(MUSE) T IN THE PARK: Rhapsody in Balado
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| Muse have finally ditched their unjustified Radiohead-esque tag to become headliners in their own right (picture: Tony Haresign) |
The Scotsman
Friday 30 June 2000
Next weekend, a field near Kinross will be transformed into the festival capital of the UK - and Muse could well prove to be the main attraction, says Paul Whitelaw.
Pretentiousness, as someone probably very pretentious once said, is the enemy of tiny minds. Muse, the UK's latest great white hope, have encountered countless tiny minds upon their vertiginous rise, minds ill-disposed to their Devonshire three piece's giddy, ostentatious mix of Radiohead-esque pomp and Nirvana-splattered viscera.
Derided as mindlessly derivative and windily pompous, Muse wear the mantle of misunderstood pioneers with thinly-veiled pride. For Muse-and in particular their skinny front-chap Matt Bellamy - know that vindication is but a chart-beat away. Bristling with an assurance and self-belief which is a million miles from the vacuous posturing of Oasis et al, Bellamy is in little doubt that his detractors will be left choking on their preconceptions.
"Up until very recently we had two solid years of nothing but criticism," he states. "Every review ran along the lines of 'cut-price Radiohead, blah blah blah.' We became really ambivalent about it after a while."
But what about those ever-present Radiohead comparisons? Does Bellamy think they're justified? "I understand the comparison," he concedes. "But it's very lazy and myopic to accuse us of copying them. People need reference points, but sometimes they can't see beyond them. We don't let it bother us anymore."
Formed eight years ago in Teignmouth, north of Torquay, the teenage Bellamy - along with bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dom Howard - began, as, nascent bands are want to do do, emulating the sounds of contemporaneous pop. Thus, under sundry hopeless monikers such as Fixed Penalty, Carnage Mayhem and the fragrant Gothic Plague, the trio found themselves in thrall to the ramshackle (read: appalling) likes of justly-forgotten fraggle rockers such as Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Mega City 4.
Bellamy, however, looks back on those days with fondness. "I'm glad the three of us started playing together back then," says the erstwhile painter and decorator. "Loads of people around us were forming bands, but we were the only three who were really serious about it. It's all we wanted to do. Mega City 4 and the Senseless Things were the only bands that ever came down to Devon, so they were our formative influences."
Another, more lasting influence was the corrosive sound of US alt-rock, particularly Nirvana. Bellamy's justly lauded, dizzying falsetto was, though, yet to be unleashed upon the world. "I was always a bit embarrassed about my voice because it's high" he reveals. "I was singing very quietly at that time. My sort of voice wasn't fashionable then, sort of Kurt Cobain shouting was more in vogue. In about 1994, though, I saw Jeff Buckley at Reading, and I realized he had similar range to mine. I was blown away. That was the first time I realized I could use my voice properly, that I could explore my range. Jeff Buckley definitely made me less frightened to sing the way I do."
But musically, Muse hadn't yet settled upon a viable sound. Their steadfast desire to do something out of the ordinary was already in place, albeit in a less cohesive form. "Because I play piano, our early stuff was sort of dreamy, quite similar to our current stuff," recalls Bellamy. "Then we got into more avant-garde things - Primus, Frank Zappa - because we wanted to learn how to play our instruments really well. It helped us eventually, but it all got a bit silly. Eventually, though, we came back to this sort of sound. It's been a strange, cyclical process."
It was Bellamy's mastery of the ivories, that bought the first sniff of success for the band "I won this competition playing boogie-woogie piano," he laughs, "Dennis Smith, the owner of Sawmills studio [home of Oasis], heard about this somehow and he said he was interested in the band. He gave us some recording time and it all took off from there."
Indeed Muse's ascendance had been dramatic, following a couple of limited-edition EPs, the band won the celebrated In the City competition in 1998, resulting in major-label feeding frenzy. Following countless showcases ("celebrated" in the band's top 20 hit Sunburn), they eventually signed no fewer than four contracts, including a US deal with Madonna's Maverick label, Bellamy is philosophical about the sudden change in fortune. "A lot of my friends have been through big changes recently - mine isn't that much different than theirs. This age, early twenties, is when you're presented with sudden changes and shifts in direction and you just accept it."
But, isn't finding your face splashed over billboards and magazine covers a slightly disorienting experience? "I try not to take it all too seriously," he says. "The only thing I find strange is that because people recognize me, they talk to me as if they have known me for years. I find often that people ask me things of a personal nature that they wouldn't normally ask that early in the getting-to-know-you stage.
"It's slightly odd, but it doesn't bother me really. If someone comes up to you and calls you an arrogant pretentious c*** or says 'I'm completely in love with you, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen', the response is pretty much the same. They're such extreme exclamations to make, based on very little substance, and they both give you very little room to respond in a sensible way. You become as immune to criticism as you do to praise".
The lyrics of Sunburn do suggest a somewhat jaundiced view of the music industry, but Bellamy won't be drawn on such specifics. "That line, 'another corporate show', the line that seemed befitting on the album but I usually change it live, often to something of a sexual nature," he says. "Whatever that line is, it changes the entire meaning of the song. I used the image of a moth flying towards a light bulb - they do it because they think it'll bring them something, but they don't know what, but they feel compelled to do it because it's ingrained within them to fly towards light, sunlight, whatever.
"The reason they do it though is for mating purposes. A lot of people in bands are like that I think. They talk about doing what they do out of some quest for spiritual enlightenment, but all they're really in it for is to get laid."
Following their triumphant Glastonbury performance last weekend, which climaxed in the band indulging in a hilariously destructive, orgiastic tussle with their drum kit, and next week's eagerly awaited Balado appearance, Muse are off to tour the US of A.
So, we will soon be losing our wan and winsome boys to a life of hotel-devouring stadium-trouncing debauchery? "We like a drink as well as the next band, yes" concedes Bellamy. "But our rider consists of fine wines and Doritos, nothing more. Maybe some salsa dip."
Rock and, in a deliciously pretentious sense, roll.
*Apologies for the picture, it didn't scan well, and doesn't line up well.
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