Photo credit: Erica Weitz

Billy Howerdel has revealed a third track from his eagerly-awaited solo album, What Normal Was (Alchemy Recordings/Rise Records/BMG), with the arrival of “Beautiful Mistake”. 

Watch the visualiser here
https://youtu.be/gS_ekjh8n-k

“Beautiful Mistake” is the first of three additional songs that the A Perfect Circle guitar player plans to unveil each week in the lead-up to the June 10 album release with “Selfish Hearts” debuting on May 27, and “The Same Again” arriving on June 3. 

“We’re often too hard on ourselves,” says Howerdel in reference to the theme behind the song. “The Japanese philosophy Kintsugi, the Appreciation of Imperfection, inspired a new way for me to reflect on mistakes. Forgiving others can often be easier than forgiving ourselves.” 

Howerdel previously shared the songs “Poison Flowers” and most recently “Free and Weightless”, a song Revolver described as showcasing “Howerdel’s skill in creating smoke-shrouded, neon-lit atmosphere.”

The self-produced, 10 song album is one of 2022’s most highly-anticipated rock records. Guitar World described the music as “treading a line between Pink Floyd and Nine Inch Nails,” Loudwire said Howerdel “paints a haunting visual with a dark palette,” and Consequence said “trip hop and electronic influences peer through… beneath ethereal guitar passages.”


What Normal Was tracklist:
1. Selfish Heart
2. Free And Weightless
3. Ani
4. Beautiful Mistake
5. The Same Again
6. Poison Flowers
7. Follower
8. Bring Honor Back Home
9.  EXP
10. Stars
 
What Normal Was album pre-orders and pre-saves, which include an array of limited-edition vinyl variants, and other physical formats, are available now 
billyhowerdel.lnk.to/WhatNormalWas 
 
ABOUT BILLY HOWERDEL 
New Jersey-born and Los Angeles-based vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Billy Howerdel has quietly asserted himself as an alternative music auteur with a keen emotional understanding, sonic acuity, and a knack for massive hooks. Devoting his life to music after witnessing Pink Floyd live, he acted as something of a behind-the-scenes journeyman, working as an in-demand touring and studio tech for the likes of David Bowie, Guns N’ Roses, and Nine Inch Nails. Striking up a friendship with Maynard James Keenan when Tool opened for Fishbone (for whom Billy served as a tech), he occupied a room in a North Hollywood cottage with Maynard.

Billy founded A Perfect Circle with Maynard in 1999. The group’s seminal full-length debut, Mer de Noms, went platinum and made history as the “highest Billboard Top 200 bow for a rock band’s debut.” They followed it with the platinum Thirteenth Step [2003] and gold Emotive [2004]. The group made their return with 2018’s Eat The Elephant, marking their fourth consecutive Top 5 debut on the Top 200.

In between, Billy’s music has also appeared in video games and on the big screen. During 2008, he made his first solo statement under the moniker Ashes Divide with Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright. In the next decade, the album quietly pervaded as a cult favorite with millions of streams.

On his 2022  proper, full-length solo debut, What Normal Was (Alchemy Recordings/Rise Records/BMG), he inhabits a space that’s reverent of his past, present, and future simultaneously. After all these years, songs, and shows, Billy is ready to introduce himself. 

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