(MUSE) TVZH OOPS Interview - 1999 (Transcription)
Interviewer is Mona Vetsch
(Please note this interview is dubbed, so I have done my best to hear what is being said underneath, as it sometimes differs from the subtitles).
MONA: Welcome, Muse!
(They enter the studio by stepping out of what looks like elevator doors, Audience cheers as she shakes hands with them one by one.)
MONA: Please, make yourself comfortable
(They head towards an elevated section, where they sit)
MONA: Is this your first time in Switzerland?
MATTHEW: Yeah, very first time.
MONA: You told me that you have been once before?
MATTHEW: Yeah, I've been once before. I came here for the day to the mountains, to the sort of Italian area of Switzerland.
MONA: But, do you like winter sports? Like skiing or snowboarding?
DOMINIC: I like snowboarding.
MONA: Yeah, really?
DOMINIC: Yeah, I'd really like to go up in the Alps and mess around over New Year's for a bit.
MONA: I'd imagine that it's really hard to snowboard in England?
DOMINIC: Uh, no...it is pretty hard...maybe if you are lucky, you will find a hill in Scotland.
MONA: Do you like doing promotion, giving interviews, things like that>
CHRISTOPHER: It's usually okay.
MATTHEW jokes that this is the first time they are guests on colour TV, but more seriously, they do enjoy it - they get to meet lots of interesting people.
MONA: But you like colours in your hair?
MATTHEW: Yeah, same as you.
MONA: Oh yeah, just a little bit coloured (laughs). What is the difference between the audience in England, and the kids from around here?
DOMINIC says he has noticed that so far, people around here tend to go really crazy.
MATTHEW says that they did a gig on a warehouse in Paris, yesterday afternoon. It got out of control when 600 people wanted to get in, but there wasn't enough room. The same thing happened in Paris at a concert yesterday evening. They had to call a halt to things, as people were "piling over". Needless to say, we are getting quite well known in France.
MONA asks what it feels like to know that people are going crazy and fighting to see them?
CHRISTOPHER (with arm over his mouth habit): Someone's 'avin 'a 'laff (note - this is a Northern inflection). It's strange
MONA: Frightening?
CHRISTOPHER: No, not frightening. To me it's pretty funny.
DOMINIC: As long as this whole thing is fun, it's fine. For us it's pretty new, but I think it's cool that we can travel around the world and give concerts.
MONA: So, you've received pretty good reviews for your first album, have you put yourself under pressure because of that?
DOMINIC: We don't sort of erm...
MATTHEW: Nah, not really. Some press is good, some of it's bad, sometimes you get really torn to shreds. After a while you stop taking note of the criticism. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so I don't really mind.
MONA: So what is every day like when you are touring? Is it boring a little bit, or just amazing?
CHRISTOPHER: I sleep most of the time.
MONA (laughs): Really? Is that the life of a rockstar? Sleeping?
MATTHEW: You just get to stay up until early in the morning, and then sleep the whole day. You don't really see a lot of daylight.
DOMINIC: We're nocturnal now.
MONA: Really? Isn't that quite sad?
MATTHEW: Oh no, that's fine. That's good. Usually after a gig, our day just starts in the afternoon. But we are really awake after gigs.
MONA: What about groupies? Successful young guys like yourself, is there anything going on?
DOMINIC: There's plenty.
MONA (laughter): Really?
DOMINIC: All over the place.
MATTHEW: I don't really get that much. I think that's more for groups like Boyzone or Backstreet Boys. There are not many left for us.
MONA: Do you have girlfriends at home then?
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, I've got a girlfriend, and a little baby as well.
Q: But do you still see her from time to time?
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, I go home whenever possible. It's fine.
Q: What about private life, do you have time off?
MATTHEW: Um yeah. We don't have much time off, but the time we do have, but the time off we do have, I like to just sort of spend with family or something, and friends. Do you know what I mean, so...
FRY: Just relax and do nothing...
MONA: What do you do when you have a little bit of leisure time? Do you do sports, or watch TV, or...?
MATTHEW: Yeah, I do paramotoring. You know that? It's like uh, you've got like a big parachute, and a propellor on your back, and you like fly around. It's brilliant. I've only done it once or twice, but I've bought my own machine, and so I thought I'd bring it on tour, and next time fly around the town.
MONA: You are kidding?
MATTHEW: No for real. It is very new.
MONA: Is it dangerous?
MATTHEW: On the contrary, it's probably the safest way to fly.
MONA: Like most English people, Muse are football fans. Which team is your favourite?
CHRISTOPHER: Uhh, Rotherham United (laughs) A team that probably nobody knows about here, and it's a team that always loses. But it's the club from where I come from.
MONA: What do you like about them?
CHRISTOPHER: Well, it's just the place that I'm from, so I was sort of brought up with it. My dad supported 'em, his granddad supported 'em, his dad supported 'em. Just brought up with it really.
MONA: Do you like to play games in general, like Monopoly or other party games?
DOMINIC: Monopoly is a good game.
MATTHEW: I think board games have sort of developed into Nintendo, we kill time with that while travelling.
(FIFA is mentioned)
DOMINIC (miming handheld games):...so we can sit around and play that.
MONA: What kind of games? FIFA 2000?
DOMINIC: Soccer (motions towards CHRISTOPHER) FIFA..GoldenEye, Mario and things like that
CHRISTOPHER: Zelda...
MONA: WipeOut?
DOMINIC: No
MONA: No. Not yet.
(SHORT BREAK, AND BACK IN THE STUDIO)
MONA: What made you want to make music at such a young age?
MATTHEW: Uh, where we are from, there is very little to do. It's a small town where we are from, and there isn't a lot to do.
DOMINIC; We went to school together, and we were in different school bands, we liked playing music. There were like ten bands at our school, and most of them covered Nirvana.
MATTHEW: We used to play like Dinosaur Jnr, South Youth, music like that when we first started. And that lasted until we were about fifteen or sixteen, and then after a while, all those bands split up, and we were in separate bands. And they all split up, and us three decided to come together and do our own thing.
MONA: Was your goal from the beginning to become rockstars?
DOMINIC: We're not rockstars (laughs). No, for sure, it's cool and something we've always dreamed about, and now we've got a chance to do it. It's good.
MONA: How did the typical Muse sound originate? What makes Muse unique?
DOMINIC: We've done loads of stuff. We sort of uh..the sound has just developed, and we've gone through loads of sounds. Previously we did really experimental sort of technical things as well.
MATTHEW: When we first started, the very first gig we played was like a Battle Of The Bands from the area we are from. We really couldn't play our instruments, so we worked more with visual effects, and created chaos on stage. We somehow won the competition against all these really technical jazz and funk bands. I think it sort of made us realize, that music has a lot to do with emotions and vibes, and not only technical perfection. I think that changed as we figured out our style. We went through a stage of being quite sort of, like a sort of jazz band or something, for a while, wasn't it? It was quite weird, and then we sort of gone more into song writing, and stuff that's on the album.
MONA: Okay. 'Showbiz' is the name of the latest album, and we are watching a clip from it, it is called 'Muscle Museum'.
(BACK IN THE STUDIO)
MONA: This was your first music video, how was the experience in shooting it?
DOMINIC: It was funny, yeah. They made everyone cry by going through photos of their relatives and things to make them cry. It was funny, but moving. There was some weird things, yeah. It was, it was pretty funny, but it was moving at the same time.
MONA: Why are the people in the video crying anyways? What's the story?
MATTHEW: It's supposed to be when you can see the emotions of how a person really is, and what happens to the body. Whether you are laughing or you are crying, and I think we just wanted to capture that. And it didn't really work.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEW: But we tried. But next time, we'll make a better video.
MONA: Music has a lot to do with passion, so what is your passion while making music? What does it mean to you? What is passion?
DOMINIC: It's 'passion'. It's keeping it real. I think, and erm, believe in what you do, and take it seriously.
MATTHEW: Certainly also, there is the possibility of expressing yourself through music. That Is passion. Expressing how you feel about everything. Relationships, friendships, describing emotions to the rest of the world, and only through music...I think it's just expressing how we feel about the world in the music.
MONA: But you're very young, and listening to your album you can tell there is an extreme amount of passion in it, almost a bit too much for your age. Sometimes one does not expect this passion from you.
MATTHEW: You could say that we are young, 'cos we are like twenty-one. But, we've already been together in a band for six years, and it makes us older than a lot of bands. We've already written over eighty songs. We picked twelve of the best songs, to make the first album.
MONA: What are you doing with the rest?
MATTHEW: Make a few more albums, obviously.
MONA: How much?
MATTHEW: How many albums?
MONA: Yep
MATTHEW: 3,4,10,11 albums. As many as possible.
MONA: Do you have any other dreams? You have reached so much already.
DOMINIC: I don't know. Keep at it really I think. I mean, we've just started. We are at the beginning of our career.
MATTHEW: I'd like to be the first person that flies over the Grand Canyon, and the first person to paramotor from England to France. No-one's done that before.
MONA: And spare times, or holidays...any dreams about that?
CHRISTOPHER: A journey to space
DOMINIC: A trip to the Caribbean, that's a dream of mine.
MONA: Would you like to live there?
DOMINIC: It would be nice. I wouldn't say no.
MATTHEW: A million bucks as well
MONA: Okay, thank you so much for stopping by. We wish you the best for the future. We are convinced this album is the beginning of a great career.
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