RIFF06 - A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms

Riffology — A Perfect Circle: Mer de Noms

Maynard James Keenan takes a detour from Tool, rents a room to guitar wizard Billy Howerdel, and they accidentally build the most elegant “super-group” debut of the millennium.

Neil and Chris dig into the Mer de Noms mythos:

• how a guitar tech’s home demos became a platinum record
• the secret names and symbols hidden in the artwork
• Josh Freese’s drums that sound like they were recorded in a cathedral
• label execs wondering where the hits were

It’s part shoegaze séance, part hard-rock exorcism, and entirely the reason you can’t pronounce the album title the same way twice.

Why listen? Because you want to hear two music nerds gleefully unpick the moment art-rock, metal and late-night L.A. wine bars collided—and somehow made radio hits.

Listen & follow • Blog & show notes: https://riffology.co/2025/09/29/the-making-of-mer-de-noms-by-a-perfect-circle/ • Main site: https://riffology.co/podcast • Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/riffology-iconic-rock-albums-podcast/id1691556696 • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1LIU9mein7QMw346q20nyy • Email: info@riffology.co • X: https://x.com/RiffologyPod • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/riffology.co • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/riffology