Billy Howerdel

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Billy Howerdel (born May 18, 1970) is the founding member, guitarist, songwriter, and producer for the band A Perfect Circle.

He was born in New Jersey. Before forming A Perfect Circle, Howerdel worked as a guitar tech for Faith No More, Fishbone, David Bowie, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Queen, Guns N' Roses, and numerous other bands.

Howerdel functioned as a guitar technician for Tool during the tour and recording of Ænima, working with Maynard James Keenan, whom he met in 1992. During this time, Howerdel played Keenan some of his songs, and Keenan offered his vocals if Howerdel ever decided to form a band. Despite originally considering a female singer, Howerdel would eventually accept Keenan's offer. In 1999, Howerdel founded A Perfect Circle, and invited Keenan to join in as the singer. In 2006, Keenan explained in an interview conducted by French magazine "Rock Hard", that A Perfect Circle is not only on hiatus, but finished.

Howerdel has occasionally played live with the band Abandoned Pools. In 2005, he wrote and recorded music for the video game Jak X: Combat Racing, which also features remixes of Billy's songs by Danny Lohner and Dean Menta, and musicians Josh Freese and Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age, Atom Willard of The Offspring, Joey Castillo of Queens of the Stone Age, ex-A Perfect Circle bassist Paz Lenchantin, and Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit. Howerdel is currently working on a new album. "I don't know if you'd call it a solo album or a new band," said Howerdel in an interview with GameSpy on October 6, 2005.

[edit] Gear

Guitars - Gibson Les Pauls, predominantly a 1960 Les Paul Classic Reissue. Plays Ernie Ball strings, with Dunlop picks.
Effects - Custom rack built by Dave Friedman at Rack Systems.
Cabinets - VHT Straight Cabinet / 4x12
Lexicon MPX R1 Midi Foot Controller and Ernie Ball expression pedal
Tuner - Korg DTR-1 Rack Tuner
Rack - Lexicon MPX-G2 Preamp / Multi-FX / Looper, GCX Guitar Audio Switcher / Router, TC Electronic G-Force Multi-FX, TC Electronics Fireworx, Digitech GSP-2101, Eventide Orville, Custom Audio Electronics line mixer and line transformer
Amp - There is much debate as to the details of his "Naked" amp. It is certainly a one-off custom-made amplifier, but not much else is known. It has been claimed on Internet Discussion Boards that it is based on a Naylor SuperDrive preamp with a power section based on a Marshall JMP, but this should be taken with a grain of salt. His most recent amplifier is a Dave Friedman modified 1978 Marshall JMP-100 Superlead, modified for (at least) a master volume control, channel switching, and an effects loop.