(MUSE) Matt Bellamy (Guitarist Presents 100 Guitar Heroes: 100 Of The World's Greatest Guitar Players Interviewed And Profiled)
With war and political mistrust fresh in their minds, Muse entered the studio in late 2001 to begin work on their third studio album...
Q: Where did the recording process for Absolution start?
"The second album, Origin of Symmetry, was made pretty much while we were on tour. We'd been on tour for around four or five years straight. After we did the Reading Festival last August we decided to take a break, at least six or seven months away from touring. That was the first chance we had to really think about what we wanted to do with this album. We had a rehearsal room down in Brighton, which used to be Winston Churchill's house, and we stayed down there for a while, getting a few song ideas together. Then we ended up getting a warehouse type place in Hackney, which we kind of converted into a flat - a rehearsal room where Chris (Wolstenholme, bass) could come up and stay (both Matt and drummer Dom Howard are based in London.) It was the first time we'd been able to sit down and make music in four or five years without having to go and do a gig, so that was a good environment to write an album in.
Q: Which guitars do you use in the studio to record with?
"I used mainly my Manson guitars. The black Manson was the one I used the most. I only use it live on a couple of songs but in the studio it seems to sound the best. It's got a proximity wire in it, which, when you switch it on, gives this really cutting edge tone as your hands move. It was mainly that guitar from Rich for a couple of mellower tracks - I can't remember the same of it but it was the type Kurt Cobain used in the video for Come As You Are. I used that a bit on Falling Away With You and Sing For Absolution. I also used a Parker Fly for a couple of the guitar solos - Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist and TSP - because it was the only guitar I had with a whammy arm on it. I rediscovered using the whammy arm on this album; I hadn't used it for a fair few years".
Q: You have a rare Aloha Strat (a mid-nineties aluminum/chrome bodied beauty). Where did you get it from and did that get used?
"I do have an Aloha Strat, which may be slightly hot property! It's my old guitar tech's. He had a mate who had a load of dodgy guitars in a basement and I went down there once and offered him a few hundred quid for it and got away with it. It's very difficult to keep in tune though because it's pretty old now, but it's got a good sound, really glassy. I think I used that on bits of Falling Away With You and a but on the verses to Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist."
Q: You're using Diezel amps for the first time on this tour. Were they used to record with?
"I had a lot of amps set up, though I did mainly use the Diezel. I'd never come across one before and I borrowed one for the album and eventually decided to get one. It doesn't work very well with Diezel cabs though so I ended up using Marshall and Soldano cabs. But the actual head is really good, the most saturated valve sound I think you can get. It doesn't sound like a fake digital thing yet you can get very extreme distortions out of it for a valve amp. As I said, I used that most of the time, but I also had a Matchless combo which I used a bit and a fair amount of different cabs."
Q: Sing For Absolution has a powerful delay on the verse - how was that created?
"That was a combination of things. I think I was using the Strat or the semi-acoustic with a Voodoo Vibe, probably running in to the Matchless. We also mixed it up with a piano - with the piano put through a whammy wah pedal with an octavia effect on it and a one or two beat delay. They're mixed so they're almost morphing in with each other so you can't tell the difference."
Q: How about the compressed wah sound in the guitar solo?
"That was a pedal that I can't remember the name of - a fuzz wah pedal. I think it's an old pedal from the sixties that something to do with Jimi Hendrix. It's pretty cool, it's got red fur all over it, a real cheesy looking pedal (probably a Foxx Tone Machine), I went from the guitar in to that, then in to a stereo delay going out to two different amps with different distortions on each delay. I used a similar set-up for the guitar solo in Hysteria."
Q: The opening riff on the song Stockholm Syndrome is a good example of the futuristic Muse sound. What's the secret?
"Richard found out about this programme, which I'd heard about as well, that can morph two sounds together. It's got a weird computer name like Windows 4.3 or something like that. It's a computer programme that is basically banks and banks and banks of synthesizers within a computer generator where you can put any sound in, like a voice or a guitar, and it will recreate that sound using all its internal synthesizers. Once it's done that you can decipher it and break it down to anything you want. You can put in the sound of a car engine, and then the sound of a guitar, and then morph them together to create an exact middle sound.
"What we did on Stockholm Syndrome was, I think, a mix between a synth keyboard going through a wah pedal and the guitar playing straight through a normal amp and then morph them together to create a slightly synth-sounding guitar"
Q: There are acoustic sounds on Blackout. So did you actually use any acoustic guitars?
"I used a mandolin on Blackout. I think it was written with that in mind. I spent a fair bit of time in Italy last summer and I think that track was influenced by some of the sounds I heard there - a combination of some of the folk music and some opera. The mandolin is a very traditional instrument there and it seemed like the right thing to go on that song."
Q: There is also an extremely distorted and compressed sound that flies over the top of that track...
"Yeah, that was the scratched aluminum Manson guitar DI'd without any amp, straight in to the desk. I think I might have put a bit of delay on it or something, but because it's got its own fuzz distortion built in, when you DI you get a really unusual compressed sound".
Q: Absolution is dark and desperate sounding. Did that sum up your mindset at the time?
"I think it was a combination of a few things. I was in a relationship for a while that came to an end a couple of years ago and I'm sure that had an influence".
Essentials
Born: 9th June 1978, Cambridge, England
Bands: Muse
Guitars: Various Manson guitars including a 7-string model
Did you know: Matt plays drums and clarinet as well as guitars, mandolin and keyboards (organ, piano and harmonium)
Classic Albums: Standout Muse recordings include the studio albums Showbiz (1999), Origin Of Symmetry (2001), Black Holes & Revelations (2006) and their latest offering, The Resistance (2009). Live recordings - Hypermusic (2001) and HAARP Live From Wembley (2008) - are also recommended.
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