A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Primus Like You've Never Seen Them Before

Maynard James Keenan turned 60 almost exactly a year ago. Still, the Puscifer, A Perfect Circle, and Tool frontman is keeping the birthday celebration going with the Sessanta Tour, which will hit Hard Rock Live on Tuesday, May 6. Featuring sets by A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Primus, the tour will bring the bands onstage together in a unique format.

"It's presented in a way you're not familiar with," Keenan tells New Times over the telephone. "One band plays three songs, and then the next band plays. We keep rotating three songs for each band. Members of one band will play with the other. If you come with an open mind, you can strap in for a great show."

The idea for the tour started a decade ago during Keenan's 50th birthday celebration. "We did the Cinquanta show for two nights at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, which was a lot of fun. It was logistically challenging but fulfilling," he says. Along with sets by Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, Keenan also performed with the band Failure and special guests Green Jelly.

In 2024, to celebrate his 60th birthday, Keenan decided to duplicate the feat. This time, however, he's mixing in the bass-heavy rock of Primus. The intention of Sessanta is to blur the borders between the bands. You'll witness the unlikely pairings of Primus' Les Claypool playing bass on A Perfect Circle songs and Keenan singing Primus songs.

If anyone knows about jumping between bands, it's Keenan. He has effortlessly shifted from one band to another throughout his career. He first shot to fame in the mid-Nineties as frontman for the prog-metal outfit Tool. In 1999, when Tool was already headlining arenas, Keenan joined forces with guitarist Billy Howerdel to form A Perfect Circle. Keenan succinctly described the differences between the two bands in a 2000 interview with the New York Times: "Tool is more a left-brain masculine result, and [A Perfect Circle] is more a right-brain feminine result."
Puscifer is something entirely different. Much like Spinal Tap, Flight of the Conchords, and Tenacious D, it started as a comedy routine, with the band appearing on the first episodes of the 1995 postmodern comedy series Mr. Show. In 2007, the band released its debut album, "V" Is for Vagina.

Despite having to write music for three different bands, Keenan doesn't put too much thought into writing specifically for any one project. "Some bands bring the song to me. But I could bring the same series of chords to each band, and every band will play it differently," he explains. "A song is going to change when different people play it. Every band has a different voice. If you give a song to Primus and you give the song to Aerosmith, it's going to sound different."

He sighs heavily when asked what albums give Tool fans the best taste of A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. "Any of them. You can check the internet for that. The most recent ones are good places to start. Then you can go back in time from there," he says.

For A Perfect Circle, that would be 2018's Eat the Elephant, and for Puscifer, it's 2020's Existential Reckoning, though Keenan says that will soon change. "There will be a new Puscifer album in the fall," he says.

But for now, Keenan is focused on celebrating 60 years on Earth with Sessanta. "Trust me, come on down. You've never seen anything like this," he says.

Sessanta V 2.0. With Primus, Puscifer, and A Perfect Circle. 8 p.m., Tuesday, May 6, at Hard Rock Live, 1 Seminole Way, Hollywood; 954-797-5531; myhrl.com. Tickets cost $65 to $165 via ticketmaster.com.