The Walkmen - The Rat the vocals, drums and guitars would be breathtaking!

http://www.tv3.ie/xpose/article/entertainment-news/195681/Matt-Bellamy-explains-stage-silence Matt Bellamy doesn't interact with the audience during Muse gigs because he doesn't think it would fit with the songs. The frontman admits the dark themes of the songs would mean he had to become a ''hammy character'' if he were to chat away to his audience in order to fit in with the mood of the music. He said: ''That's the one stagecraft skill I've somehow avoided. I don't know how I've managed to get away with it. ''There's definitely a feeling when I've attempted to talk that I've broken the fourth wall. ''I look at great public speakers like Bono, Chris Martin, Bruce Springsteen and the character inbetween the songs is the same person you're getting in the songs, whereas if I was to talk in the way the songs are talking, it would probably be a little bit too hammy.'' However, the rocker also admitted he just isn't that great about opening up in public. He added: ''I think I'm making excuses because I'm not a great public speaker.'' Whereas Muse's recent albums have all been based around particular themes, Matt thinks his upcoming music will be different. He told Q magazine: ''My focus won't be a large body of work. For a number of years I'm not going to attempt to make a full collection of work that has a very clear theme. ''I feel like I've done that. I think the albums before 'Drones' were each trying to improve on that. I'd like to be a bit more sporadic and random.''

http://whatculture.com/music/10-amazing-things-you-didnt-know-about-matt-bellamy.php 10. He Loves Monty Python If Muse can seem a little bit ridiculous at times, it’s unlikely that frontman Matt Bellamy goes unaware. In a 2012 interview with NME, Matt acknowledged how eccentric the band can be. “We don’t care if people don’t necessarily take songs like that 100 per cent seriously. We’re not afraid of our eccentricities, we’re not afraid of going into almost Monty Python rock. But it’s like opera. If you put a piece of opera on, it’s ridiculous unless you’ve listened to the whole thing and just go there with it.” Turns out Matt is a massive fan of the British comedy troupe Monty Python (most famous for Monty Python And The Holy Grail and Monty Python’s Life Of Brian) admiring their satirization through absurdity. Perhaps that makes Muse’s overtly political shenanigans a bit easier to understand? “Essentially, we approach music the same way Monty Python did comedy.” 9. He Holds A Guinness World Record If you thought Kurt Cobain smashed a lot of guitars, you ain’t seen nothing (be utterly smashed to pieces) yet. In 2010, the Guinness Book Of World Records cited Bellamy as having the record for the most guitars smashed on a single tour. How many guitars exactly? One hundred and forty. The record was set during the Absolution tour, which took place in 2004. While smashing equipment may seem reckless and wasteful, the price is a flash in the pan when compared to all the other pyrotechnics and crazy special effects the band employs. A good old guitar smash is just as much a part of the show as a pillar of flame or a cannon filled with confetti, and it’s just as exhilarating to watch, too. 8. His Cats Are Named After Kanye West And Kim Kardashian Despite not being a massive fan of Kanye’s music, Matt named his cats after the musician and his wife. In an interview with Radio.com, Matt said of Kanye: “I’ve listened to bits of that new record Yeezus. I like some of the sounds, but some of the lyrics of those artists throw me off a bit. It’s very full on, in your face, it’s very ‘me, me, me’.” Matt wasn’t inspired to name his cats after the musician until he came backstage following one of the band’s performances. Apparently this brief meeting was enough to leave an impression on Bellamy, who later clarified on BBC Radio One that his cats really were named after Kim and Kanye. We may be some way off a Kanye West/Muse collaboration, but it’s pretty amusing to think about nevertheless. 7. He Owns A Jet Pack The names Bellamy. Matt Bellamy. People have been speculating about what a Muse-written Bond theme might sound like for years now (the fan favourite is Supremacy, released on the band’s divisive 2012 album The 2nd Law) but the band shares another connection to 007 that not a whole lot of people know about. Matt Bellamy owns a jet pack. It’s not even that surprising, really. Most of us would have one given the capital. Oh, but technically it’s actually a paramotor. In a 2008 interview, Bellamy admitted that the machine cost around ten thousand pounds and he’s only actually flown it once. Look on the bright side, though…he apparently wants to devote more time to mastering it. Just how long until we see Matt fly into one of Muse’s concerts? Hopefully it’s only a matter of time. 6. He Watches Adventure Time It’s always cool to hear people you admire talk about art that inspires them. It’s even cooler when that art is a surreal, animated television show broadcast on Cartoon Network. If you haven’t at least heard of Adventure Time, you’ve probably been living underground for the past few years. I mean, even Matt Bellamy is in to it! Talking to Absolute Radio, he said: “I’m getting into is this bizarre TV show called Adventure Time, it’s like a cartoon aimed at children but it looks so surreal, it’s like Monty Python meets… Monty Python meets Tom and Jerry or something, it’s really really surreal.” Imagining Bellamy with his feet up in the morning watching the adventures of Jake and Finn is a brilliant image. In defiance of Lemongrab’s famous quote, it’s something that is absolutely acceptable. 5. He Has A Crazy Irish Stalker It’s a sad yet practically inevitable fact that prominent figures (usually in the entertainment industry) often become the victims of obsessive fan stalking. I’m sure most household names could detail bizarre, creepy encounters with overzealous fans, and Muse’s Matt Bellamy is no different. According to Matt, the man dresses in military clothing and leaves bizarre items near his house. “He’s from Ireland and he keeps coming to where I live in Italy. And he keeps leaving bags full of crazy stuff, like loads of bottles with messages written on them. He’s got loads of poetry that he has written, which is all about the end of the world. He’s trying to create little bits of clues and puzzles that are supposed to lead me to some kind of journey somewhere.” Apparently the man got Bellamy’s address from a neighbour after claiming to be a family member. If you’re out there, creepy Irish dude…please stop. 4. He Can Say The Alphabet Backwards 3. The First Song He Ever Learned Was The Dallas Theme Tune “The theme tune from Dallas. When I was about three, my brother used to hold me in front of the TV, and then put me at the piano and make me work it out with one finger. Then he’d show his friends and say, look, he’s a machine! I remember being picked up and carried from the TV to the piano.” 2. He Sells Wine With His Ex-Wife Matt Bellamy had a hand in creating wine. I wonder what it tastes like…freedom? The defiance of Big Brother? The uncovering of an American military conspiracy? Despite the fact that Matt and his wife have now separated, their wine business is very much still alive. According to Kate Hudson in an interview with Wine Enthusiast, the two intend on continuing to sell as normal. We’re family for the rest of our lives, we have a beautiful baby and we love making wine. We’ll continue doing it. The two may not be drunk on love any more, but you can bet they still want to get us drunk on wine. 1. Matt Bellamy Is A Shepherd Add this to the list of bizarre facts about Matt Bellamy. Though known for being a little bit out there (Bellamy has a lot to say on aliens, for example, and their role in the development of the human species through cross pollination) this one absolutely takes the…er…fleece? In a 2015 interview on BBC Radio 1, Bellamy talked about his sheep and how he was getting ready to fleece them. He also confirmed he has 160 of the woolly animals. Not only that, his sheep have actually been present during one of the band’s tracks, Guiding Light. In a 2009 interview about album The Resistance, Dom stated that he recorded the snare drum in the field where Matt’s sheep are kept, with microphones near a river so that it can be heard alongside the beat. And if that’s not enough, Matt even responded to question on Twitter from a fan (Cottage pie or shepherds pie?) with the words “I am a Shepherd”. So then: we’ve heard it straight from the man himself. Matt Bellamy is indeed a shepherd.

British rocker Matt Bellamy thinks music lovers sometimes want to hear dark and unusual songs. Muse frontman Matt Bellamy thought all the happy people in Los Angeles were fake when he first arrived there. The British rocker moved stateside to be closer to his son Bingham, four, who he has with ex Kate Hudson. Matt and actress Kate have remained good friends, and he's content with his life in the Californian sunshine. However, that wasn't always the case. "When you first move to LA you think anyone who seems that happy is fake," he laughed to Q magazine. "It takes your two or three years to realise they're just happy." As well as warming to the happy people of LA, Matt's outlook on life has also changed. "In my younger years I really didn't know what was going on in the world," he admitted. "As I've gotten older and I start to see clearly what my gripes are, I think I'm able to articulate it slightly better. Clarity is emerging. I'm past the point of thinking there's some f**king puppet master controlling it all." Muse are known for their thumping rock anthems, and delight crowds the world over when they tour. They're hotly tipped to be performing at Glastonbury 2016, alongside Coldplay, who are the only confirmed headliners at this stage. Their fans have come to expect massive productions, with the band using everything from spinning stages to robots in their spectacles. In Matt's own words he sings about "innocent people, basically being killed by robots" but then uses the technology himself to wow audiences. "It's quite common in the film industry. You get blockbusters dealing with heavy topics like warfare and politics," he pondered. "I don't know why the music world has more no-go areas. What's the musical version of Star Wars? "Musical acts tend to be based on love concepts. I think people sometimes want to experience something dark and unusual."

http://lasvegassun.com/vegasdeluxe/2016/jan/12/review-muse-drones-spectacle-spectacular-mandalay-/ Leading into British rock band Muse’s “Drones World Tour” stop Saturday night at Mandalay Bay Events Center, knowledge of the repertoire of the band formed in 1994 was limited to its four most commercially successful, fan-favorite songs: “Starlight,” “Madness,” “Supermassive Black Hole” (yes, because of “Twilight”) and “Uprising.” By the end of the nearly two-hour, supermassive-ly awesome set, Muse had an avid new fan boy in this journalist. Muse is heartthrob Matthew Bellamy (vocals, guitar, keyboard, keytar, piano, lyrics) who qualifies as dreamy not only because he’s a frontman with soaring, emotive vocals, but also because he was engaged to actress Kate Hudson for a spell; hunky Christopher Wolstenholme (bass, backing vocals, keyboard, guitar); and Dominic Howard (percussion, synthesizer). An unidentified keyboardist supported Muse on Saturday night and certainly deserves a salute. Muse’s post-apocalyptic world kicked off at 9 p.m. with illuminated hullaballoons, nine of them that look like plastic versions of the High Roller pods at the Linq Promenade, floating above the arena. Smartly, the stage was set up in the middle of the events center floor flanked by two catwalks, staging that maximized Muse’s spectacular production and meant standing-room-only on the floor, which led to a raucous crowd for the entire concert, not to discount the high-energy loyalty of Muse fans. It’s staging that should be used more often, at least to keep up the energy level. Eight rectangular scrims hanging from the ceiling flanked a round circular screen above Muse and were used effectively to project images during the concert. During “The Handler,” puppet strings were projected to look as if they controlled Bellamy, Wolstenholme and his big guns and Howard and his drumsticks. The evening was nearly entirely production with little audience engagement — Bellamy managed a “How are you guys feeling tonight?” before “Resistance” — not a criticism at all in an evening when Bellamy and Wolstenholme’s guitar work was exceptional and soared with the riveting, out-of-this-world and sometimes rapturous production. During “Supermassive Black Hole,” Wolstenholme took the lead vocals at times, with Bellamy focusing on guitar, and the hullaballoons returned to orbit. During the sing-along “Starlight,” large black balloons were released throughout the events center and when popped at the end of the song released confetti. “Munich Jam” turned the spotlight on Wolstenholme and Howard, as the duo engaged in a thrashing guitar-and-drum solo duet while the stage rotated. During “Madness,” the first slowed-down, ballad-ish song of the night, Wolstenholme played a “Kitara,” an iPad-like, touch-sensitive guitar. The concert started loud and fierce and ended the same way. “The Globalist” began ballad-like, then rocked hard with accompanying big drone hovering over the crowd, the return of the hullaballoons and incredible, recorded harmony of what sounded like a men’s choir. Confetti cannons erupted after “Mercy,” which reminded of another British band, Erasure, and before the show-closing “Knights of Cydonia.”

Muse are already thinking about where they will steer their 8th studio album. "I think we started thinking about what we're gonna do next as soon as Drones was released," says Dominic Howard. "I think that happens naturally. As far as timing and musically what that's going to be, that's a bit difficult to pin down. But we've already been talking about what it should be, where it can go and how we're gonna go about doing that. It might take a couple of years, like it usually does." And while Drones brought Muse back to their pompy, bombastic roots, Howard is predicting another sea change ahead. "I think it'll be another shift. We went into this album all about making it very organic & kind of rock & having this live energy, so I think next time around it'll be something completely different. Time to change & evolve again as a band." In the meantime, Muse are looking forward to showing off the in-the-round production they launched in November, which takes the band in an ambitious new direction on stage. "It's wild. It's such a different playing experience, it really is. The audience, for one, just feels so much closer. Particularly for me, because I'm normally sitting at the back of the stage, on a riser, & the audience is always a certain distance away, but now they're literally a few feet away. So that's really cool. And for Matt & Chris, just like walking around, running around all over the place & they have loads of different microphone positions to sing from. So there's a lot going on."