Failure’s Greg Edwards discussed replacing James Iha in A Perfect Circle after he reunited with The Smashing Pumpkins in a new Stereogum interview. He said Maynard James Keenan had his manager call him.
“So Maynard, I’ve known Maynard all through the years, and I guess all of a sudden, I got a call at the beginning of 2018 from their manager just saying, ‘James Iha is going back to Smashing Pumpkins and they want you to fill in,’ which was like… I’ve never done anything like that. I’ve only really worked in my own projects.
I’ve never been the side man. It was like a lot to take on. But it was actually a really fun experience, and I know everybody. They’re all friends, and it was a challenge to learn that much material that I didn’t have a lot of familiarity with in a short period of time, and just go right out and tour on it. So it really just fell out of the blue.
I can’t think of another situation where I would do it. But it just made total sense to me because I’ve known Maynard for so long. It just felt right.”
He also said, “Maynard has been a friend since the beginning of Failure. That was when Tool was in LA and coming up at the same time and took us out on a tour in Europe and the US right around the time that the second Failure record, Magnified, was released.”
