Rich Costey

Rich Costey

Produced: Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, Simulation Theory

Mixed: Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, The 2nd Law, Drones, Simulation Theory, Origin of Symmetry: XX Anniversary RemiXX

Engineered: Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, Simulation Theory

Muse believes Rich has nailed the sound they want.

Absolution

Costey was first introduced to Muse by a Danish rock band Mew (who also supported Muse during the 2013 tour) around 2002. He was interested in the band and gave them a call. Him and Muse met at a rehearsal somewhere in Islington, UK in late 2002, where they were writing demoes for Absolution. The rehearsal led to them booking Air Studios in London for 10 days. Their first songs recorded together at the studios include Stockholm Syndrome and Hysteria. These 10 days resulted in both parties being interested in working together on the rest of the album and, subsequently, most of the rest of Muse's discography.

When asked why they had chosen Rich Costey, Matthew Bellamy answered: "He was the man we originally thought of working with for the rock tracks. He'd previously mixed some great rock records - Audioslave, Rage Against The Machine's Renegades, The Mars Volta - but in the meantime he'd been sending us discs of other people he'd worked with like Philip Glass and Fiona Apple and was trying to convince us that he should do the whole album. We reworked Apocalypse Please with a more aggressive sound, without too much over-production, and it sounded better. In the end he did do pretty much all the album, and mixed it as well. He understood what we were trying to achieve."

Sound on Sound Article archived on Musewiki
Sound on Sound Article on the SOS web site

Black Holes and Revelations

Bellamy approched Costey in regards to producing their next album during the Absolution tour. Costey followed this up by contacting Bellamy a few months prior to starting the album.

Wolstenholme: We kept him because he really did a good job for Absolution. We had many producers until now, working on two following albums with the same one is a little bit different. Rich’s main quality is a very good technician doubled with a real musician. As a matter of fact, he gets involved more in what we are creating, and his advices about arrangements, as melodies, are constructive. He perfectly understands music which is not the same situation about other producers.

The 2nd Law

Working on The 2nd Law, Costey only mixed three songs, Panic Station, Liquid State and Isolated System

Drones

With Drones, Costey was, like with The 2nd Law, in charge of mixing, allthough this time he mixed the entire album.

Simulation Theory

Simulation Theory is the first album after 10 years that Costey has done production on. He also did mixing and some engineering.

Origin of Symmetry XX Anniversary RemiXX

Costey re-mixed Origin of Symmetry for the 20th anniversary remix edition of the album in 2021. The re-mix includes better clarity and dynamics of the songs, aswell as the prominence of a few musical elements which were buried on the original album mix. He was assisted by Aleks Von Korff.