Muse keeps the secret (Excélsior article)

Muse keeps the secret

Dominic Howard, drummer of the English group, refused to reveal details about their next studio album that could be released in summer 2009; he said that during their two concerts in Mexico they could play Falling Away With You, which they have never played live.

BY GABRIEL MEDINA

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use is one of the more important progressive rock bands of today. Their Mexican fans will be able to see them play live on July 16 at the Arena Monterrey, and July 18 at the Guadalajara Auditorio Telmex, yet they will still know practically nothing about their 5th studio album, successor of Black Holes & Revelations of 2006, since Dominic Howard (drums) preferred to keep the secret during a telephone interview from London.

"We still don't have a title, that always comes at the last moment because it's inspired by the lyrics of the songs, but they aren't composed either. We don't have a release date either, but we'd like it to be in summer of 2009. We're going to concentrate more [on the album] in September, after the tour finishes," he said after laughing in a somewhat ironic way.

HAARP is the title of the most recent CD/DVD of the band, recorded live on June 16 and 17 at the new Wembley Stadium in London and was released for sale on March 24.

It was leaked on the Internet that one part of the following album of the band, also composed of Matthew Bellamy (vocals, guitar and piano) and Chris Wolstenholme (bass guitar), could have an electronic sound and the other the participation of a philharmonic orchestra.

"Each album is like a new door to open or a road to walk. I don't know how the next album is going to sound, but it probably will have a good dose of heavy rock. For a long time we've thought that we would like to work with a philharmonic orchestra, one that has a lot of strings so that they play live with us, perhaps we could include it on the album. It could also have electronic sounds like Black Holes & Revelations," he explained.

Besides their virtuosity with their instruments, Muse has been successful with the content of their songs with the talk of subjects like the apocalypse, life on other planets, as well as experiments and governmental conspiracies. But Howard either didn't want to talk about the theme that they will include in their new recording.

"The lyrics will probably talk about very different subjects, about our lives. The three of us live in different places and you absorb what's there around you. Matt continues living in Italy, I live in London, which is a vibrant city, full of energy, but at the same time very calm, and Chris lives in the countryside in Devon (a county in southwest England, where the band was born in 1994, when they were still called Rocket Baby Dolls). Besides, I don't know what the latest conspiracy theory is that Matt is thinking of at the moment," revealed the admirer of other drummers like Stewart Copeland (The Police), John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) and Dave Grohl (Nirvana and Foo Fighters).

Those who are attending to the Muse concerts in Mexico in less than a month could be the first lucky fans in the world to listen to Falling Away With You live, a song that the band has never played in a live concert, and that is on the album Absolution (2003).

"We've never played it live. Perhaps in our gigs in Monterrey and Guadalajara we could do it. Also we would like to play some old songs, like Megalomania that we played in London recently, it would be great for people to hear Space Dementia live from our second album (Hullabaloo [writer's mistake]) and Muscle Museum from the same album [writer's mistake again]. If we feel good, we could possibly play new things also," indicated the musician, who is in charge of percussions.

Dom, as his friends call him, explained that they won't return to play in Mexico City this year because they don't have any new songs -they had a concert last April on the 12th at the Palacio de los Deportes-, but they could come to play in the summer of 2009 already with new songs.

"We have never played in Chile (July 26), Brazil (July 30 - August 2), nor Colombia (July 20). We're very excited because we know that Latin American people are very effusive and passionate. We love to play for new faces. I don't know any bands from there, but I would love to know some. Maybe we'll listen to some Latin American groups that will influence the sound of our new album," expressed the musician, who denied that in the next album they will include a song dedicated to his father who passed away four years ago.

Dom's father died hours after Muse played in the Glastonbury Festival in 2004, a concert that the band has described as they best gig of their lives, and it was published on the DVD of the British band: Absolution Tour.

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