Early work and A Perfect Circle 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 to sing if Howerdel ever decided to form a band. Despite originally considering a female vocalist, Howerdel would eventually accept Keenan's offer. In 1999, Howerdel founded A Perfect Circle and invited Keenan to join. The project was a success. Their debut album,
Mer de Noms, released in May 2000, went platinum in the US, selling over one million copies by the end of the year. However, complications arose: Keenan could not commit all of his time to the band, still fronting Tool, and over time, he began to be more and more involved in the creative process of the music, leading to disagreements on the musical direction for the second A Perfect Circle album,
Thirteenth Step. The record, released in September 2003, was still a success, going platinum as well, though the two decided to take a break from the band, so that Keenan could return to Tool, and Howerdel could pursue solo work.
Ashes Divide Howerdel first began working on solo material during the writing sessions for
Thirteenth Step, in 2003. Rough versions of three or four songs were written during that era, including the track "Stripped Away", which was even played at soundchecks at A Perfect Circle (APC) concerts while supporting the album. Additionally, the APC demo "Army" was eventually reworked into Howerdel's own "The Stone". Shortly after
Thirteenth Step, APC decided to quickly throw together a collection of
anti-war cover songs just prior to the
2004 United States presidential election, entitled
Emotive. Keenan pushed Howerdel to sing lead vocals on a few of the songs, to "get people used to [his] voice", and to help Howerdel transition to the role of primary singer in his solo work. Once
Emotive was completed, APC went on hiatus, while Howerdel continued to write new material. and the full album, titled ''
Keep Telling Myself It's Alright'', followed on April 8. The record features a guest cello performance on the track "Sword" by
Devo Keenan, Maynard's son. In addition to Freese and Keenan, the record also includes contributions from drummer Dean Sainz,
Concrete Blonde's
Johnette Napolitano,
Alkaline Trio's
Matt Skiba, and former APC bassist
Paz Lenchantin. Howerdel formed a band to promote the record, touring throughout 2008. The lineup consisted of Jeff Friedl on drums,
Matt McJunkins on bass,
Jonathan Radtke on lead guitar, and Adam Monroe on keys. The album debuted at number 36 in the U.S., selling 15,800 copies in its first week. As of August 2010, ''Keep Telling Myself It's Alright'' had sold 61,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Further activity and decline Ashes Divide toured extensively in 2008 but pulled out of an opening slot for
Puddle of Mudd at the end of the year, for undisclosed reasons, and fell out of the public eye. Toward the end of 2008, Maynard James Keenan announced that he and Howerdel were working on music for APC, and rumors arose that Ashes Divide was splitting up. In late summer of 2009, Twitter posts and Myspace blogs indicated that the band was still active, and the group subsequently played a few live shows. Notably, they debuted a new song that Howerdel originally called "Untitled" but which has since been dubbed "Trafficking" by fans who attended Ashes Divide shows in late 2009 and early 2010. In April 2011, Howerdel mentioned that Ashes Divide would have released music in late 2010, had APC not reconvened for touring. Progress on the album was delayed, however, when Howerdel decided to redesignate a number of songs to APC instead. The band played their first live show in three years on May 8, 2013, at the Satellite in Los Angeles, for Pathology Brand's "Wednesday Society" fundraising event. In April 2017, Howerdel commented that he still continued to work on new material, but that the sound had deviated so far from the project's first record, that he was contemplating whether or not he'd release it under the Ashes Divide name." In April 2018, he reiterated his plans to release a second album, but that some songs he had been working on ended up on the fourth APC album,
Eat the Elephant, instead, including "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish".
Revolver listed new Ashes Divide material as one of their most anticipated albums of 2020, despite it not having an official release date, and then again in 2021.
What Normal Was: 2022 In early 2022, Howerdel announced the name of his second studio album,
What Normal Was, to be released on June 10, 2022, under his own name rather than the Ashes Divide moniker. Former A Perfect Circle contributors
Danny Lohner and Josh Freese, in addition to current bassist
Matt McJunkins, played on the album. Lohner and Freese would go on to play live dates in support of the album with Howerdel.
Other projects 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 Howerdel's songs by
Danny Lohner and
Dean Menta, as well as including contributions from Josh Freese,
Troy Van Leeuwen,
Atom Willard,
Joey Castillo, ex-A Perfect Circle bassist
Paz Lenchantin, and
Wes Borland. Howerdel also worked on the
Guns N' Roses album
Chinese Democracy, specifically the song "There Was a Time". ==Personal life==