A Perfect Circle released their second studio album, Thirteenth Step, in the United States on September 16, 2003, through Virgin Records. Following Mer de Noms, guitarist Billy Howerdel and singer Maynard James Keenan expanded their approach to songwriting around an album concerned with addiction and recovery. Its lead single, “Weak and Powerless,” had been waiting for that opportunity.
Howerdel told Metal Hammer in a 2018 interview that both “Weak and Powerless” and “Vanishing” existed during the first album’s development. He had held them back because they did not suit that record. The follow-up gave those ideas a place to develop. “We wanted to branch out and find a little bit more depth and space,” he said. The sessions also began with more of the material still taking shape.
Some of that writing had emerged from private moments well before the album was assembled. In a 2011 interview with Atlanta Music Guide, Howerdel traced “Blue” to moving into a new home shortly after the September 11 attacks. Construction workers were still outside when he switched on his equipment and began playing bass. He recalled capturing the initial music in one take, alone with a computer and four-track recorder. He associated it with fear and escape, but could not remember whether he had explained those feelings to Keenan.
He originally called that piece “Red.” Another working title had a more troublesome consequence: “Vanishing” disappeared among Howerdel’s computer files because he had saved it as “test.” He recovered the recording in 2001. When it became part of Thirteenth Step, its lyrics included a playful reference to the song having gone missing. An administrative mistake had become part of the finished work.
The sessions also required Howerdel to make room for other musicians’ instincts. He credited Danny Lohner with suggesting directions neither he nor Keenan would have reached independently. Jarboe’s visit to his studio was another memorable encounter; Howerdel recalled being both unsettled and inspired by her vocal improvisation. In his account to Metal Hammer, accepting those contributions was part of learning when to release his grip on a composition.
Keenan’s lyrics approached addiction through several different viewpoints. The songs considered the person caught in it, someone refusing to recognize a loved one’s condition, and the possibility of acknowledging a problem. “The Outsider” placed the listener inside the perspective of someone unable to understand another person’s distress. Across the album, those changes in narrator allowed the subject to extend beyond an individual’s experience into the reactions of people around them.
The band also interpreted someone else’s writing. “The Nurse Who Loved Me” came from Failure’s 1996 album Fantastic Planet. A Perfect Circle’s recording featured contributions from Jon Brion and the Section Quartet, adding another combination of players to an album already shaped by contributions beyond its two principal songwriters.
“The Outsider” and “Blue” followed “Weak and Powerless” as singles. The album’s commercial life continued beyond that release cycle: on March 24, 2006, the RIAA certified Thirteenth Step platinum for one million U.S. shipments.
