Ashes Divide
| Ashes Divide | |
|---|---|
| Origin | United States |
| Genres | Alternative rock, hard rock, progressive rock |
| Years active | 2005–present |
| Labels | Island Records |
| Associated acts | A Perfect Circle |
| Website | www.ashesdivide.com |
| Members | Billy Howerdel |
Ashes Divide is the name used for the solo project of American rock musician Billy Howerdel, guitarist of the alternative rock band A Perfect Circle, where he is the primary songwriter, musician, producer, and vocalist. The project's debut album, Keep Telling Myself It's Alright, was released in 2008. Howerdel formed a live band and toured in support of the album through the rest of the year, but the project fell to the wayside after A Perfect Circle reformed and toured in 2010 and 2011. Howerdel would work on both projects for a while until late 2012, where he announced his primary focus is completing the second album, of which he hoped to enter the mixing phase in January or February 2013.
Billy Howerdel was known to start working on music for his solo project as early as 2005, after wrapping up touring for A Perfect Circle's second album, Thirteenth Step, and recording their third album, Emotive. He was quoted as saying that his solo music would be more uptempo than his previous work with A Perfect Circle, but many of those uptempo electronic meets guitar tracks ended up as instrumentals for the Jak X: Combat Racing video game. He wrote many songs during this period, some of which he kept for the Jak X, and some of which he kept for his future solo project (which would become Ashes Divide). Songs that were omitted from any Ashes Divide releases in favor of the Jak X soundtrack include "Ascension", "Migraine", "Fracture", "The Chopper", and "Death From Above". In an IGN/YouTube interview with Matt Pinfield, he revealed that at one point "Denial Waits" was going to be for Jak X instead.
However, Billy, not used to working alone, ended up spending years tweaking his music so that he was happy with it, with constant revisions. An example of this is how the "Army" demo, originally done while still in A Perfect Circle, eventually evolved into "The Stone".
The band's first single, "The Stone", made its radio premiere on January 22, 2008. Their debut album, Keep Telling Myself It's Alright, was released on April 8. On February 22, Howerdel explained on Chicago radio station Q101 that the date was pushed back from March 18 because of the record label.
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