When A Perfect Circle guitarist Billy Howerdel released his second solo album, What Normal Was, in 2022, it was a shameless indulgence into the British bands who first ignited his love for music. As he told Prog, Pink Floyd and David Gilmour were foremost among those influences.
Growing up in New Jersey, USA, Billy Howerdel discovered that his mother’s clock radio picked up a Long Island station that played all the groundbreaking music coming out of the UK. From loving Pink Floyd, he soon became entranced with everything from Elvis Costello to Siouxsie And The Banshees and Cocteau Twins.
Those influences flow together on his solo album What Normal Was, mixing APC’s art-rock with the synths and elegantly gloomy introspective vibes of 80s new wave. “That’s what this record is for me,” says Howerdel. “It’s a look back to that time, the most important time, when music hits you at that right moment, you come out of adolescence and the world opens up.”
What Normal Was has a very different sound to your 2008 solo debut, Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright, released under the name of Ashes Divide. Was that deliberate?
The first Ashes record started in this form, but halfway through the process I went to the comfort of what I knew – two guitars, bass and drums. But the beginnings of some of the songs, when I’m looking back at demos now, were more in this form.
What Normal Was is a record I don’t think I could have made then; I don’t think I knew how. But it’s the record I always wanted to make. It goes back to the earliest roots of what turned me on about music in the first place.
How much did seeing Pink Floyd at Giants Stadium in New York in 1988 inspire you to pursue music?
It wasn’t my first concert, but it was my first big concert. I’d been to see Elvis Costello – that was my first – which was at a 2,000-seat theatre in New Jersey.
It’s funny when I think back to what Pink Floyd was as a band – it was bigger than a band. It was more like church. To go see this thing live was otherworldly; to be in a giant stadium in New Jersey with 100,000-plus people. I was so far from the stage, but it was almost better because you could take in the whole production. It was just incredible.
I knew all the songs. They played A Momentary Lapse Of Reason in its entirety, and then the hits after an intermission. That feeling of being around that many humans – even if it’s 500 humans, but especially when it’s 100,000 – everyone is in the best place. You saved your money, you carefully carved out the time to go with your friends. That’s the moment I thought, ‘I want to be around this all the time.’ It was a drug that still gets me.
Pink Floyd can be introspective and downbeat. Did that inform the mood of What Normal Was?
The music I gravitated to was like that. Whatever was missing in me or within me that steered me there – and I don’t mean to be contrary about it – downer music made me feel a little more up. When I was a kid it was hard to have something hit emotionally if it was up. I still think that’s a really hard thing to do.
I did figure out some David Gilmour songs early on and, like everything else, I figured them out badly!
On this record I set out to make a song or two that had that. Like Stars, the last song: I wanted it to be a lift-off but still have a lot of weight to it. It’s not always easy to do. I would listen to The Smiths as a kid and be really cheered up by it, and I don’t know why!
Has David Gilmour’s playing influenced you as a guitarist?
I did figure out some songs early on and, like everything else, I figured them out badly! I think that’s one of the tricks – don’t master anything. I tried to, I really did; but I think that melting pot of influences is the thing you can excel in.
If you play Eddie Van Halen verbatim, you’re maybe going to have a hard time finding your own voice. I was fortunate enough to not be able to nail the 10 guitar players that made me tick, and therefore I found my own lane.
David Gilmour is a huge one – he gives permission to have legitimate guitar lines with substance over quantity. It was nice to have that north star. David being this guitar hero, but not shredding and being very classy about it, was such a great inspiration.
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