Kerrang 2008-03-12 – Great Expectations
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Great
Expectations
There was a moment, a small one, that Muse’s Matt Bellamy and Dom Howard still think of with a mixture of horror and amusement. It occurred just seconds before the band were due to face 60,000 people in Wembley Stadium last Summer. It was the sort of problem that brought them back to earth with a bump, a heart-stopping incident that pulled sharply into focus both the enormity of what they were about to do, and the lunacy of it all. “When we were making our entrance, we got stuck on the lift that was supposed to be raising us into middle of the crowd,” grins Bellamy. “It was so Spinal Tap; we were just trapped there waiting to pop out. I was thinking, ‘Oh shit, this is terrible. It's all going to go wrong.’ I thought we were going to have to climb out!” It’s the sort of thing that could throw any bands, or send others into a meltdown of tantrums and finger-pointing. Muse, though, laugh about it. Minutes before they were about to face the biggest moment of their career, they were trapped on a gantry holding back their giggles. It's perhaps self-depreciating episodes like this that have allowed muse to get where they are today. Without courting the tabloid press, without making compromises and without ever losing sight to what they, as musicians, are supposed to be focused upon, they have quietly become superstars. While they take their music seriously, they are yet to fall into the trap of taking themselves too seriously and hence, have got to the position where they can pull off the extraordinary feat of selling out not just one, but two nights at Wembley Stadium. It was a weekend in which over 120,000 people gazed down at them from the hallowed seats of that famous arena. It was a weekend in which bands of the calibre of Biffy Clyro and My Chemical Romance (the latter of whom could perhaps lay claim to selling out stadium of their own) were the support acts to their main event. And for band playing their first ever stadium show, Muse were more than equipped for the job: flying acrobats, giant screens, dazzling lights, fireworks, satellites, antennas, massive inflatables and a heroic sense of grandness were all present and correct. Then there was the music. Never has the scale of Muses’ ambitious, operatic and epic intentions been given such scope, never has it seemed more suited to an environment. As the sci-fi vision of Knights of Cydonia ricocheted around the packed seats, or as the delicate Solder’s Poem made the vast arena feel intimate, it suddenly seemed that Muse had finally earned their spot in the pantheon of the greats. Perhaps more amazingly, for a gig that would mark the culmination of most band's careers, Muse, it seems, have only just started their campaign to move from big to biggest.
TODAY, TWO of the members of Muse are lounging around a central London hotel so swanky its staff have banned it's name from being printed in this magazine, lest it's reputation be cheapened. It should perhaps be made clear that the hotel is not the band’s choice but that of their record company, who today have scheduled a conveyor belt of interviews to be conducted by both the British hand the foreign press. Bellamy is ensconced in an entirely white, minimalist “…” several floors above; drummer Dom Howard’s “…”-ucking into a quick meal at the bar. Bassist Chris Wolstenholme is at home in Devon, making the most of a half term with his kids.
Later today, in have just an hour after his last interview is due finish, Bellamy is booked onto the 7pm flight to Milan from where he will take a short drive to his house on Italy’s beautiful Lake Como. There he has been unwinding since January, when Muse finally reached the end of the mammoth 19-month world tour that accompanied their fourth album Black Holes and Revelations. The singer, fresh and groomed today, said he spend the first fortnight back home just lying in bed. “I just slept for two weeks. I was exhausted. I was literally sleeping for 14 hours a day. I’d get up, have maybe one meal, then got straight back to bed.”
The rest of his time since then, says the man whose keyboard skills have led observers to swoons, has been “…” -- if you can believe it-- to play the piano. “It’s classical piano,” he protests. “It’s a totally different thing! I’m also trying to learn Italian but I’m “…”-ish. It’s a pretty slow process, to be honest. I’ve always been terrible at languages, even at school.” Muse’s drummer, meanwhile, has been finding far less to occupy his time. On being asked what he’s been going for the last couple of months, Howard puffs out his cheeks, thinks for a minute, holds out his hands, sighs, and issues the blackest of black looks. It’s been so boring,” he smiles. “I’ve just been sitting about. I sit at home and look at the walls. Ive been painting them too, actually. What’s nice is being able to spend time with family and friends. It's nice to fix any neglected relationships. That’s a good thing to divert your attention from watching the paint dry. ”That, and thinking back on a day in which Muse became Britain’s biggest and best rock band.
WHAT’S IT ACTUALLY LIKE TO PLAY WEMBLEY STADIUM?
Matt Bellamy: “Well, it was definitely a defining moment for us. Throughout life, there have been a few gigs that stand out and that was definitely one of them. It’s a different type of show – the crowd aren’t just focusing on you, they’re watching the whole performance, the spectacle, they don’t just jump around. Its very interesting.”
Dom: “There’s certainly a part of me that looks back and wonders whether it actually happened. It did seem quite surreal. I was watching some footage for the DVD and I was thinking, ‘Bloody hell! It’s quite big, isn’t it?’”?
WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH YOUR HEAD BEFORE YOU MADE YOUR ENTRANCE?
Matt: “Oh, I was very nervous. It was quite scary, a black just came over me. When the lift stopped, I could hear the crowd all around and I did begin to panic, actually. Arriving right in the middle of the crowd like that, made it feel a bit like a gladiator situation. It felt like all these people were bearing down on us. After we popped out, I sort of went blank. I blanked the music, the lyrics and I blanked what my job was. All I had going through me were questions like, ‘How did I get here? How did this happen?’ I couldn’t understand what had got me in the sort of position where I suddenly had to entertain 60,000 people.”
Dom: “But, from onstage, it looked amazing. We were so nervous that it took us quite a few songs to settled in and relax enough to have the balls to look around the stadium. Initially, we were just focusing on the playing.”
WERE THE NERVES ABOUT THE MUSIC OR THE DAY?
Dom: “You worry you might get lost on such a big stage and you also want to be able to pull off a stadium show. Playing a stadium as a rock band is such a big statement, isn’t it? It’s not like headlining a festival or doing an arena tour its… Stadium Rock. And its not just an stadium, either, its Wembley and there’s a lot attached to that.”
WHEN YOU STARTED OUT AS TEENAGERS IN TEIGMOUTH, WAS PLAYING WEMBLEY SOMETHING YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE?
Dom: “Actually, it sort of was. In one way, everything we’ve achieved has added up to so much more than we expected. But, also, there’s always been something inside of us that knew we could do it. I always knew we were a pretty good band, or at least had the potential to be a pretty good one – as I’m sure we were a bit rubbish in the early days.”
Matt: “At a concert of that nature, you do suddenly go back to how you felt as a kid. Back then, doing something like playing Wembley was something I would have loved to have done. When I was actually faced with it, though, I thought, ‘Shit, I don’t know if I can do it.’”
COULD YOU EVER RELAX UP THERE?
Matt: “The most relaxing point was probably when we played Blackout. There were all these girls and acrobats hanging about on balloons and I knew the crowd wasn't looking at us but at them – as was I, actually. For a minute, I was a spectator rather than a performer. I felt like I was witnessing it rather than creating it. It was a really nice moment for me.”
THERE WAS another nice moment, too, minutes after the band walked offstage. Overwhelmed by the show they had just played, they stood and stared at each other, blinking back tears. “It was probably the most emotional gig we’ve ever done. We were on the edge of crying because we had pulled off something that we never thought we’d be able to do. That got to us deeply.”
Still, for a band who have played Wembley Stadium, Muse’s name, somehow, sits uncomfortably alongside the likes of the George Michael's and Bon Jovi's of the world. As Bellamy puts it, “Certainly you could say that we’re the most unknown band to play Wembley Stadium. When you look at the names who have paled there, then it’s a weird group to be in. I don’t think we fit there, particularly.”
“Its funny,” adds Howard. “Matt has always jokingly asked me whether we’d made it throughout our career. He asked me the first time we headlined The Astoria, and I said, ‘No, not yet’. He might have asked me after we headlined Reading, and I think I may have said no. I definitely said yes after Wembley Stadium, though.”
Yet, so unknown do Bellamy and Howard claim to be, they say they could quite easily walk along nearby Oxford Street without being troubled for the time, let alone their autographs. Which poses an interesting question:
IN AN ERA WHEN CELEBRETY IS EVERYTHING, WHO DID THREE MEN, WHOSE NAMES ARE BARELY MENTIONED IN THE MAINSTEAM MEDIA, MANAGE TO PULL OFF 2007’S BIGGEST ROCK SHOW?
Matt: “There’s a lot of word of mouth with this band, a lot of people are spreading our music around the internet. The mainstream media tends to focus on who’s selling records. They miss the fact that there’s loads happening on the internet that can't be monitored but can put a band in Wembley Stadium. I think that’s a sign of the times.”
DO YOU PREFER IT LIKE THAT?
Matt: “Yes, I’m very happy with it. We get the experience of playing massive concerts without the intrusion of character invasion that can come with it. We’ve managed to stay very much ourselves and remain down to earth because we haven’t allowed the people around us to alter the way we perceive ourselves.”
Dom: “What we’ve done well is to be rightly known for caring only about our music and nothing else. There are plenty of artists out there who, unfortunatly, get noticed more for the things they do away from their music. I imagine it's quite disheartening to realise that your music is inferior to your persona.”
THERE’S AN interesting difference between Bellamy and Howard when they talk. The singer is twitchy and nervous, though never less than friendly. He’ll look down at the ephemera around him, half-drunk coffee cups, tea tray of biscuits and water, but rarely into your eyes. And when a question is asked, he’ll wait until he’s sure its finished and then, more often than not, he’ll emit a short chuckle before agreeing and then talking at pace until he’s interrupted. It’s a livewire, anxious energy that runs though him in the extent that, when the hotel management elect to test their fire-alarm midway through the interview – a howling, bleeping, futuristic sort of electronic clanking – he’s up on his feet to investigate both the noise and the speaker from which it emanates. “Blimey,” he says, with a frown, “I thought it was the end of the world.”
Dom Howard is different. Dressed in tight jeans, T-shirt and suit jacket, he’s perhaps more urbane – outgoing, friendlier still, and always making eye contact. You wouldn’t know this is just the latest in a stream of question and answer sessions he’s faced today so fresh-faced and delighted does he seem by the prospect of more question on a theme.
It’s a different attitude too. Though clearly close, the two often take opposing views on the same topic. While both are determines that Wembley will mark their entry into the stadium-league around the world, Bellamy tempers this by adding that he wants to play smaller venues as well as the massive spectaculars, saying, “I’d miss playing shows at 2,000-seater theatres. They’re more intense and the crowd is much more mental.”
Howard, though, is overjoyed at the prospect of playing only the big gigs. Asked if he too would miss the smaller shows and he looks perplexed. “I’m sure I might, though I think playing stadiums around the world would fill in that gap,” he smiles. “Massive gigs are a different world. They’re brilliant! If anyone’s thinking about it, I’d certainly advise them very strongly to go down that route. I think you’ve got to play a whole load of stadium to get sick of them. They’re just so…” he tails off, grasping for the word,”…they’re just so… so huge! I’m revelling in the big stuff!”
This summer we will see the band headline gigs in Dubai, South America, possibly China and the V Festival, alongside a charity bash at the Royal Albert Hall. For a band supposedly winding down before writing another album, it’s a busy summer.
“I see those as fun gigs, though,” says Matt. “Well, perhaps fun is the wrong word, but they’re not going to be stressful. There was a big gap, touring-wise between Absolution and BlackHoles – it was something like three years. It meant we made BlackHoles in a situation where we were quite far away from what we are as a live band. That was good because it created something different for us. But this time, we’d probably like to play a few new songs live before we record them. That can help give you a bit of direction.”
WAS A LACK OF LIVE INFLUENCE A PROBLEM IN TERMS OF MAKING BLACK HOLES?
Matt: “Yes, there were quite a few moments where we lost a grip on what holds us together as a live band. When you’re in the studio you can get caught up in just doing overdubs and guitar parts and you end up not playing together as much as you should. It all got a bit broken down but perhaps we had to do that in order to create some of the newer sorts of songs we wanted to do.”
HAVE YOU BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM?
Matt: “We’re always thinking about it. I think, at the moment, we want to explore some dancier music. We opened the door to that on Black Holes but its something that I think we only just about got away with; we pulled it off rather than absolutely nailed it. So we want to try more of that. There will also be at least one 12-minute, full-on, prog song. It’ll be something like Knights of Cydonia but more so. I think we opened the door to a lot of things that we can now push even further.”
PEOPLE WILL BE SURPRISED TO HEAR YOU WERENT ALREADY PUSHING THINGS QUITE A LONG WAY!
Matt: “Ha! I know, but there is a lot further to go on things. For example, rather than include string in the music, I want to work out ways to put actual pieces of classical music into our songs.”
Dom: “We may not play the new songs live, though, because you worry that playing new stuff in that environment might now go down very well. Sometimes you can scrap a perfectly good song because it's not received well live. You forget that an indifferent reaction may have been the result of the crowd being unsure how to respond because the music’s unfamiliar to them.”
AND WITH that, our time is up. A French journalist, notebook in hand, waits outside for Bellamy while a photo-session is scheduled for Howard. Ad they stand, they both beam – a satisfied, good-to-be-alive kind of smiles that they share.
“Well, life is good,” explains Howard. “Everything’s great!”
“We couldn’t be happier,” smiles Bellamy. “I’ve never been this relaxed about the band before. I don’t think its laziness – it's comfort. We’ve got a great summer ahead and we’re got a good couple of years behind us. What more could you want?”
MUSE’S CD/DVD THE HAARP TOUR: LIVE FROM WEMBLEY IS OUT ON MARCH 17.