Jo Whiley 2006-05-12

Transcribed by Laura (~screenager~).

Jo Whiley interview with Bellamy, May 12th 2006

Jo Whiley: All this week we've had a Pet Sound called Supermassive Black Hole, it's by Muse, and Matt Bellamy from Muse is on the phone now. Hey, how are you?

Matt: Yeah, good, yeah, how you doing?

Jo Whiley: Yeah I'm all right thank you, so did you hear us play it for the first time? Were you listening?

Matt: Yeah, I did actually, yeah, yeah it sounded alright, yeah. Sounded pretty squeezed, and it's - yeah, cool. *laughs*

Jo Whiley: How does it feel? 'cause we had Johnny Borrell from Razorlight and we played their record for the first time, and he was quite ... anxious about it when it was going out and was kind of, was very, just looked very nervous. Is that how you felt listening to it?

Matt: Um ... no, not really. I got quite excited really, I was quite looking forward to seeing how people react to it, because it's quite obviously different from anything we've ever done before. And, yeah it's nice - it's always nice to hear your stuff played, though, it's kind of ... it's nice to get your music out there and heard by people. So it was a, it was a nice thing to hear really.

Jo Whiley: Yeah, and the reaction was ... mixed, really mixed, but as the week's gone on, people are like, "Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about now," and they've really come round to it. So, what were you listening to when you were making this single? 'cause Britney Spears has been thrown in there, Scissor Sisters ...

Matt: Actually, I must admit, Scissor Sisters were ... I was into them a while ago, and um... I think this song probably came out of ... 'cause we were recording the album and we spent in the South of France recording and the album was turning into a kind of, I don't know, some kind of progressive, sort of nightmare, you know? And it was all getting a bit paranoid down there, so we kind of decided to move up to New York, and we sort of did most of the 'finishing-off' recording in New York. Whilst I was out there I was going out a bit and ehm - I'm just trying to think of what I was listening to really - 'cause I've got a friend out there who was gonna teach me how to do this sort of DJ vibe which, which you're very good at obviously, but I'm a little bit of an amateur. So I went out to this dodgy club, The Darkroom, in the Lower East Side, and I'm not sure if you've been there but it's a pretty cool club.

Jo Whiley: Yeah.

Matt: And I was attempting to sort of be a DJ there. I was in there mixing loads of stuff, I did a pretty cool mix between Depeche Mode's World In My Eyes and Eurhythmic's Sweet Dreams.

Jo Whiley: Ooh!

Matt: That was a pretty good mix. But I must admit, the thing that seemed to get everyone dancing was good old Prince: Kiss - you know? *laughs*

Jo Whiley: Of course.

Matt: So I think it's something to do with seeing people dance around like that and getting into stuff that kind of made me think that be the album needed more of that going on, you know? So I think with this one, we tried to create something that was, I suppose, kind of the opposite to everything we've done before. You know, kind of a bit dancey-

Jo Whiley: No, funky. It's really funky, which you don't get the first time but second time it's like, "God yeah, this is so good."

Matt: Yeah, but it doesn't really represent what the whole album is like, it's probably a bit of a one-off, but I think there are probably quite a few surprises on the new album, of different things we tried, that we've never really done before. But I think this song is one of the most unusual things on the album. 'Supermassive Black Hole', you know?

Jo Whiley: Okay. You're playing Radio One Big Weekend tomorrow in Dundee. That's gonna be your first live show for ... about 18 months, isn't that right?

Matt: Yeah, yeah, about that.

Jo Whiley: How do you feel about that?

Matt: Little bit nervous about that, I'm mean we're a little bit rusty obviously, but we'll give it our best shot. We are looking forward to playing, it's good to get a ... it's good to do a gig after such a long break, you know. It sort of kicks our arse back into gear and eh yeah I'm looking forward to it. We'll probably play a few new tracks there, and obviously a couple of old ones as well, and yeah - I'm looking forward to it.

Jo Whiley: Okay. Do you ever worry about forgetting the words to the old ones that you've done? Do you ever have to look up the words?

Matt: *laughs* I think I'm pretty good at improvising on the spot when I forget words, and sometimes when you do that you come up with something a bit better than what was on the album anyway, so it usually works out.

Jo Whiley: Thank you very much indeed for talking to us. Are you going to be checking out any of the other bands on the bill? Anyone that you're particularly excited about?

Matt: Actually I was listening to a radio show a couple of days ago and you had Snow Patrol in, doing like an acoustic thing?

Jo Whiley: Yeah.

Matt: And that sounded really good, and I wasn't really too farmiliar with that music, so I'm probably gonna watch them.

Jo Whiley: Excellent! All right Matt, it's lovely to talk to you. Well done with the single and the album, and we'll see you in Dundee.

Matt: Ok thanks a lot, cheers.

Jo Whiley: Okay, take care. Bye.

Matt: See you later.

Matt: And this is the single, this has been our Record of the Week all this week and here it is, the deeply funky Supermassive Black Hole...