(MUSE) Pinkpop 2004 interview (transcription)
"The origin of Muse"
DOMINIC: Well, no we had..the bands we were in before Muse had various names, but the three of us were called "Rocket Baby Dolls*", for one gig. But that wasn't really a proper band, it was more a kind of vibe that we just threw together for one gig where we just kind of dressed up as goths, and played some weird, trashy kind of punky stuff. We smashed up all the gear just for one gig, and after that we kind of stopped and thought. It was actually a Battle Of The Bands which we won because of it, but after that we kind of stopped, got rid of the make-up, the back combed hair, and the Cure look (chuckles), and changed the name to "Muse" as well at that point. We kind of wrote some of our own songs, took the whole thing a bit more seriously in some kind of way.
"What inspired Muse?"
DOMINIC: I don't know. You know, it was just kind of the music that we came across. It was the music that we felt most passion about. It was what we craved, you know.
CHRISTOPHER: I think around about that time there were cool guitar bands, bands like "Rage Against The Machine". You know they had just done their first album, I think that was the kind of stuff we were listening to back then when we first started getting into bands I think.
DOMINIC: And Nirvana, and the Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins some of those kind of...
MATTHEW:...and you don't necessarily have to be a very good musician to play in a rock band (laughter) that was another attraction
"Does Muse like Belgian bands?"
MATTHEW: Yeah, I love bands Evil Superstars, dEUS, Millionaire, Soulwax. We've toured with Millionnaire, Soulwax, and we also went with...
DOMINIC: Zita Swoon
MATTHEW: Zita Swoon, yeah, we did um...yeah, we used to go and watch dEUS play whenever they toured in England when we were very young. I think they were probably the most innovative rockbands around, I mean America has always produced kind of straight rock, while America has always produced more experimental rock I think. I think we are more interested in the experimental side, you know.
"The worst festival so far?"
MATTHEW: We did a festival in Russia, which was not organized very well. It was called "a stunt festival"...where we were playing, there was like people doing stunts, like motorbike jumps on the stage in front of us as we were playing, and we did not know. We thought that "stunt festival" meant like a skate or something, some kind of thing like that. There were actually stunt people. People were driving trucks into a lake, and we were playing to explosions...
DOMINIC: Trapeze artist
MATTHEW: There was like a trapeze artist on the stage...as we were like playing the riff of New Born, a motorbike went vrroom, and did a big jump right in front of us *chuckles* That was ridiculous.
(CHRISTOPHER is laughing at the memory, DOMINIC is giggling)
MATTHEW (cont): My worst festival experience I think, in terms of like going to a festival and watching a festival, was Glastonbury 97 when it was raining so heavily that all mud was everywhere. Glastonbury is all grass, there is no concrete, so it's completely mud...and uh, the toilets were like getting tipped up and everything, so that was pretty rough. I remember we all had to go to the toilet in like binliners in the tent you know, because the...
DOMINIC: Well, some of us...
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEW: If you get like an old Volvic bottle and put it there (front) and get like a binliner and put it there (back), and it just works...but I would say overall, worst festival experience was Woodstock in New York...
(DOMINIC imitates the twitchy movement MATTHEW makes. He looks at him)
INTERVIEWER: The new one...
MATTHEW: The last one, where there was riots...
DOMINIC: You notice how we have been reeling off a lot of bad festivals...
MATTHEW: We will talk about good festivals in a minute, yeah? But Woodstock...it was just crap. You had to pay like $10 for a bottle of water, and it was so hot that everyone needed water, so everyone was pissed off that they had to pay so much money for water. And they didn't let the people, the public, bring water into the festival, so they forced them to pay money. It was terrible, and people started setting fire to the trucks and people were setting fire to like boxes and stuff, and riots started happening. We played in the daytime, and we saw the beginning of the riot and then throughout the day it just gradually got worse and worse and worse, to the point where we had to leave.
"What if you go bald?"
(The focus appears to be on DOMINIC's hair)
DOMINIC: You see...it's got to come off at some point
(MATTHEW picks a piece off, and puts it on his own)
DOMINIC: I don't know yeah, I guess you know, I would wear a wig
(WHEEZY chuckle from CHRISTOPHER)
DOMINIC: Go Elton John style. That's a wig, isn't it?
INTERVIEWER: Are you thin?
MATTHEW: I'd go like three...I'd get...
DOMINIC (says something while motioning about a comb over)
MATTHEW: I'd comb my hair over like, constantly so it looks like it's not bald you know...
"Tattoos and the future"
DOMINIC: It's dirty.
(EVERYONE laughs)
MATTHEW: I think tattoos...you've got to have something which you have to be sure is going to be one hundred per cent permanent in your life you know. Like some belief or a person that you know is going to be permanent. I think having your kids tattooed is the best, because you know your children are always going to be important in your life, forever, and so I think you need to have something permanent to have a tattoo...and I don't have anything permanent in my life, that's the problem. As soon as something permanent appears...
INTERVIEWER: Muse?
MATTHEW: Well you know, who knows hey?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah, how permanent is Muse?
MATTHEW: It's going pretty strong, isn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
DOMINIC: It's pretty permanent at the moment, you know.
MATTHEW: We've actually got a few years in the old bag you know...we've definitely got a few years left in us.
NOTES
Rocket Baby Dolls: See article "MP joins Battle Of The Bands" (so far this is the one and only article from the time that mentions them that I can find)
Ironically, Christopher, the person with tattoos, did not answer the question. However, when he got a tattoo done in Japan that read "Good Father", the others thought it would be funny to keep punching him on the arm where he had it done.
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