A Perfect Circle x Linkin Park - "Eat The Elephant"

[hahninator]

A new interview on laut.de with Billy Howerdel, the guitarist and founding member of A Perfect Circle, mentions Linkin Park.

He reveals that the title song of the new A Perfect Circle album, "Eat The Elephant", was actually intended for Linkin Park. The track was halfway completed when Chester called Billy to ask him to contribute a song to Linkin Park's One More Light album. This was around the time when Linkin Park was collaborating heavily with other artists while making the album.

The track ended up not making the cut, so A Perfect Circle rewrote the chords, drums, and lyrics, but says to even finish the track at all is "a kind of therapy." He adds, "When this happens, we all tend to crawl and do nothing. I see it as a pointer to get my ass up and finish this thing that I started with Chester from Linkin Park acting as co-author."

Chester was of course friends with Billy dating all the way back to at least 2008 on Projekt Revolution, where Ashes Divide was on the tour and Chester joined them several times to perform A Perfect Circle's "The Outsider."

 

 

Last November, Billy opened up about Chester, saying, "The Chester thing hit me really hard. I haven’t talked about it publicly at all, but I liked that guy a lot. He was a friend, not a good friend but…he was the guy that would check in. He was that guy that would text once in a while and just say, ‘Hey! Checking to see how you and your family are doing.’ And with no benefit to himself. He was just that kind of person that was always reaching out."

The new A Perfect Circle album, also titled "Eat The Elephant", will be released on April 20th.

EDIT: Hear the song now, below.

[Geki]

A song that doesn’t suck, most likely, got cut, while stuff like Good Goodbye made the album.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Geki

[Kilmer]

A song that doesn’t suck most likely got cut for all the pure garbage that is One More Light. I hate that album so much.

Oh come on, so much whining, he clearly said they changed the song after Linkin Park discarded it. It's safe to assume it would have the same vibe and production the others had if they chose it for the album.

[Geki]

Oh come on, so much whining, he clearly said they changed the song after Linkin Park discarded it. It's safe to assume it would have the same vibe and production the others had if they chose it for the album.

 

Maybe I shouldn't have said that the album was all garbage, because it had some decent songs like Nobody Can Save Me, One More Light, etc. But I do think songs like Good Goodbye and others are kind of.....not that good. I mean it obviously the band's decision as to what songs made the album, so I can't argue that. But I'm sure there were some really good songs that got scrapped. Look at songs like Across The Line or What We Don't Know. Tons of fans think that those should have made MTM, but they never did.

 

Either way, I'm interested to hear this song. Billy Howerdel is a good musician, I liked the Ashes Divide album and A Perfect Circle is pretty legendary with great songs and a great sound. You also don't know that the song sounded super pop like OML ended up being. They probably went through a lot of genre shifts. Look at a song like Air Force One (2015 Demo). That's like some techno shit straight out of a 90's Sega Genesis game. I wonder who else the band reached out to during those years.

[Megnus]

what are you guys talking about. OML is one of my favorite albums of all time!

[Soeffingnaive92]

I fucking love OML too, I regularly play a lot of tracks off it and it s not just all about Chester s passing or stuff like that. I really enjoyed it a lot before his death

[Geki]

Crawling from OML Live is mad good.

[Legend]

Geki gunna Geki

[Stranger]

Back in March 2018, Billy Howerdel of A Perfect Circle had an interview with Laut.de . He told that the title track for their new album, "Eat the Elephant" was meant to be LINKIN PARK track. Chester asked him if he want to contribute a song for the new LP album (which is "One More Light").

 

 

From Wikipedia:

 

"The track "Eat the Elephant" also went through a number of changes and iterations, originally starting as a song for Howerdel's solo band, Ashes Divide.[1] Howerdel had the song half complete when he was contacted by Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington, who was then working on the band's 2017 album One More Light, a release in which the band decided to co-write with many outside songwriters and music producers.[26] Bennington asked Howerdel to co-write a song with him for the album, and Howerdel accepted, feeling that "Eat the Elephant", at that point, was a song he could see Bennington singing on.[26] The two worked on the song together, but it was ultimately dropped from One More Light, not fitting the pop-oriented sound the album eventually moved into. Howerdel later decided to consider it for A Perfect Circle again; working with Sardy to strip down and rework the demo. Keenan then wrote entirely new lyrics and sang all vocals for the track for the album."

 

 

 

 

The album finally released and here's the title track that was meant to be LP song. This version is slightly different than the original version.

 

Edited April 23, 2018 by Stranger

[Geki]

Different than the sound of OML. Kind of mature rock sounding, like mature alternative. Kind of Coldplay esque. Would have been a cool direction for OML instead of the pop/trap sound. I'm sure a lot of it is the sound created by A Perfect Circle and it would have been more poppy/trap as a OML track.

[xxHybridXeroxx]

Different than the sound of OML. Kind of mature rock sounding, like mature alternative. Kind of Coldplay esque. Would have been a cool direction for OML instead of the pop/trap sound. I'm sure a lot of it is the sound created by A Perfect Circle and it would have been more poppy/trap as a OML track.

I agree, I like OML, but a Coldplay esque direction would definitely have been better. That's honestly what I expected versus what we actually got

Edited April 22, 2018 by xxHybridXeroxx

[Geki]

I agree, I like OML, but a Coldplay esque direction would definitely have been better. That's honestly what I expected versus what we actually got

 

Yeah, originally, I was expecting a very mature, Coldplay esque sounding album. Something like the album version of Iridescent, but even more mature and beautiful sounding, I expected the entire album to sound like that. When they said they were writing some of the best lyrics they had ever written, it made me think it even more. Especially since they said they wrote lyrics and melodies first and worried about music later. I thought it would be a lot of stripped down, piano and acoustic guitar driven tracks, very raw sounding. I never would have expected full on pop and trap stuff, especially after the band publicly bashed that kind of music all the time just a few years prior. OML has some good tracks (OML, NCSM, Sharp Edges, Battle symphony), but I don't like a lot of it.

[xxHybridXeroxx]

 

Yeah, originally, I was expecting a very mature, Coldplay esque sounding album. Something like the album version of Iridescent, but even more mature and beautiful sounding, I expected the entire album to sound like that. When they said they were writing some of the best lyrics they had ever written, it made me think it even more. Especially since they said they wrote lyrics and melodies first and worried about music later. I thought it would be a lot of stripped down, piano and acoustic guitar driven tracks, very raw sounding. I never would have expected full on pop and trap stuff, especially after the band publicly bashed that kind of music all the time just a few years prior. OML has some good tracks (OML, NCSM, Sharp Edges, Battle symphony), but I don't like a lot of it.

I wouldn't have expected it either, I guess the album grew on me after awhile. Wasn't really a fan at first. Heavy is the only song I flat out dislike off the album, but I loved the live version... Guess I didn't like Kiiara singing most of the song. Not that I had a problem of her on it per say, I just felt like she sung on it too much.

[Soeffingnaive92]

The song ig GREAT, I keep on thinking how it could have sounded if Chester sung it. It wouldn t fit a lot on OML tho, and I love that album.

[Geki]

I wouldn't have expected it either, I guess the album grew on me after awhile. Wasn't really a fan at first. Heavy is the only song I flat out dislike off the album, but I loved the live version... Guess I didn't like Kiiara singing most of the song. Not that I had a problem of her on it per say, I just felt like she sung on it too much.

 

Like I said, there are some songs that I like on the album. One More Light, Nobody Can Save Me, Battle Symphony and Sharp Edges are all songs that I think are pretty good. The songs that I hate the most are Good Goodbye, Heavy, Invisible and Halfway Right. The rest are just boring to me. I don't like Heavy primarily because I don't think Kiiara needed to be featured, I think it would have been a lot better with just Chester singing, especially after learning how much the song meant to him lyrically. Some of the sounds in the song annoy me too, though, such as the intro. Good Goodbye annoyed me with all the trap sounds and the chipmunk sound. I like the chipmunk sound on Nobody Can Save Me, actually. I just hate it on Good Goodbye for some reason. I don't think Pusha T was really necessary. Would have been better with just Mike. Stormzy's verse isn't that bad but even still I don't love it. Some of the lyrics in his verse are cringe worthy. Overall it's just kind of an annoying song to me. Invisible is fine lyrically, I actually don't hate the lyrics, and I know Mike wrote them for his kids. But the song is just way too poppy and ''Disney'' for my liking. I also am not a huge fan of Shinoda singing but I do like him in some songs, just not this one. Halfway Right is just kind of meh to me. It has a total ''trap'' beat and it sounds really unfinished to me. I could have done without the nananananana parts throughout the second half of the song. Maybe the structure should have been changed or something. I'm sure there were better songs that were scrapped that would have been a better fit for the album, even ones that Chester helped on. The lyrics once again don't bother me much but it's more so the melodies and sounds. Sorry For Now was a song that I was super hyped for when I heard that original clip in 2016. But I didn't expect the song to have all that chipmunk shit and trap sounds over it. The beat heard in that original clip seemed different, as well as the melody and background instrumental being changed. Sometimes simplicity for me works. If a song is good, it doesn't need to have tons of chaotic sounds, etc. I also think Blackbear should have done a verse in place of Chester's. I actually like Blackbear's music despite not liking trap or pop that much, I think he is probably the absolute best at that genre, similar to Skrillex for EDM, which I like, and I don't love EDM. Talking To Myself is OK, but I don't love it. I hate some of the trap sounds during the song, such as the repeating line of ''nobody's home'', etc. Would have been better with just straight raw Chester vocals. Once again, simplicity would have worked more for me. And lastly, Sharp Edges is a great song, but I do have an issue with the lyric of ''We learn what doesn't kill us makes us stronger''. Wish they chose a better line. That's the only line of the song that I hate. The melody is amazing, just the lyric.

[Stranger]

If you tried listen to this song on 1.25x or 1.5x speed, it's sounds like LP songs. The original quite slow. but enjoying both.

[Astat]

I feel like this actually would have worked on OML if it were just at a bit faster tempo with more simplified percussion. Yeah it's kind of dark, but the overall vibe is still probably closer to OML than any other LP album.

[Geki]

It's kind of cool that Chester reached out to Billy Howerdel. I thought Ashes Divide was badass on PR08. Their 2008 album was good, too. A Perfect Circle has always has some good songs. It was cool that he was able to reach out to him that many years after PR08 and they made a song. Makes me wonder who else Chester and Mike reached out to during that time that we might not know about. We would have probably never known about this track if Billy didn't decide to finish it for the Perfect Circle album and talk about it.

[hahninator]

We had this topic already in Newswire but there is a convo in the new thread as well, so I just merged the two together.

[Geki]

I feel like this actually would have worked on OML if it were just at a bit faster tempo with more simplified percussion. Yeah it's kind of dark, but the overall vibe is still probably closer to OML than any other LP album.

If it made the final album of OML it probably would have some shitty trap beat instead of real drums from an actual person and would probably feature some shitty rap artist on it. Even though Chester is the one who reached out to Billy for the song, Chester would probably be removed from the song. Probably would have Mike doing his sub par singing even though Chester was the lead singer of the band. Most bands use their lead singer for vocals that are going to make a final album. But maybe, yeah. This track is more MTM sounding since it actually has real instrumentation on it from humans and doesn’t have horrible guest features like a lot of LP.

[Stranger]

We had this topic already in Newswire but there is a convo in the new thread as well, so I just merged the two together.

 

thanks Hahninator! couldn't find the topic before.

[GlassCastles]

If it made the final album of OML it probably would have some shitty trap beat instead of real drums from an actual person and would probably feature some shitty rap artist on it. Even though Chester is the one who reached out to Billy for the song, Chester would probably be removed from the song. Probably would have Mike doing his sub par singing even though Chester was the lead singer of the band. Most bands use their lead singer for vocals that are going to make a final album. But maybe, yeah. This track is more MTM sounding since it actually has real instrumentation on it from humans and doesn’t have horrible guest features like a lot of LP.

Jesus, you act like Chester wasn't on 9/10 songs on OML (doing lead vocals on 7/10 tracks), that Mike isn't just as much one of the lead vocalists in the band, that there are no "real instruments" on OML, and that there are more than ~6 LP songs with guest features.

[Justin]

Jesus, you act like Chester wasn't on 9/10 songs on OML (doing lead vocals on 7/10 tracks), that Mike isn't just as much one of the lead vocalists in the band, that there are no "real instruments" on OML, and that there are more than ~6 LP songs with guest features.

Chester was absent on one of the OML tracks? If you're referring to Invisible, I thought he did background vocals on that one.

[GlassCastles]

Chester was absent on one of the OML tracks? If you're referring to Invisible, I thought he did background vocals on that one.

He does, I was more referring to having some significant role, which I wouldn't really consider the harmonies to be

[Soeffingnaive92]

Putting aside LP for a minute, can I just focus on how awesome some songs on "Eat the Elephant" are? I mean, the whole album is a bit boring but there are 4/5 GREAT songs on it, including the title track, the closing and track 2,3,4