Credit: Tim CadienteA Perfect Circle‘s long-awaited new album, titled Eat the Elephant, will finally arrive on April 20. In addition to the political and religious overtones of songs that have already been released, Eat the Elephant references the deaths of David Bowie, Star Wars icon Carrie Fisher and boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
“I think it was a big curveball for a lot of people to have that concentration of celebrities, people that are iconic, exit,” vocalist Maynard James Keenan tells Rolling Stone. “I’m sure it’s happened in prior generations — all of a sudden, an exodus — but the immediacy of social media made it more impactful with more of a rapid fire to be able to see that list every day of people that you were familiar with over the years passing. And at the age of 53, you start to take it pretty seriously.”
“You only have so much time, do stuff with it,” he continues. “When all those people are leaving, I guess it’s a good opportunity to remind people of that: Pay attention.”
The Eat the Elephant song that makes the references is called “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish,” which is also a reference to the fourth installment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series.
Eat the Elephant is A Perfect Circle’s follow-up to 2004’s eMOTIVe. Thus far, the band has already unleashed the songs “The Doomed,” “Disillusioned” and “TalkTalk” from the disc.
As for news on a potential new Tool album, Keenan doesn’t have any. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” he said when asked about the disc’s progress.
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