Troy Van Leeuwen was born January 5th 1970 near Los Angeles, California. He was first interested in drums but had a more natural talent for guitars, which he began playing at the age of 13.

Little is known about Troy’s first bands Little Boots and 60 Cycle. Little Boots were around from 1987 to 1988 and have been described as sounding like “British Rock”. They recorded a few demos and played a few live shows but broke up due to “normal band drama”.

The next band we know about is 60 Cycle. He appears on their 1995 release, Pretender, and their 1996 self-titled release. This is also where he met Kellii Scott and they began working on an unnamed project that would later become ENEMY.
Troy then went on to the band Failure, with Greg Edwards, Ken Andrews, and Kellii Scott. Failure has been sited by critics as one of the most talented and almost revolutionary groups of the 90s music spectrum, though not many of the listening public have heard them. It was while touring with them he met Joshua Homme for the first time.

The book was closed on Failure after 3 records and Troy went on to doing studio work with bands such as Orgy, Depeche Mode, and Korn, to name a few. He wasn’t even looking for a gig when A Perfect Circle’s Maynard James Keenan approached him to come and check out the band. He felt APC was a good group of musicians that were playing good music together. He has described APC as “good chemistry”.

Troy appeared on two of A Perfect Circle’s Albums before, he beat out Jeordie White for the second guitarist position in Queens Of The Stone Age and had to learn 30 songs in a week for the upcoming Songs for the Deaf tour. He has been with Queens ever since and appeared on both Lullabies to Paralyze and Era Vulgaris.
Through all this he has had multiple side projects including Revenge of the Triad, Sun Trash, and some without names (See the Discography section for a more complete list). His current projects include both QOTSA, his “big dumb rock band” ENEMY, and some work with an “incredible female singer” that we hope to see soon.

ENEMY is made up of Troy, Eddie Nappi, formally of Handsome, and Kellii Scott, currently of Veruca Salt. Their first album, Hooray For Dark Matter, was released October 2005. But they have returned to the studio to work on a second one.

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