A Perfect Circle guitarist Billy Howerdel discussed the band’s fall 2018 tour having lower attendance than the spring tour in a new Straight interview.
“Maybe it’s that I’ve got too much on my mind—like trying to finish this record on top of touring. Probably my mind is just racing too much. The shows haven’t been as well-attended as the spring, and that’s been a little bit of a head-scratcher for us. You can try and figure those things out, but that turns into an exercise in frustration.
“It’s for people in different parts of this organization—managers and booking agents and promoters—to worry about more than me,” he continues. “But I’d be lying to say that it didn’t matter to me—it’s nice when you go out and see a full room, and the spring was mostly like that. But then again, it’s only been a few shows, so maybe it’s just a little ego trip on my part.”
A Perfect Circle guitarist Billy Howerdel discussed the band’s no phone policy in a new Montreal Gazette interview.
“We have a no-phone policy at our show,” Howerdel says. They mean it, too — more than 60 people were ejected from a show this month in Reading, Pa., for breaking it. “First of all, it’s just rude. Putting up a phone in front of someone’s face so they get to watch the show through it? Getting a memento of the show — sure, I’ve done it myself. But then you ask, ‘What am I gonna do with this?’
“But the other point is, people talking about the show is so much more powerful. We’re inundated with videos and images, and getting back to a campfire conversation, letting people express how they felt in the experience — it says something more.
“And it speaks to, what does the music mean to you, and how do you want to tether it to your experiences in your life?”
He later said, “I do a VIP tour every day for 15 people on the stage. It’s a ticket you buy that gives you early access and a few extras, and a 30-minute tour with me on the stage.”
At a recent show, one fan had a surprise: he got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. “And the guy was telling me, ‘This is what the band means to me.’ There’s nothing more flattering than that. You want people to have it mean more. That memory will be ingrained in my head forever.
“And they didn’t even take a picture of it.”
