Not too long ago, Maynard James Keenan upheld something of a personal tradition. It’s one he enacts when an album he has been working on is finally finished. “I always set up a little party: just add alcohol,” he quips of his ritual playback. “It’s not really a focus group, but it’s my friends who’ve done it before so they know to just shut up and take it in. That’s my process of letting go, it’s like a wake.”
As Keenan served his guests drinks and food, a rather pleasing realisation settled over him.
“To not have anything jump out and go, ‘Fuck! I wish I could change that!’” he recalls. “That was good. Nothing made me pause and go, ‘Oh shit…’”
Now, to put that relief into context, that moment – and, indeed, this very interview – has been some 14 years in the making. Today, Music Week joins Keenan and his musical co-conspirator Billy Howerdel inside the opulent environs of London’s Hotel Café Royal to talk about A Perfect Circle’s first new record since 2004. The pair have, it seems, processed the album’s completion differently. Howerdel hasn’t even listened back to it yet.
“I swear,” he laughs. “My wife is asking me for a copy of the record and I haven’t even given it to her.”
How come?
“Because it’s still a little too close to the creation process,” he grins. “Thinking about ‘What if?’ or this change and that. I can’t hear it. When I’m ready I will, maybe a couple months from now…”
If this speaks volumes about the elevated importance attached to this record for Howerdel, he should take comfort in the fact that no changes are required. Eat The Elephant, APC’s fourth studio album – due to be released on April 20 via BMG – is the magnificent rebirth of one of the most compelling rock bands of all time. The group has been comprised of a revolving line-up of A-List musicians over the years, but its fixed axis has always been Howerdel’s indelible brand of atmospheric rock and the archangel vocals of Keenan, otherwise known as the voice of elusive prog-metal titans Tool.
For a band who have always made rich, challenging music – all complemented by unique imagery and visuals – they have also been extraordinarily successful. APC’s debut album, 2000’s Mer De Nom broke a Billboard record upon its release, becoming the highest charting rock debut of all time, shifting 188,000 copies in its first week. In the UK it has sold 87,195 according to OCC data. Since then they have delivered two more albums, 2003’s The Thirteenth Step (54,243) and 2004’s (largely anti-war covers) set Emotive (25,520). Sporadic touring and 2013 greatest hits CD/live DVD packages aside, they have largely existed in a state of inertia.
“APC was almost dying on the vine,” says Dino Paredes of Suretone management. “And I hate to use that phrase. It’s a little dramatic perhaps, but it was becoming stagnant.”
This was not without explanation, of course. Keenan had Tool’s 2006 opus 10,000 Days (the band have
only just embarked upon recording its long-awaited follow-up), launched his new band Puscifer (three albums and counting), collaborated on his biography, and oversaw the expansion of his Caduceus Cellars winery in Arizona. Meanwhile Howerdel welcomed two children into the world, debuted his solo project Ashes Divide, and scored the 2017 indie film D-Love. Yet, when it came to getting APC off the ground, it was not just the logistical challenge of putting Howerdel and Keenan in each others’ orbit again, but also the question of what this band should even be in 2018.
“Do you present things the way your established fans from 14, 15, 16, 17 years ago are used to hearing?” ponders Keenan. “Or do you write from where you are right now? That’s a difficult balance. I’m of the mind that, fuck it, let’s write looking forward, not backwards. That was my whole approach, to drag things ahead of us.”
Eat The Elephant does just that, the mournful title track a slow-burn piano affair, while Get The Lead Out veers into trip-hop ambience.
“It’s a very dark record,” Howerdel observes. “Some of these songs are hard to listen to. It’s got honesty. And teeth.”
As with all things APC, their lyrics and titles are shrouded in mystery, though Keenan notes that individual “accountability” in a world on the fast track to oblivion is a prevailing theme. There is a lot to digest, and even more to ponder. Yet if APC are somewhat elusive when it comes to talking music, it is an altogether different case when it comes to talking business. Far from the unnerving, unapproachable artistes they have sometimes been portrayed as, Howerdel and Keenan are both friendly, articulate and blessed with a mordant sense of wit when it comes to explaining how this project came full circle after 14 years…
"If there’s a carrot on a stick, there’s a backhand coming right behind it,” says Keenan. “There’s a hook in there somewhere.”
This is a business outlook that has served him well throughout his time in the music industry. It was certainly something on A Perfect Circle’s mind when it came to finding a new partner to release Eat The Elephant, having completed their contract with Virgin EMI.
As you may have guessed, preservation of artistic integrity is enshrined in everything Keenan and Howerdel do, an attitude bolstered by a healthy scepticism of the industry. In Keenan’s case, he has accrued a 360° view of things. On the one hand he spent the ’90s brushing off courtship advances from major labels with Tool; on the other, he has spent recent years getting his other band Puscifer to run independently without going “down the old mid-’90s rabbit hole of overspending and throwing money at things that aren’t going to matter.”
Howerdel, too, has been on the frontlines as he tried to get Ashes Divide off the ground.
“It was a disappointing experience as it went on, because the guy that signed me got let go from the label,” he sighs. “One person can make such a big difference. He was the one that was enthusiastic and excited and, on top of that in 2008, the economy collapsed and nobody was going to shows. Gas had skyrocketed; so going on tour became almost un-fundable. That definitely took the wind out of my sails.”
Both, then, are realists when it comes to the industry. Keenan, for one, has an interesting expression concerning the illusion of a band ever achieving absolute control.
“That’s chasing farts,” he deadpans. “Honestly, you can’t control those things – there’s too many variables. As much as a label might pretend they have some of those variables dialled in, they don’t. There’s so many things that can just get away from you, and so many more important things to be doing. For me, the only real illusion of control I have is in the writing process, getting it recorded and presented.”
Two years ago, Keenan described to your correspondent his view of the music industry as a tar pit, comically outlining a scenario where DJs and execs could be seen slowly sinking into the noxious liquid. Today, he views said tar pit as a necessary one, a symptom of an industry reconfiguring itself. The upshot, he feels, is that labels have had to up their game.
“Doing a label deal nowadays, the maths work better because they realise they need to survive,” he offers. “And the only way to survive is to offer deals that make sense.”
So what made them trust BMG with Eat The Elephant?
“I don’t trust anybody,” replies Keenan.
Then, with nothing less than a stand-up’s sense of comic timing, he swivels his head to turn to one of BMG’s representatives on the other side of the hotel room and holds his stare until everyone in the room – BMG included – laughs. For the record, he is joking. Howerdel fills in on why their new partnership has been so successful so far.
“They had a lot of faith in us that we would produce something that they would want without hearing anything,” he says. “That made me want to try harder.”
Speaking from BMG’s side, Dan Gill, GM, frontline division US, tells Music Week that, as a longstanding fan of both APC and Tool, he was utterly “elated” to work on this comeback. Indeed, APC’s manager Paredes reveals a telling story about the first time BMG got wind of Eat The Elephant’s second single Disillusioned. The conversation went a little something like this.
BMG: “It is a radio song?”
Paredes: “No...”
BMG: “How long is it?”
Paredes: “Over six minutes...”
He proceeded to tell them Disillusioned also had a one-minute plus piano break in the middle. Yet when he played them this early version, their reaction surprised him.
“They were all so moved by it that they said, ‘Don’t touch it, we should put this out the way it is. It’s art.’” Paredes recalls. “I’ll never forget that they used the word art. That’s when I knew we made the right choice."
“I want BMG to be happy and know they made a good choice in believing in us,” he adds. “That’s important.”
It seems everyone’s trust has been well placed, then?
“They seem to be doing a really good job,” agrees Keenan. “But time will tell.”
Once again, he comically stares at BMG’s rep.
It certainly sounds like there’s a mutual trust...
“I would hope…” Keenan pauses. “I’m still going to ask them to write a big cheque...”
Just as APC are by no means a normal band, nor could it be said that the way in which they do business is typical. Just ask Dino Paredes. While he had a long association with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, his journey to becoming APC’s manager is as organic as it comes. Having known Keenan since the early Tool days, over the years he would act as a sounding board for Puscifer, who at that time were without an official manager.
“I consulted,” he recalls. “He’s my friend and I love him dearly, so I always wanted to help him.”
One day, Keenan called saying that Puscifer needed a full-time manager – could he recommend anyone? Paredes returned the call with names but also broached the idea that he wanted to throw his name into the hat as well.
“Of course, asshole,” replied Keenan. “That’s what we were looking for.”
“It was so funny,” recalls Paredes. “It’s typical Maynard. Things happen his way; it’s a very unusual way, but it works.”
This rapport is visible today. At one point, Paredes deigns to assist Keenan’s memory.
“I was getting to that!” Keenan deadpans. “Do you have a mute button?” A big grin spreads over the manager’s face.
Paredes worked closely with Puscifer – even getting very hands on with the creative visuals of the project – before eventually broaching the idea of getting APC going again. His master plan has paid dividends in a campaign that has so far seen the band play a 21-date US arena tour – including LA’s Hollywood Bowl – and will go on to include Coachella and a full European headline tour, including three sold-out dates at O2 Academy Brixton and Manchester Apollo, plus festival appearances. “I’m very bullish in terms of the excitement from the rock audience,” admits Gill. However, the team around APC know that such activity needs to conform to APC’s innate artistic values.
“With Billy and Maynard, it’s always been less is more,” says Gill. “It’s about quality over quantity. As far as marketing and out-of-the-box ideas, I don’t necessarily think that’s what it’s about.”
“They’re unique in the sense that they truly are artists,” adds Paredes. “The art is so important to them, so consequently we do things differently sometimes. I’m a firm believer in trying to have integrity because it’s become so ugly on the inside of this business. These guys don’t have to play that kind of game, their talent is so special and unique that they still have impact without reducing themselves to some of these ugly tactics that a lot of other people have to do. There are things they just will not do. And I think they shouldn’t do them, in all honesty.”
If APC already distinguish themselves – alongside Puscifer – as a band that preserve the sanctity of art by banning mobile phone photography and recordings at live shows, that is very much just the tip of the iceberg. Paredes notes how APC are not a band who will participate in the photo journalism aspect of Coachella, nor are they going to roll up to every radio station and play songs acoustically for the programme director just because they’re asked to.
“I think we need to place a value on some artists’ talent by denying it to everybody sometimes,” says Paredes. “You have to create that sense of what’s special and unique about it. And sometimes that means denial – at some point you earn that. If you say no and then do not deliver a quality version of what you do, then it’s bad. However, if you say no and deliver a great record or tour, you’ve done the right thing.”
On the literal subject of delivering the goods, APC take the physical world very seriously. Not only are they releasing a beautifully-crafted 10” single of The Doomed/Disillusioned, the Eat The Elephant album package is a deluxe affair.
“We’re offering a box set with a hologram,” explains Gill. “We’re doing some very interesting 360° photography working with a lot of technology. The fans are really going to enjoy this box set once it comes out.”
“One thing I learned from Puscifer, people are still interested in that,” Keenan says. “The full LP, the album artwork, a double gatefold piece of vinyl. People are going, ‘What the fuck is on with this album cover?’ Of course, there’s more to come. It’s just a piece of the puzzle.”
The proof of said puzzle is in the pre-order pudding.
“The demand for vinyl is exceeding what we were able to press initially,” beams Gill. “It’s a good problem to have.”
This seems all the more remarkable when you consider that APC are returning to an industry in which rock’s crown has – in sales terms – been pilfered. Or put another way…
“Well, rock just lost the ‘O-C-K’ and now has ‘A-P’,” Howerdel observes. “Rap has now become that dangerous, unpredictable, constantly evolving, cultural juggernaut.”
Howerdel has his own theory on how rock might stage a comeback, predicting that “the more imperfect it is, the more it will be received on a grand new scale”. Then again, as a rock band who have largely been out of the marketplace for 14 years, APC’s comeback shows rock is oh-so emphatically not dead.
“We did a presave campaign with Spotify and we already have 6,000 presaves for the album – which is a very, very strong number,” says Gill.
When it comes to the new frontier of streaming, again APC are realists. Keenan, who is quick to stress the decimation of Tower and Virgin Megastore in the US that occured while Puscifer recorded their debut, is acutely aware of how streaming is now the new record store. But that’s not to say he isn’t aware of the “monster” it has created – namely a generation who think music should be free. Keenan is wrestling with other concerns in 2018, including the entities that govern which music we hear on radio and playlists, and how often we are presented with the same songs. When it comes to how music’s full value could one day be reinstated, he semi-jokes that it might take an apocalyptic event.
“To sum up, we’re fucked,” he laughs.
We should probably end the interview on a happier note…
“Being fucked leads to better solutions,” he says. “There’s going to be something that comes out of this that’s great. I’m just not going to be a part of that. But there will be a whole new generation that figures out a way to make [this work].”
Surely you will still be a part of it?
“From a distance,” he concludes. “I’m just too grumpy to participate.”
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