Muse - Dotmusic Interview - Transcription
(MATTHEW has the microphone, the sound is not always easy to make out)
Q: You've been very busy the last year or so, and you're finally getting quite a lot of acclaim. Apparently you've done fifty festivals is it, this summer?
MATTHEW: I've heard a rumour.
DOMINIC: Apparently so. Yeah, um, we've done loads...this summer, apparently we have done about fifty. And um, we've been everywhere, all over Europe, Japan, um...
MATTHEW: Everywhere in Europe. Most countries that Europe has to offer. And also we've been to...
CHRISTOPHER: Uhhh...yeah, we went to The States in March....toured with Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters, generally everywhere.
DOMINIC: It's been non stop, a year and a half of touring.
Q: So, how are you feeling now?
MATTHEW: I'm feeling like you know, a little bit sort of blurry, but it's a good feeling. It's nice. Confused. I don't really understand what's happening. But, no. I do. I think I know what it is...I think we're being controlled by a force, you know like, some sort of alien being I think like controls us all. On like the Delta Force, you know like you get these different wave lengths to be on. I think like on a Delta level there are beings that can control us, and I'm not sure what purpose I'm being controlled for. I'm trying to discover the answer to that.
Q: Is the "Delta Level" a good level to be on?
MATTHEW: Um, I'm not on that level. I think we're on the one below that...which I can't think what they call it (pause) but anyway...but yeah, I think it feels...it feels...it feels like you're being something...something's driving you. I'm not sure why...
Q: How has it been around Europe? The other places that you have played at.
CHRISTOPHER: Mostly good, I think. Umm. I think there is a lot of places we've only been to about once or twice. Places like France and Germany, you know, we've done tours there. Then we've been to places like Italy, where we have only played twice. The last time we played there it was really good. We played to like sixty thousand people like at this festival. It was really good. We went to Portugal for the first time as well. It was really good. Just like loads of little places that we hadn't played much, but they've all been really good.
Q: What have the actual records in Europe and the rest of the world been like?
MATTHEW: You mean sales? I think they have been close to half a million or something like that.
Q: But I mean in the UK, you are well known now. Is that the way in other places you have been?
MATTHEW: The way in the UK is pretty similar throughout most of Europe, I think. More so in France. Um, and Japan and Australia are pretty the same as well. I say...I say like most of those places I mentioned, are like on the same sort of level that we are here. But USA, like you know, we've got a lot of work to do there.
Q: Yeah, that's always been a tricky one. But going back about probably over a year now, I remember receiving the promo of your album, and it's fantastic. Two sort of plastic with a spanner...
MATTHEW: Yeah
Q: And you were pretty much of unheard of then. John Leckie did a lot of work on the album, didn't he? For you it must have been quite an amazing twelve months, although you are obviously pretty knackered. How do you feel now?
MATTHEW: Yeah, it's been...I'm up for making a second album now. I think it's a whole lot of sort of um, mistakes were made along the way that you learn about, and you don't really know until they happen, and when things happen on a worldwide scale like that, it is difficult to comprehend and get in control of things, but I think like hopefully we will be more, sort of you know, ready for it the second album sort of thing.
Q: You've been playing very much the same set as well I would imagine in that whole period, does that become a bit of a drag?
CHRISTOPHER: Playing like you know, some of the new stuff in the set, B sides and you know, we've never sort of played exactly the same set. We've always changed it every night, and you know, obviously some of the songs you know, we play more than others, but you know we sort of change it all the time.
Q: What about 'Muscle Museum' that's coming out as another single again. Is that the third time it's been released?
(MATTHEW and DOMINIC chuckle. CHRISTOPHER is smoking)
DOMINIC: Uh, second. Yeah, well, we did originally make an EP with it on, but we only like released it locally at gigs before we were signed, years ago.
MATTHEW: The word 'release' is a bit loose. It was just like giving them away really, you know what I mean?
Q: I suppose the thing is as well at that stage, you know, the actual reaction because you weren't that well known, was probably on a far far more smaller scale than it will be now. Um, were there any discussions about whether to release another single off the album? Did you want to get on with it and do the new album...
MATTHEW: The discussion was, 'Do you want to do it?', and we said, 'No', and they said, 'We're doing it anyway'. So we said, 'All right, see you later. We're going to Japan'.
Q: That really what it was like?
(Slight chuckles)
Q: In an interview I read the other day, they were saying that 'Mega stardom is finally beckoning for Muse", does it feel like that for you?
MATTHEW: Not right now, I mean..erm...I don't know, it would be nice to earn that sort of thing through time, you know, and through doing a lot more work than just one album I think. You know...uh, I think when those sort of things happen too early, I think anything bigger than what has happened to us so far happened, I think we would have had trouble dealing with it. I think it's happening at a reasonably steady pace, and I think like you know, maybe it does beckon, but maybe not right now.
Q: Do you want that?
MATTHEW: Yeah
Q: You do?
MATTHEW: Yeah, very much.
Someone asks a question. It is very hard to hear, but it sounds like "You were saying that you had no soul"(?)
MATTHEW: I say a lot of things.
(LAUGHTER)
Q: It must take it out of you?
MATTHEW: Um, yeah, 'souls'. I mean, it's all definition of the word, and what makes us up as a being, you know what I mean? Um, the 'soul' is just one particular thing that I felt a lack of at that point. Um. I don't know, and it can take a lot out of you, yeah.
DOMINIC: It's just, sometimes it's very hard to comprehend what you are actually doing, and where you are. You never actually see what's going on until you sort of move away from the whole thing, from touring or something, so...which we haven't really moved away from at the moment. We're still going, so...I mean hopefully like soon, over the next few months, we will sort of, maybe sit back for a little while and reflect on what happened. Then you start to realize what did actually happen.
Q: What is the next stage? You say you are going off to Japan and Australia?
MATTHEW: We started work on making a new album, which we already have done a few seconds, recorded and stuff, and tomorrow we're going to Japan and Australia for a month, to do a tour around there. And then after that we do Dublin, and a few Scandinavian gigs like Norway, Sweden, Helsinki, was it?
DOMINIC: Finland.
MATTHEW: Places like that. That takes us up to sort of early November, and then we're going to take a little time off, and December time go and make the album in January.
Q: How much time do you get off?
MATTHEW: I'm sort of arguing about that right now. I want us more than a couple of weeks. (Laughs)
Q: I think six months might be in order, really.
MATTHEW: Ahh you know, really it's not...you know, I enjoy the work, you know what I mean, and if you can't do it when you are young, when can you do it?
Q: So what is the sort of situation with the next album? What is the stage you are at with that?
MATTHEW: Recording wise? We've got like a few songs going. As said, sort of like December time, we're going to go back in then and do more (laughs), and erm...enjoying it...and I think probably the first new single would probably be like early next year sometime. I am not sure when. January/February, something like that.
Q: So this will be completely new material?
MATTHEW: Yeah, of course yeah...
Q: Have you got a working title for the album yet?
DOMINIC: Not really. Most (MATTHEW says "Oh well, well, well...")...most of the songs...don't really have titles most of the tracks, it's like 'new one', 'new new one', 'new new new one'. So...
MATTHEW: Yeah, I there are a few loose titles floating around...
DOMINIC: I think so (he could also have said 'nothing')
MATTHEW (to DOMINIC): Quite positive words there. Genuinely positive. No like...positive. Positive is...
Q: Is there actually a noticeable change in what you are writing at the moment, as opposed to what was on Showbiz?
MATTHEW: Yeah. For me, I think it's like the stuff I'm doing now seems to speak to me more than the stuff on the first album. I mean, erm...the stuff on the first album was to do a lot with fears. You know, fears of the unknown, and I sort of realized a lot of those fears and faced up to them. You know what I mean? I think, I realized a lot about the outside world, and the world in general and about people, and erm you know, how we exist and everything, and I'm sort of...so the stuff is like, I'm sort of...I've taken a lot more in some of my understanding of this situation we are in, and when I say 'us', I mean like humans. And I think I've taken more on board on the situation we are in, and I can sing a bit more clearly about it, and so when I hear back some of the stuff we've done, it's like, I can actually feel it. Whereas before it seemed confused, but now it's more focused I think.
Q: Yeah
MATTHEW: Yeah.
Q: I think you said the vibe as well that was coming out, being a bit more positive as well? Would that be...?
MATTHEW: There's a couple...a couple of songs that I say like the vibe in terms of like you know, the vibe that we've laid down as the three of us is more positive, because there is more confidence there I think. It's more like a confidence thing, you know what I mean?
Q: Who's producing?
MATTHEW: We've done some work so far with a guy called Dave Bottrill, who's done DEUS and a band called TOOL. Um, he's a Canadian guy, so we've done some work with him, but we're probably going to do the remainder of the album maybe with John Leckie, and whoever. I mean there's a lot of people we'd like to work with. I mean, John Leckie, we are definitely going to do something with, and um, there's a couple of other people, I don't want to name them yet as I'm not sure, but there's a couple of other people we might be doing bits with, but um, yeah.
Q: The whole Muse thing has been clouded, as has a lot of bands that have been coming out in the last year or so, with this Radiohead fixation, what were Muse's influences when you formed, and as the music came together, would you say?
DOMINIC: Um, I think it started off being bands like Primus, a bit of Nirvana, um you know early English bands like Senseless Things and Mega City 4...
MATTHEW: This is like Muse before this...before this, I was in a band with him (Dominic), and this is the band he's talking about as like when we were thirteen, fourteen, so around that time it was all like, I don't know if you would call it Fraggle Rock type music. You know like, Wedding Present and then like, and then like, early, early bits of Sonic Youth were coming through over here and stuff like that, so I think that was the stuff that sort of got us going, but I think um, that was the stuff that sort of got us going...
DOMINIC:...into a band...
MATTHEW: But I would say for me, the things that got me into song writing and stuff like that, is like stuff...um...I started like...I learned some Flamenco guitar music, like Spanish guitar music, and that is what opened up a whole world of different harmonies, and different ways of making music, and a different sort of passion that was heavy. It was very heavy, you know? It's very heavy music, but it's not...it hasn't got a distortion pedal, you know I mean? So I think that sort of what opened me up to seeing other things and then I got into like, you know, some blues from Robert Johnson, to Nina Simone, to Ray Charles, also like Jimi Hendrix Experience, which I think is brilliant.
Q: What about Radiohead?
MATTHEW: I think they are probably like...in the last ten years, probably one of the best English bands around.
Q: What do you make of the new album?
MATTHEW: Oh, it's alright...
DOMINIC: It's okay. Sounds very much like Apex Twin to me.
MATTHEW: Apex Twin and DJ Shadow and stuff like that. I think...I think...I think they are very concerned with being at the cutting edge of what new music is, and people like Apex Twin to DJ Shadow to even Moby, I would say like they're the sort of people that are doing like really like maybe modern things, you know? In terms of like incorporating mixing with real live music, mixing techniques and stuff...so I think they're like...I think they're you know, they've very paranoid of ever being...as ever being seen as just an old guitar rock band sort of thing, I mean, which I can understand.
Q: I mean, they seem to have wanted to try and withdraw from the situation that they put themselves in, in that they've become, you know, um regarded throughout the world as being a very very good band. Um, do you see, you said early on that you were up for superstardom and all the rest of it, um would you ever envisage the same sort of thing happening to you though?
MATTHEW: I can't say until it happens. I mean uh, I've still got a thirst for knowledge in general, you know? I mean a thirst for the world, or whatever you want to call it, and so I enjoy going out there and playing and all that sort of stuff. And um, I like getting lost and fucked. You know what I mean? Um, so, who knows where that will take me?
Q: The webcast that we did from the Historia, which we are going to be sharing again, uh, culminated in quite a fantastic destruction of the stage, I seem to remember. Do you do that every night?
MATTHEW: Yeah.
CHRISTOPHER: Around that time we were doing it every night, but then we ran out of money, and ran out of gear, and we had to stop.
Q: Didn't you do this recently at a festival or something, and you were actually smashing up other people's...
MATTHEW: It was my mistake...it was a mistake...I didn't realize until...I thought it was our own bass...I thought it was our own gear, and I was on it and I was pushing it over, and some guy was going 'Get off!', like giving me loads of shit...and I...and I was...and I told him to fuck off...I told him to like piss off, yeah? And I didn't realize it was his amp. (LAUGHTER) And oh, it was bad. Really bad. Cos I felt really bad about it for a few days, and everyone...you know so that was like the sort of...like the sort of realization that maybe it's time to slow down in that department.
DOMINIC: It all came to a head when you smashed up a Wurlitzer
Q: Really?
MATTHEW: Yeah, that's like a rare old organ
DOMINIC: 70's organ...
MATTHEW: I know it's nice to get carried away on stage you know, and just like you know, let just, go...just do whatever you want and be totally free. It's like...it's like about letting go of all your inhibitions, you know. That's what being on stage for me is about...and that can involve getting violent, or getting emotional in some way. Because it's like you know, you're seeing the true self sort of thing, I think.
Q: Is it a lot of fun, to do that as well?
MATTHEW: Fantastic...
CHRISTOPHER: What, smashing up gear? Yes, really good fun. (LAUGHS) It's just too much fun sometimes. That's why it's difficult to know when to stop.
MATTHEW: Because we're going to smash up each other now instead. That seems to be more on the cards, like Chris generally picks me up and lobs me on Dom at various gigs recently, so...
Q: Is there anything you're particularly listening to at the moment that you think might affect the new album?
(They think)
MATTHEW: Um, things like well, say...maybe things like Tom Waits for me. Tom Waits to Daft Punk. Um...Jimi Hendrix Experience...um...
DOMINIC: Rage Against The Machine...
MATTHEW: Yeah, Rage Against The Machine, the last album.
Q: What did you make of The Mercury situation? And were you, you know, ???? at your ???? winning, and people like Coldplay who came around the same sort of time as you. They went on to get a nomination, was it...did it ever bother you about these sort of things getting nominated?
MATTHEW: Well, I only recently found out what it was anyway, so I don't care. I mean the Mercury Prize. I've never really heard of them.
CHRISTOPHER: It's a big industry thing though, innit? It's just like all...I don't know exactly how it works, but it's very sort of, I mean, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the public, so I mean it seems like a pointless thing really. It just seems like an excuse for the record companies to get together and yeah...kiss each others arses or whatever, I don't know.
Q: So you weren't bothered then?
DOMINIC: No
MATTHEW: I honestly wasn't really aware of it, but I heard Badly Drawn Boy won a Mercury Prize, and Coldplay were up for it...that was the first I heard of it.
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