MUSE - Premier gigs in Japan 2001. Origin of Symmetry.
c. July 2001
(Note - unfortunately the questions have been taken out, so this is fragmented)
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah it's been...I mean the last couple of years we've done a lot really. We've sort of started off again in 99, just doing our own little tours, and just gradually building up to sort of going up to bigger tours with other bands, and then getting to the point where we can go out to do our own gigs. You know, gradually getting bigger and bigger.
MATTHEW: 2001...
DOMINIC: No, year 2000...
MATTHEW: 2000, last year...it's when we sort of found out who we were I think...
DOMINIC: Yeah, a little bit more you know. We travelled around the world. Saw a lot of new countries and things like that, so we sort of learnt a lot of things about the band. You know who you are, you change as people, and I think the band just developed and moved forward.
MATTHEW: I think we spent the rest of the whole time touring. We spent the whole year touring, and for the first time headlining our own gigs. Whereas the year before that, we were supporting bands all the time, and erm that was the first year where almost all the gigs were our headlining gigs.
DOMINIC: Every time we have come here, and this is our fourth time here now in Japan, we've just had a really good time. Just the crowd reaction. It's good to see different crowd reactions, and the reaction from the crowd over here is just like very enthusiastic, and people are just really up for it and excited about it, which is cool.
MATTHEW: And we did a festival on a site which is amazing, because we got to play on Mount Fuji. You could see the mountain from the stage, it was amazing. Also got to hang around in the jungle a bit more, and walk around the low trees with the strange insects.
(Everyone laughs)
CHRISTOPHER: I think after we started doing that for the rest of the...we did Australia and Scandinavia...and it seems to go down well...it seems to sort of break the setup. It's a nice change for us, because it meant changing the set after we had played a rock set for nearly eighteen months, so it was nice for us to change it.
...I think when we did that concert in Tokyo, that was the day after we did the gig in Blitz, I think it was the day after we did the smaller gig, and we thought we were going to try something like that for the first time. On this tour I think we were playing full electric, mostly like songs off the new album. I think maybe in the future one day we will be doing that again, but bigger. I think it changes on different albums. I think on the album "Origin Of Symmetry", I think the album influence is mainly sort of erm..sort of...classical music from Europe, like also French, like Chopin or Berlioz. And Russian like Rachmaninoff. Combined with modern rock from America like Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, that sort of thing...sort of like influenced by those two elements. That sort of thing.
...Completely. Yeah. Completely. Because I think in the process of writing is sort of amplified in the situation of transit, you know? When you are moving from one situation to another situation, whether it be moving from just a country to another country, or moving from being one person to a new person or something, the process of change is what causes the need to want to write something. It's like wanting to document that change, and erm...that's because when you feel yourself changing, you feel that loss of self. The fact that all the things like your friends, your family, your job, your money, all those things are superfluous. They don't actually have any relevance to who you are, in my opinion. I think those things can change at any time, and we can just adapt to that change. For me, the only thing that stays the same is something deeper down than that, and that's the thing that I used to write music with. When I noticed those things around the surface changing, I sort of feel myself wanting to become in touch with something that doesn't change, and that is something much more simple than any of those things that, I would say, influences it completely.
DOMINIC: I think the sound of the new album is much more true to how we sound as a band, maybe as a live band you know. A lot of the sound is a bit more stripped down than the first album you know. A lot of the tracks it is just very three piece sounding, just like three instruments, that sometimes when you strip it all down it can sound bigger and louder and heavier. I think maybe on the first album there was sort of more instruments covering up and trying to build something up to make it sound heavy, but like on the new album we realized we didn't need to do that.
MATTHEW: I would say that for me the new album incorporates more piano I think. More piano and keyboard instruments. Which was I think hinted towards on the first album, but I wanted to work that into it, and try and make piano work with modern hard rock without it sounding retro, and I wanted to do some piano stuff which was quite modern sounding, so...
CHRIS: Yeah I think the influence as well...taking influence from lots of different things, rather than just maybe rock. I think a lot of it was older...you know, a combination of modern music and old music, rather than just one particular period.
MATTHEW: The artwork of the album...we gave the title "Origin of Symmetry"...we gave that to maybe fifteen different artists, so they all did their own interpretation of what they think that means, they had nothing else but the words "Origin Of Symmetry". They just tried to make their own meaning out of that. I like flipping through and seeing lots of perception of the same thing. It gives you an idea of how completely different we see things, you know? If you think about the words "Origin of Symmetry". Looking for what is the beginning, what is similar about everyone, you cannot find it in our perception. Everyone has the same title, but they come up with completely different peices. Completely different thing. So you cannot find what is symmetrical, or what is the same about people by looking at our perceptions.
...I think we've always felt quite alone if you know what I mean, with the style of music that we make, or the way we think about music, or the way we choose to do our thing. I've never really...we haven't really found any other bands that...haven't really seen any other bands that feel...sort of on the level...I mean there are bands that are "better" and everything, but I mean we've always felt distant from any scene. I think that's partly because we come from Devon which is the countryside, you know, the middle of nowhere. We always had that feeling of not really being in London or Manchester* or a major city. We never really felt accepted by that sort of situation.
DOMINIC: Each in the band I to do...I think tour some more and I think become better as a live band you know, to develop that more...just become better, and do better shows, better gigs.
MATTHEW: I wanna try (and maybe if we can at some point) do this gig with the stage, with the four sections maybe...but it's a longshot. But I would like to try that.
CHRISTOPHER: We're gonna come back in November, and do a proper tour.
MATTHEW: That's one of the reasons why we are doing smaller gigs this time, so when we come back in November, we will be playing like a proper tour. I think we will probably be doing more concerts maybe. And that will be like you know, a sort of normal buy tickets, sort of like.
Notes
Rotating stage: See also MTV YOU ASK, as Matthew mentions this here too.
London or Manchester: The two centers of Britpop in the 1990s.
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