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m working on that right now, so we\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n