A PERFECT CIRCLE Has 'Every Intention' Of Debuting New Music On Upcoming Tour

A PERFECT CIRCLE recently confirmed that it will trek across North America this spring in the outfit’s first tour since 2011, with the month-long outing kicking off in Las Vegas on April 7 and April 8. The schedule will include previously announced appearances at the Welcome To Rockville, Fort Rock and Carolina Rebellion festivals in late April and early May, along with a closing night stop at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on May 7.

The tour news arrives as the band begins work on its first new album since 2004’s “eMOTIVe”. Guitarist Billy Howerdel tells Billboard: “We’re not promising anything, but I have every intention of doing my best to have us playing some new tracks during this run — with the idea that new music is coming very soon after. It felt similar to me to the very first thing we ever did. When Maynard [James Keenan, vocals] and I first started talking about working together in 1999, we collaborated on two songs, and the idea hatched to, ‘Let’s do a live show,’ and let that fire under our ass be what’s going to propel us to finish this music… And we approached it the same way this year. I said, ‘We’re gonna do shows,’ and with those shows there’s the hope of having some new music to go along with the shows. So let’s let that be the thing that puts us in a panic mode.”

Howerdel told The Pulse Of Radio a while back why he likes being on the road even more sometimes than the studio. “In a lot of ways it’s a lot easier, just because of scheduling,” he said. “You just know what you have to do when you have to do it. Whereas, you know, in the studio, at least for me, I’m making my own hours, and I just sleep like five hours a night and work the rest. And out here, playing the show is probably what you look forward to the whole day. It’s kind of all laid out, so in a way, it’s a lot easier for you.”

A PERFECT CIRCLE has been largely inactive on the recording front for more than a decade, with only a new song titled “By And Down” surfacing on a hits collection in 2013.

In an interview that year, Howerdel said about the possibility of a new studio album: “I’ve got 75 percent of the foundation of [the next] A PERFECT CIRCLE record ready to go. I think that all will change once Maynard gets involved and he has more time to focus on it.”