Q 2011-11 – The Music That Changed My Life
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Original transcription by supersymmetries on Tumblr (November 27, 2022)
The Music That Changed My Life
Muse: Teignmouth’s space cadets used Status Quo and Derek B. as launchpads.
Words: Tom Doyle | Portrait: Alex Lake
How are you, how’s your day been?
Matt Bellamy: My day’s been lovely. I woke up and had a full English breakfast this morning, which I really enjoy.
Chris Wolstenholme: My day has been OK. Stuck in traffic up to London from Leatherhead.
Dominic Howard: I’m great. We’ve been rehearsing all week, so this is our last day of work or whatever you want to call it.
What’s the first record you bought?
MB: Something like Derek B. English hip hop.
DH: De la Soul, 3 Feet High And Rising. An amazing record. The whole thing’s themed as a game show.
CW: Nirvana — In Utero. Up until that point, I used to listen to my mum and dad’s records.
What song of the last 25 years do you wish you’d written?
MB: U2, Mysterious Ways.
DH: Smells Like Teen Spirit. They went on to sell 25 million albums, didn’t they?
CW: You could live off the royalties of the rest of your life.
What’s your favorite album of the last 25 years?
CW: Rage Against The Machine’s [self-titled] first album. It was guitar music like I’d never heard before. It brought that combination of rock and rap into the mainstream.
DH: Weezer – The Blue Album. It’s got 10 songs on it, it’s 40 minutes long, and every track is amazing. That has got to be one of the best debut albums ever.
MB: Grace, Jeff Buckley. It was one of the first albums that made me want to sing. And it made me feel things that I’d never felt before for music.
What’s the one acknowledged classic record that does nothing for you?
MB: Sgt. Pepper. I find it hard to be moved by it. Or feel anything. I love some of their work… some of it’s amazing, obviously. But in terms of it being Number 1 album of all time…
CW: Sgt. Pepper never did it for me either.
DH: I’ve never really got into The Rolling Stones. I’ve never really felt a draw to go and actually listen to them.
Who’s the person you’ve met with the worst music taste?
MB: I’ve got to say, when I first met Chris, he was a big Status Quo fan. I found that troubling.
CW: I used to really like Quo back in my youth, like, in their classic ‘70s period. I always used to get hammered for that.
Which artists shaped you as an artist?
MB: Jeff Buckley, Tom Morello, the guitarist in Rage Against The Machine. Jimi Hendrix, Tom Waits, even though no one would probably make any link. But certainly in my attempts to write lyrics.
CW: Nirvana, because the way Kurt Cobain played guitar, it wasn’t anything particularly technical, but he had this style that was instantly recognizable. You didn’t have to be a great guitarist to pick up and play along to the records.
DH: Things with great drummers I respect particularly. Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine, The Police. Bits of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.
Which song gives you goosebumps?
MB: Do you know Alicia Keys? What’s that song that goes [sings], “Tonight I’m gonna find a way to make it without you”? Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart. I love that song. It’s just the sound of a woman from the past, like a lost love or something. I get a haunting, shivery feeling when I listen to it.
CW: God Only Knows by The Beach Boys.
What do you put on the pub jukebox?
MB: R&B or hip hop… Beyonce, Crazy In Love.
DH: ABBA. Does Your Mother Know, the only one that the geezers actually sing. ABBA always works in a pub.
CW: I would put on Nevermind’s Something In The Way. Then you had 25 minutes of silence before the secret track Endless Nameless kicked in– the most offensive, aggressive, smashing-up-guitars music with no melody. That pissed people off [laughs].
What’s the best advice another musician’s given you?
DH: “Have a good time all the time.” Roger Taylor from Queen said that to me.
MB: Recently Bono was talking about writing a song about Japan from the point of view of a certain character– focusing on the courage of these guys that were going in to cool the reactors. That was just not a way that I’d thought of writing a song before.
How do you store your records?
MB: I can’t really do the MP3 thing. Lost CDs. Vinyl in bits. I’m parasitic, I just borrow and nick stuff from people’s collections.
CW: I hoard things. Even though there’s albums that I’ve got that I’ll never listen to again, I cannot let things go. So I sat at my computer for a week and imported 600-plus CDs into my iTunes library. Now I’ve catalogued all my CDs in alphabetical order and I’ve got them in about 12 of these big aluminum cases.
DH: On my computer. I’ve gone full digital. I must have a terabyte split across loads of different hard drives.
Which song do you want played at your funeral?
MB: Michael Jackson – Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’
CW: The Beach Boys – In My Room
DH: Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now.
Muse's Musical Routemap
First record Dom bought: De La Soul — 3 Feet High and Rising
Early inspiration: Rage Against The Machine — Rage Against The Machine
Matt's favourite album of the last 25 years: Jeff Buckley — Grace
Pub jukebox selection: ABBA — Does Your Mother Know
Song that gives Matt goosebumps: Alicia Keys — Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart