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The Band That Rose Without Trace: Muse On The Cover Of M Magazine (#38, Dec 2010)

Natalia

By Natalia
in Muse In the Media

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Natalia Escapee

Natalia

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Has this been posted yet? Sorry if it has.

 

Scans courtesy of HAARP61 (Catherine)

 

The scans are large enough to read, and this is a pretty interesting interview with Matt:

 

 

 

 

When someone like Queen’s Roger Taylor describes you as ‘probably the greatest live act in the world today’, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve arrived. Paul Sexton discovers that Muse’s emotional connection with its diehard fans will provide a unique source of strength and musical invention for a long time to come.

 

If the bands that stay together the longest are the ones that stay in touch with their fans, then Muse will be packing out the enormodomes of the world for decades to come. The rock trio have long been the most popular thing to come out of Teignmouth in Devon since cod. Sixteen years together, and a dozen on record, have never brought the merest suggestion of internal strife or indeed a whiff about their personal lives.

 

But the real secret of Muse and their immense fanbase of diehard devotees lies in something frontman Matt Bellamy tells me, in a break between seemingly endless tour dates. Not only do they feel in touch with their audience, they are actually beginning to think and write like them. Not so much a rock band and its disciples, more a co-operative life force; these are the men who put the ‘us’ in Muse.

 

‘There are some songs recently,’ Bellamy explains, ‘where we’re using the pronoun ‘we’ much more then ‘I’, because that tends to work in the bigger live environment, when people are singing along. With that feeling of being overwhelmed by the audience on a regular basis, you start to tune into a collective emotion. You’re not thinking so much about your own feelings all the time, you start to tune into what lots of people are thinking.’

 

Muse have been working on the craft of becoming one of the best live acts in the world as long as they’ve existed, and if you ask them which of their countless awards means the most to them, it will always be the ones that recognize their stagecraft, be it their Brit, NME or Q trophies.

 

Early in 2011, the band will get one of their most prestigious endorsements yet, opening for U2 in South America in March, at enormous shows in Chile, Argentina and Brazil. ‘We’ve done our own tour there once before,’ Bellamy says, ‘but obviously U2 are doing monstrous gigs, like three nights of 80,000 each, so it will be a great chance to play for a massive audience. And it’ll be nice because the pressure will be off, you don’t have to play so long and you can chill out and enjoy yourself.’

 

When Muse were presented with their O2 Silver Clef Award this past July by no less a heavyweight pairing like Roger Taylor and Brian May of Queen, Taylor described Muse simply as ‘probably the greatest live act in the world today’.

 

‘We’ve got so many of those awards and we’re so happy with them,’ says Bellamy. ‘There was a while where we were getting them quite consistently. We don’t consider ourselves in the Premier League of rock bands, or whatever you want to call it, we never really saw ourselves that way. But when you start getting the awards, you start thinking “Oh, people are really enjoying this,” and the venues keep getting bigger.’

 

For all their hard-won stature, Muse are, in mainstream pop media terms, the band that rose without trace – and that’s the way they like it. ‘I’m still really surprised,’ says Bellamy about the band’s decade-plus of ever-increasing success. ‘We haven’t had massive hits, so it is based on something other than radio play.’

 

Muse’s first album Showbiz, released in 1999, peaked at a tentative No. 29. They became a UK No. 1 album act four years later with Absolution, followed to the summit in 2006 by Black Holes and Revelations and, last year, by The Resistance, the record they are still tirelessly touring.

 

But, on the singles side, Bellamy’s point is well supported by the statistics. Since Sunburn, from that first album, they’ve hit the UK top 40 on 20 occasions – but only four Muse singles have reached the top ten, and only one of those, Supermassive Black Hole, stayed there more than a week.

 

‘There’s a part of me that’s glad we don’t have any one song that overshadows everything else,’ says Bellamy. ‘Some bands have that and they start to get weird about that song. There’s a few key songs we play live (Nat: for example – FG), but it’s not like they were massive hits. When people think of our band, I don’t think they think of a particular song, they think of something else like a general sense of the music. Sometimes after a big hit everything else seems like a big comedown, and that can affect a band’s creativity. On the last US tour, there were certain songs we started not to play for the first time, like Newborn and occasionally Stockholm Syndrome, songs we’ve probably played at every gig since they’ve been released. It’s getting to that point now where you’ve got to start making choices, so you start to veer towards creating sets where you care more about the mood and the flow, rather than specific songs.’

 

Early in their journey, I recall watching Muse in the relatively modest, sleepy Surrey environs of the Guildford Festival (now Guilfest), and specifically thinking that this was a stadium band of the future. So there was a certain sense of completion about them playing not one but two dates at Wembley Stadium in September, and flying a giant UFO over the crowd. As one does.

 

Matt Bellamy says that a focus on playing their expansive rock in the biggest settings possible was always paramount, and the music had the same sense of ambition. ‘Some of our songs on the early albums were definitely reaching above the concerts we were playing,’ he says. ‘So, weirdly enough, some of them work better now than they did in those earlier venues. They were going for the big arena-type feel when we were still playing in theatres. Really, we just filter out the songs that don’t work in the big environment, like Unintended on the first album would work really well in a club setting, but it doesn’t always translate that well in the big venues.’

 

And news just in: Muse still haven’t finished expanding. ‘There are still songs that, even at the biggest gigs, feel as if they’re reaching a bit further than that,’ says Bellamy. Take a Bow has been hit and miss – when it works, it always seems to be in a bigger setting. But if you play it in a small venue, it’s really bad!’ he laughs. ‘It just comes across as way too theatrical and over-reaching.’

 

But while the songs have expanded to fit the space available, Bellamy is keen to avoid putting the creative cart ahead of the horse. ‘With quite a few of the songs on the last two albums, you think about how to play them live. If anything, I’m trying to avoid doing that now, because I don’t want to do the same thing again. So sometimes you’ve got to try not to think about the gigs in order to get to a place you’ve not been to in the past.’

 

All the same, he acknowledges that there is a trademark Muse sound. ‘It’s hard to get away from it, it’s always going to be there. There’s always going to be a big riff somewhere on the album,’ he says with a laugh. ‘But at the same time, you’re looking to try different things, like on the last album with a song like Undisclosed Desires. It’s not necessarily written to make the crowd rock out, or to make for a big concert experience, but I still think it’s one of our better songs, in terms of lyrical content and melodies.’

 

For all the band’s pomp-rock tendencies, Bellamy comes across as anything but self-regarding. We were speaking as he enjoyed a few days back in the UK between tour dates, during which time he was going back west to visit his family.

 

Even so, the question about whether he, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard are the same people they were at Teignmouth Community College is met with a firm no. ‘But we were teenagers when we started, so it’s difficult to know what changes are just due to growing up, and what’s happened through the touring life and the job, it’s difficult to quantify. I suppose we’re much more outgoing people now, and more interested in mu7sical influences from further afield. We’re generally much more open to different ways of thinking, and seeing music and the world around us. Some of that’s influenced by being on the road for a long time.’

 

If the ever-increasing dimensions of the stage set doesn’t tell you how huge they’ve become, a glance at their website will soon reveal Muse’s vast infrastructure, like some gigantic, prog-rock Eden Project. In the comprehensive merchandising section, you have the choice of a Muse umbrella (30 quid), a Muse teddy bear (15, in a natty miniature ‘Uprising’ t-shirt) or a Muse poncho (handy for those rain-soaked outdoor spectaculars, a snip at 4 pounds).

 

‘A lot of those merch things are requests,’ says Bellamy. ‘Fans ask for things like that, like “Why don’t you make an umbrella like an album cover?” and you think “That’s a weird idea!” I don’t follow the merch side of things that closely (Nat: if he did, Muse-balls would have never seen the light of day!). Dom gets very involved, designing it. When you’ve got a hardcore fanbase, they tend to want everything, all the behind-the-scenes footage, every t-shirt. They collect things.’

 

As far as the daytime media are concerned, Muse are about as fashionable as the common cold. Bellamy not only doesn’t mind that, he actively embraces it. ‘What’s interesting is that the “community” feel we have is very much about music,’ he says. ‘Other bands have that feeling, but often it’s to do with fashion and cultural meaning. With us, we haven’t really connected on a fashionable level, if you like, or to do with a new genre or movement of music. So for that reason, the sense of community with our fans is very much about the music, which is nice. It’s not like everyone’s wearing gothic make-up or something' (Nat – some of us have been seen wearing worse stuff. Lab coats, anyone?).

 

The follow-up to The Resistance will start to come into being next year. ‘We’re all thinking of moving back to London next year some time, so it’ll be the first time we’re all going to be living in the same place since we were much younger. It’ll make rehearsing a lot easier. Maybe in the summer, we’ll start getting into rehearsing and writing.’

 

Does that mean there aren’t executives checking their watches and wondering when the next installment in muse’s epic story will arrive? ‘I’m sure there are somewhere,’ says Bellamy. ‘Luckily we’re in a position where we don’t have to pay attention to that.’

 

 

 

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LyraSilvertongue Escapee

LyraSilvertongue

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Thanks natalia and Catherine :happy:

 

Muse’s first album Showbiz, released in 2000, peaked at a tentative No. 29. They became a UK No. 1 album act three years later with Absolution, followed to the summit in 2006 by Black Holes and Revelations and, last year, by The Resistance, the record they are still tirelessly touring.

 

It really wouldn't have taken much effort for them to have got this bit right. Not even a mention of Origin of Symmetry :rolleyes:

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QubiQ Escapee

QubiQ

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Thanks for posting. :)

 

This bit about UD made me chuckle. Glad to know he is proud of the lyrics.

a song like Undisclosed Desires. It’s not necessarily written to make the crowd rock out, or to make for a big concert experience, but I still think it’s one of our better songs, in terms of lyrical content and melodies.
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JessicaSarahS Guiding Light

JessicaSarahS

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Thanks for posting. :)

 

This bit about UD made me chuckle. Glad to know he is proud of the lyrics.

 

a song like Undisclosed Desires. It’s not necessarily written to make the crowd rock out, or to make for a big concert experience, but I still think it’s one of our better songs, in terms of lyrical content and melodies.

 

 

I've grown to love UD. I didn't like it at first because it felt so different from the typical Muse sound. But the lyrics are pretty good and the beat is catchy. I still don't care for it live very much, but the glowy keytar gives it some interest.

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QubiQ Escapee

QubiQ

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I've grown to love UD. I didn't like it at first because it felt so different from the typical Muse sound. But the lyrics are pretty good and the beat is catchy. I still don't care for it live very much, but the glowy keytar gives it some interest.

 

Yep agree with you there, and Matt isn't afraid to admit it's not a good live song from the aspects of rock or arena/stadium gigs. ;)

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