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Muse in Rock & Folk Magazine in France (June 2010) - English Translation

Natalia

By Natalia
in Muse In the Media

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Pip Escapee

Pip

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:stunned: that looks awesome!! I really wanted to get some sort of tatoo there, but I heard it hurts like a mother. Did it hurt really bad?

 

Well that's the funny thing, I actually enjoyed having it done! It felt nice! :erm: :erm:

 

However, that may well have been due to the fact I was absolutely shattered after several late nights and early starts plus one night of no sleep at Dublin airport! We'd been to both Marlay Park in Ireland then the V Festival a few days later!:LOL:

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saski86 Escapee

saski86

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Someone... help :( I can't find Valerie's translation anywhere in this thread. That link in the first post doesn't seem to want to work for me. Any chance anyone could C&P for me? :) Thankyou

 

Not sure if we are allowed to, it says on the link 'Do not post anywhere else without Valerie's permission':unsure:. She's a member here I guess you can ask her.

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Furygirl Escapee

Furygirl

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Someone... help :( I can't find Valerie's translation anywhere in this thread. That link in the first post doesn't seem to want to work for me. Any chance anyone could C&P for me? :) Thankyou

 

Here you go:

 

 

Rock & Folk article – France, June 2010

 

If there are bands we like to hate, there are some we hate to like. Muse are among the latest.

 

It’s much like this mysterious English Marmite, black and acrid, repulsive or addictive: love it or hate it.

 

However, pros & cons can only admit that their fast rise to “best live band in the world” is a quite fascinating phenomenon.

 

In only 10 years these 3 kids who were rehearsing in their garage are now selling out 2 Stade de France & sold 80 000 tickets for Wembley in less than 12 minutes!

 

Can you go any higher? You would have to rent a planet!

 

A new flame

 

They’ve been tagged with many music styles, but it’s quite hard to classify Muse. Songs are complex, experimental, lyrics are paranoid, exulting and romantic; Bellamy’s 3 octaves voice lyrical and their live stage performances make you breathless. Whether you like it or hate it Muse is pharaonic.

 

Obsessed with pyramids, sci-fi , opera, political chaos and the idea of resistance, the thirty something from Devon has built an empire, a cathedral, a worldwide fervor.

 

When their second (and one of their best) album OOS come out critics (like NME) are baffled by their maturity and a certain modernity they bring to a strong musical heritage (Children of Kobain, Kafka, Mahler….). Muse is a war machine. Their albums are temples, their concerts public masses, their music energetic and electro-magnetic, like no other. When brit-pop reigns the 3 lads bring a new flame to music.

 

If Muse was a film it would be a mix of 2001, Kubrick & Stargate, a mutant creature, metaphysics with high tech effects. Muse is Queen meets with Rachmaninov sent at light speed through a particles accelerator.

 

It’s during their Resistance tour that we meet with these 3 young, intelligent, nice guys ready to set stadiums alight.

 

As in any legend there is a beginning. The fantastic destiny of Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Christopher Wolstenholme starts in Teignmouth ,Devon, in the UK. These childhood friend, bored in their little town, are more interested by Nirvana & Smashing Pumpkins than by Brit-Pop. Like many other kids they start their bands, somehow dreaming about success. Bellamy is a young musical prodigy with divorced parents who starts playing piano & guitar to get his father’s attention (him having been in The Tornados, a band with a N°1 hit in America in the 60s). The kid listens to blues, Jazz and most importantly classical music, which will always be a huge influence in Muse’s compositions. Charismatic and restless, he has often talked about his passion for Chopin, Berlioz and Tchaikovski. While a teenager, he becomes friend with Dom Howard Chris Wolstenholme and together they skim schools “rock battles” under various names, delivering intense and violent live performances.

 

Bellamy, a frail man with piercing blue eyes remembers: “we were hardly 18, with outrageous make-up & clothes, causing havoc on stage, but we won and from that point we decided to take our music a bit more seriously”. In 1998 they sign their first EP with Taste Media. Their first album Showbiz (1999) will be the beginning of a supersonic rise. The Muse brand is already on it, intense, powerful, lyrical, full of saturated guitars, oppressing electronics, melodramatic rhythms and with an epic sense of paranoia.

 

Showbiz gives the A, but it’s OOS (released in 2001), album saturated with Mellotrons and organs, that will give the band a large radio exposure. Darker and more complex, this album has these strong classical influences, tainted with opera-rock and sounds experimentations like on Space Dementia, still Ballamy’s favorite. A rock hybrid is born, a glam monster with cringing complaints, a raging cry in a world saturated with information and lies.

 

2 years later, seeing the band perform in Paris Bercy Arena is a hard slap in the face. A deafening show that gets you off the ground, a religious fervor that only Depeche Mode had achieved before that. Sweet and acrid, the songs distil monumental sharp riffs and sweet melancholic piano parts.

 

Since then Muse has received numerous “best band” and “best live band” awards. These 3 young men are incredible performers with an uncommon powerful sound. It’s already a super mass, with outrageous video projections and an abundance of lights and special effects.

 

The watchword: Resistance

 

A few years later they sell out Wembley, twice 80 000 tickets.

 

end of part one.

 

 

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Furygirl Escapee

Furygirl

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part 2:

 

 

 

Could they ever have imagined that? Dominic remembers: “we always had such dreams when we were kids, 16/17, we wanted big things. I went for the first time to the Reading Festival in 1994 and I was picturing us on the main stage. These were dreams and aspirations. I was watching RATM thinking “it’s really a killer, we have to get on that stage someday” and we did it. But we went further then what we expected, which is a bit contradictory as we were dreaming about it but in the meantime we really surprised ourselves.”

 

It’s in France that the alchemy first works, strongly bonding the band with the country.

 

Albums keep coming up every two years, Absolution in 2003 bringing them to the main stream of the force. Paradoxically, the more complex and epic the songs, the more mystical the lyrics, the bigger is the success. However, it’s from this point on that their more hardcore followers shy away as it’s not in good taste anymore to be a fan of this band with paranoid organs. Muse is also an attitude, reminded over and over by Bellamy’s high octaves, tormented and stripped to the chore personae, with one watchword: Resistance.

 

The songs evoke universal emotions: hanger, frustration, the whish for absolute. The young band does not make any concessions. They leave Maverick, their US record company, who wants to turn their lyrics into something more “radio friendly”. They succeed into keeping both their rough side and a more popular one.

 

These children have built an empire on the Brit-Pop bones, with specific musical colors, far far away from Radiohead to whom they’ve been endlessly compared for years. Absolution is also the album that brought them from middle size venues to large arenas and stadiums. According to the band and numerous critics, it’s in 2004, at Glastonbury Festival in front of 60 000 people, that they give their more striking performance. Unfortunately, it’s also that day that Dominic Howard’s father, who attended the gig, dies from a heart attack. Matt Bellamy evokes that drama in these terms: “this concert was our lifetime musical accomplishment. Dom’s father death was surreal. We helped Dom as best as we could and he was happy in a sense to know that his father was there to see his son’s accomplishment that night”.

 

Was Matt Bellamy thinking about his own father, whom he admired and picked up a guitar for, at that time? Who said that children would build an empire on their father’s bones and become pharaohs?

 

BH&R is released in 2006. This album introduces new influences, from Queen to Philip Glass via Prince’s electro-funk. It’s quickly followed by HAARP, their first live one, recorded during their 2 Wembley concerts in 2007. Awards fall like rain. The overwhelming size of their concerts infuses new amplitudes to their following and latest album The Resistance which ends with a 3 part symphony “Exogenesis”, very much born from Bellamy’s classical influences.

 

The secret of their alchemy will always stay a mystery, but something’s growing by the hour.

 

The threesome will soon take over the Stade de France, Wembley, Glastonbury, with Steve Wonder, along with every arena on the planet. So, are you ready?

 

Interview:

 

Muse Ministry

 

R&F: Your tours are like marathons. How do you prepare yourself for this?

 

CW: Much more seriously now. When you’re young you don’t care about partying all the time, but not anymore. I’ve done some good work out before it all. Concerts are being quite physical so it helps keeping in good shape. For 10 years I’ve being drunk most of the time while on tour, but now I’ve stopped drinking and I feel much better then when I was 25. You have to be careful as your mind stay young but your body does not and you realize that you’re not as strong as you used to be.

 

MB: We go do some work out cessions a few weeks before the tour starts, but I’m rather lazy and not really into sports. The first week is usually very tiresome then you get used to the routine. In fact, you suck up the crowd’s energy. You transform all this tension and expectations into energy, you feed from it. I need this to be in great form.

 

R&F: And you Dominic, when we see your slight frame we hardly understand how you can come up with such a powerful drum play. What’s your secret?

 

DH: (with deep voice) The force comes from within (laughter). No, it’s nothing to do with physical strength, when you play in front of 60 000 people it’s adrenaline that gives you that. After a gig you find yourself electric and drenched but mentally high.

 

R&F: This gigantic size of the tours, isn’t it too much?

 

CW: It’s huge yes, but we love that. However we know there are limits, you can’t reasonably go over 100 000 people or it’s not a concert anymore. We love doing stadiums like Wembley or the Parc des Princes (Paris), it’s very impressive. Playing in a stadium is not something you can foresee, even if you have a huge ego or ambition. When we started out we were going to see bands playing in front of 2 000 people and were thinking it was big already. But rapidly we went from this size to big arenas and then stadiums and we hardly saw it coming. For the 2 Stade de France we were really nervous. First we were only thinking about doing one, and not sure about it. The Parc des Princes was already 25 000 people but with this one it was 80 000 people to bring in. But it sold out quickly so we tried a second one and it also sold out in a few hours.

 

MB: With such big concerts the pressure is quite important. When you’re in great shape and very confident it’s fine, there is nothing better than feeling that you can get to the top, give everything to your public, and it happens most of the time. However, when you’re tired everything can go the wrong way, become a nightmare and then you feel unworthy. It’s a risky job. These tours have had a very negative impact on our personal lives. We are to the point where we must find some kind of equilibrium in our lives. It’s when your personal life gets out of control that you get very tired of all this. When you’re on the other side of the world and got problems with your girlfriend, ex girlfriend for me, but you’re not there to solve them it becomes very problematic as you cannot do anything to solve them. The down side of these gigantic tours is the sacrifice of a personal life.

 

R&F: During this tour, that emphasizes a very complex album, will you bring an orchestra onstage for the symphony? Could you give us some hints about the show?

 

MB: We thought about the orchestra, but the logistics to bring so many players onstage are too complicated. There are some limits and our show are already so big… I think I could not deal with the amount of stress brought by this (laughter). So I don’t know if we’ll ever play the whole Exogenesis symphony live. We’re going to start rehearsing it and see if we can synthesize the strings …

 

R&F: What do you say to people who accuse you of megalomania with these pharaonic shows?

 

CW: We don’t care about megalomania. It’s BH&R that brought us where we are now, to stadium level. It’s been a new chapter in our history. The live show also influences the studio recordings. The Parc des Prince & Wembley have influenced some songs like Guiding Light. There is this “stadium” feeling to them.

 

MB: Yes I think we would be happy to come back to something simpler. But we’re doing it to test our limits, to see how far and wide we can go. It’s experimentation. But we would be happy to go back to smaller venues.

 

R&F: What’s the difference between a stadium and a small venue in terms of feelings?

 

MB: Intimacy. In small venues you can see people, see faces, you can sing a song for a specific person, and there is a connection. It’s less dramatic, less epic & simple. You cannot play the exact same songs in a stadium and in a small arena. A song like Take a Bow would not work in a small venue, it’s made for stadiums.

 

CW: Yes it’s very different. In a stadium you feel overwhelmed, it’s a very strong emotion, and you feel proud. When we did Wembley I was breathless, emotionally drowned when I went up on stage. All our families were there in the Royal box. At that moment everything came back to me: our beginnings, the first time we signed a record contract and I thought it wasn’t that far ago.

 

A small gig is pure and rough energy; there is electricity in the air going around the public and on stage. You see their reaction, there is a link as in a stadium it’s a collective trance.

 

R&F: While talking about trance, how do you explain both the fervor and the rejection Muse provokes?

 

MB: It’s hard to tell but the extremes reactions are created when something unexpected or very peculiar happens. Maybe my voice has frequencies that some people cannot stand (laughter). It all depends on ears size (more laughter).

 

CW: Music is extreme hence extreme reactions. I prefer seeing these reactions then being in a band that sell millions of albums because they are seen as politically correct. I’d rather have my music loved by a few then found “all right” by millions. We don’t do music that stays on shelves without being listened to. Our fans are hardcore, they have all the albums, singles, bootlegs, buy t-shirts and go to many gigs during the tour. Sometimes I go onto the forums and they keep talking about us, night and day.

 

R&F: Your success mainly comes from fans who relate to the songs. What do they tell them?

 

MB: I think we’ve talked about the world as it’s been for the last 10 years. The way it’s been presented in through education and the media, the way people really feel about it. There is a difference, a division. I think our songs emphasize this. Our public feels this confusion and wants a change.

 

R&F: Have you always felt this confusion?

 

MB: Yes, I think so. When I was in school I wasn’t feeling in synch with what was thought, I was always questioning things. I’ve always relying on my own feelings about the world. It’s the same nowadays, I’ve got this instinct that kicks in and makes me want to rise against an established order. There is something wrong in this world and you have to resist. I’ve never trusted the information that’s been forced on us. I kind of rebel against a dominant thought. I rely on deep emotions. But maybe it’s just a mental disorder (laughter).

 

 

 

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Gretterati Escapee

Gretterati

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If I ever meet one of the guys I want them to sign something and then me get a tatoo of the signature. The only problem is I don't know where I'd get it :LOL:

 

Haha, when my friend got signed, I wanted her to put a tattoo over it :LOL:

 

It would have been awesome but very very unwise.

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Furygirl Escapee

Furygirl

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part 3:

 

 

R&F: Is your fans fervor still a surprise?

 

MB: Oh yes! I’m always surprised when I meet fans who have tattooed Muse name or our names. Every time I think to myself that we’ll never be able to split the band. It brings a kind of responsibility. There is a strong link with our fans and that’s why we’ll never split up after a fight, a bad mood or because one of us would become a junky, because the link is too strong and we have to keep it up. This responsibility is something that keeps us sane, that protects us as well.

 

R&F: What do you say when people tell you that Muse is a prog band? Does it bother you?

 

MB: Yes I hear that more and more. But it’s just a part of what we are. We have a prog side in some songs complexity, but we also have a pop feeling like in Starlight or Time is running Out. Some songs got their inspiration from progressive rock, but if you look at the singles it’s not the case.

 

DH: (pulling a face) For me prog rock is very much linked to the 70s, Pink Floyd, Genensis. I do not like this rock-fusion and I don’t think we’re coming from this. This term “progressive” is not a pejorative one. We do complex arrangements; we like to let our songs get lost in many meanders. But it’s just a terminology applying to songs that are outside of the usual squared 3 minutes ones.

 

France, the first country

 

R&F: What are your best memories from the tours?

 

DH: We have many, but mostly forgotten ones (laughter). I don’t remember a lot from the BH&R tour. Wembley is unforgettable, the biggest concert outside a festival with 75 000 people. When we played Blackout two acrobats hooked under giant balloons flew over the crowd and it was beautiful. From behind the drumkit I was watching both the show and the public and it was like being on the other side for once.

 

MB: 2007 was fantastic, along with the Australian tour. It’s very difficult to pick one in particular. Wembley and Glastonbury were incredible moments of course. But also Saint-Malo and la Route du Rock 10 years ago, in front of 10 000 people. Back then it was our biggest gig, a real shock! I will never forget Saint-Malo.

 

R&F: It’s in France that your career really took off. Why this very peculiar link with a non English speaking country?

 

CW: I don’t know, it came as a surprise. Yes, in France it started very early. We were not known, but in 2003 we did a small gig for radio Oui FM and 500 people turned up. It was the first time we were asked for autographs, photos, the first time we felt like rock stars. It was the first country where this was happening. And the Route du Rock dumbfounded us.

 

For us France was the first to join the bandwagon, other countries were slower.

 

R&F: Are you already thinking about a new album? Something more classical?

 

MB: Classical music? Maybe but I don’t know if it’s going to be with Muse. Maybe more like a side project. I have written songs but I do not think it’s good to make a new Muse album that soon, we need a break. And now there is the new tour coming up, so more bonfires to be burnt

 

 

And that's all. :)

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Exoval Escapee

Exoval

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Thanks guys for sending me messages & a huge hug & :kiss: to Natalia. You are doing an amazing job for us all :D

 

I like this interview for many reasons:

For once, a major French music mag is doing it right!!!!

Chris comes here quite often and "talks", that's amazing :D

Matt gives us something to talk about that is not only related to his personal life ;)

and of course, we may be hardcore but they love us :LOL:

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Tofu Escapee

Tofu

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Thanks for posting and the translation, nice read:kiss:.

 

Matt's favourite song off OOS is Space Dementia, why don't they play it then:(, I want to hear it NOW:'(. It my favourite Muse song.

Matt's also said that while he loves piano at home, he hates playing it onstage. :p That said, PLAY SPACE DEMENTIA DAMMIT. :fear::p

 

No one has commented on Matt saying he doesn't think they'll ever use a full orchestra? I thought there was gonna be one at Glasto...?

I just interpreted it as "this interview is old." :p

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Natalia Escapee

Natalia

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Thanks guys for sending me messages & a huge hug & :kiss: to Natalia. You are doing an amazing job for us all :D

 

I like this interview for many reasons:

For once, a major French music mag is doing it right!!!!

Chris comes here quite often and "talks", that's amazing :D

Matt gives us something to talk about that is not only related to his personal life ;)

and of course, we may be hardcore but they love us :LOL:

 

:kiss: right back at you!

 

Chris is right though, they don't make music that sits on the shelves without being listened to, us crazy hardcore fans will hunt down every significant video/bootleg/demo and get it :LOL: I've probably seen and heard everything there is to see and hear, and I still need my Musey fix most days ;) We are a different breed, my friends! :D

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Missy411 Escapee

Missy411

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:kiss: right back at you!

 

Chris is right though, they don't make music that sits on the shelves without being listened to, us crazy hardcore fans will hunt down every significant video/bootleg/demo and get it :LOL: I've probably seen and heard everything there is to see and hear, and I still need my Musey fix most days ;) We are a different breed, my friends! :D

 

That was my favorite part of the article. I love tons of music but nothing gets listened to on a regular basis the way Muse does. And while I have all the albums of most of my favorite bands, with Muse I have bootlegs and live recordings and unreleased stuff...his quote was very perceptive.

 

And wasn't it odd that Matt and Chris did all the talking, while Dom stayed so quiet?

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t.gypsy Escapee

t.gypsy

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Thanks for that.

 

*waves* hi chris.. just join in we wont bite ;) pwomise..

 

that was a good article in light of whats been happening and you know what if i was a celeb much the same as muse i wouldnt give two fucks about what people thought of me. As long as i am being appreciated for the work i put out and the people like it i am not going to worry about the ones that are happy to pick holes...

 

I am wondering if that is how matt looks at it sometimes. And also interviews i would get bored doing them.

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Jujubean Escapee

Jujubean

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Good interview. :happy: I liked the bit about fans talking about Muse night and day. Its a reflection of how broad their fanbase is really. Not a lot of bands can claim followers in countries around the globe to the point where someone is always online. In fact, the last twitter uprising proved that point very well.

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syzygy Escapee

syzygy

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Well that's the funny thing, I actually enjoyed having it done! It felt nice! :erm: :erm:

 

However, that may well have been due to the fact I was absolutely shattered after several late nights and early starts plus one night of no sleep at Dublin airport! We'd been to both Marlay Park in Ireland then the V Festival a few days later!:LOL:

 

:stunned: really?! huh. what did it feel like then, just tugging at your arm?

 

:LOL: the natural pain-easing drug!

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