(MUSE) FaceCulture Dominic Howard Interview
4th June 2013
Q: Hi Dominic
DOMINIC: Hi. How are you doing?
Q: Fine. You?
DOMINIC: Great, thanks.
Q: Great. Good. Nice to be in Amsterdam, of course.
DOMINC: Always nice to in Amsterdam, yes.
Q: How many times have you been in Amsterdam now?
DOMINIC: Ah...I don't know....loads of times over the years. I mean...umm...I think my first time here was when I was probably about eighteen. We kind of came over for a friends eighteenth birthday party as many people do to Amsterdam, and came back a few times just for pleasure before we actually got the chance to play here with the band. But Jesus, I don't know, probably you know, ten times as a guess. Maybe more.
Q: Maybe more. Okay well, first of all start the interview with an easy question, I think, what is the first album that you bought, being a little kid?
DOMINIC: Umm I think the first album that I bought...pretty sure it was...was Del La Soul "Three Feet High and Rising". Which I think is late eighties. I think it might be 88/89 or something like that. But I had just started High School, so I was about eleven. That was the first album I bought. I loved it. I listened to it all the time. I just enjoyed that album so much, because it's kind of a concept album you know. It's kind of...aside from the songs, it's kind of a game show...I don't know whether you know the album, but there were lots of little interludes between the songs that are kind of as if this game show is happening, this kind of pretty silly game show is happening throughout the course of the album, so I think I really like it for that, and I love Del La Soul. I was really into Hip Hop I think around that kind of time when I was probably able to buy my first album.
Q: Where you always playing the drums?
DOMINIC: Uhh, that was probably before I started playing the drums because I started playing the drums when I was about twelve years old...twelve thirteen something like that, so yeah I've always loved music from a very early age. I mean when I was really really young I was into things like Adam & The Ants, you know and erm, The Police. Always loved The Police. And Queen and stuff like that. But again I suppose, starting High School and hanging around with friends. We were definitely listening to a lot of Hip Hop...and then got into Iron Maiden.
Q: Did you really? Okay. It's a nice switch from De La Soul to Iron Maiden.
DOMINIC (laughing): Yeah...
Q: What made you, well, decide to pick up drumsticks?
DOMINIC: I was just...I think, you know...again just always loving music and certainly, I suppose, really getting into the beats and stuff of some of the music I just mentioned...De La Soul, NWA and Public Enemy...I was really into all that kind of stuff, and I remember Public Enemy did that track with Anthrax. I think that was one of the first kind of combinations of like Hip-Hop, Metal and Rock Music that I had ever heard really. But I suppose it was always just kind of being into music, and I remember like being at school and definitely seeing some like jazz band come in and play at the school. I remember being really impressed and enthralled with the drummer, and just like staring at the drummer and thinking it was just like so cool, you know. I was like, 'Wow, maybe I should learn the drums'. But you know, it was also around the same kind of time that we started the band because none of us were really any kind of serious musicians before we actually got in the band. We were literally like four friends hanging around, and we were like 'Let's start a band. I'll play the drums. You play the guitar. You play the bass, and you can sing', so and then we literally just got in a room, no one knew how to play their instruments, and it was all like terrible, it sounded awful I imagine. So, we very much just learnt our instruments just by playing together and you know, I guess just wanting to be in a band and playing music.
Q: Was this the band already with Matthew? Or was it pre Matthew?
DOMINIC: This was pre Matthew. The first band I started was "Gothic Plague", which was with a bunch of other friends, but then our guitarist ended up leaving or I kicked him out I think, and I then got Matt in 'cos I knew he was good on the guitar. I didn't really know him at school too well. I knew of him, but I knew he was a good musician for his age.
Q: How did you know this? Did he play around?
DOMINIC: Yeah, because he was like...he wasn't in my class at school, but we would have like music competitions and things at school, and you know like school performances and this and that, erm, which I was really into as well, you know with my band as well, and Matt was also doing playing guitar and piano in these competitions, so I knew that he was a good musician but I didn't know him particularly well, so I asked him to join the band one day, and he said 'yes'. So yeah, that was how the relationship started with Matt, but again, it was purely about just like a connection with music I suppose was the thing that kind of made us become good friends.
Q: Did you like him at first, or did you grow on each other?
DOMINIC: Uhhh...I think so...it was a really weird meeting. We had some kind of mutual friends, and I remember like arranging a meeting with Matt which was down in Teignmouth, in the town on this piece of grass called "The Den", which was like in the middle of the town by the seafront. And like arranged this really strange meeting. And like we kind of sat down with mutual friends, and I seem to remember it being really quick. I was like 'Do you want to join my band?', and he went 'Yes'. I was like 'Cool', and that was it (laughs). Erm, but yeah, I certainly remember being (once he joined the band and we started playing)...I certainly remember being very impressed by his skill playing the guitar, and his understanding of music, and I think we just kind of connected straight away.
Q: And then Chris was asked to be in the band too?
DOMINIC: Then Chris yes..so me and Matt where in this band called "Gothic Plague", and that all eventually fizzled away, but Chris was also in a different band playing a bit of guitar, a bit of bass sometimes, even the drums sometimes. He was a bit of an all rounder. So me and Matt just wanted to start writing our own songs, as we were sick of playing cover songs, and it seemed like me and Matt were the only two people in the band that were actually interested in doing that. So erm everyone left apart from me and Matt, and then we found Chris and spoke to Chris, and asked him to join our band and he was like "Totally", because he was feeling the same thing with his original band, so and that was Muse.
Q: The first song that you wrote. Where they used on albums or EP or...?
DOMINIC: Oh no. I do remember the first song. I can't remember what it was called...something lame like, "Small Minded" (laughs)...I think it was...erm, I do remember that first song as I think me and Matt used it as some kind of piece of music for our like GCSEs, you know...but no, we were together for a good five years before, you know, we got a chance to, you know, certainly record or get a record deal and start recording, so we went through a lot of different changes I think when we first started as Muse. We kind of started off as very...well actually the first song had piano in it strangely, and then I think we went off into this weird kind of lots of strange technical odd time signature* slap bass* type stuff.
Q: Why?
DOMINIC: We loved Primus I suppose when we were young, and that might have had an influence. I don't know...I think it kind of playing weird odd time signature music was kind of for us a way of kind of like learn music, and learning how to play in a slightly more technical way, which you know we found interesting at the time. And then eventually we kind of came back round to just I suppose writing more melodic songs because there was a period there when it was like real kind of grungy metal odd time signature weirdness you know. It wasn't particularly tuneful. There was just weird riffs and stuff like that. But heavy. But then eventually you know, we kind of somewhere along the lines wrote "Muscle Museum" which must have been the first song that we wrote that ended up being on "Showbiz" our first album. I think we knew with that song straight away, it suddenly felt so different from everything we had done in the past, so that was the first song that we wrote for "Showbiz".
Q: When you wrote a song, did you know "Well this is the way we have to go" song writing wise?
DOMINIC: I think so, yeah. I think we just felt something with that song, We just felt like it was suddenly a departure from our messy background that we'd had, and weirdly that song was kind of strangely influenced by like The Fugees. Even though it doesn't sound like it (laughs), but that's kind of where we were going with it, with the kind of, I suppose the drum beat and the bass line and stuff, and um but yeah, there was a turning point. I think at that point we kind of realized that we should try a bit harder and write more songs like this and I think we were just starting to find our feet in that time period.
Notes
Slap bass: Slap bass is a highly percussive bass guitar technique invented by funk pioneer Larry Graham. It involves striking the string with the thumb (slapping) to create a deep thump, and snapping the string with the index or middle finger (popping) to produce a sharp, high-pitched attack
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