Christopher Wolstenholme

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Chris Wolstenholme
Muse member
Name Christopher Tony Wolstenholme
Born 2nd December 1978(Age 41)
Hometown Rotherham, Yorkshire
Plays Bass guitar, double bass, guitar, backing vocals, keyboard, drums, harmonica, lead vocals
Band members Matthew Bellamy and Dominic Howard
Associated acts Fixed Penalty, Rocket Baby Dolls, Muse and Moriaty

Chris' childhood

Chris was born on the 2nd of December 1978 in Rotherham, Yorkshire (home of the Chuckle Brothers) but also moved to Devon during his teenage years (at age 11). His mum would buy records regularly, influencing his interest in music. He started by learning to play the guitar, followed by the drums. Chris played drums with a local band named Fixed Penalty, before leaving to learn and play the bass when he met Dom and Matt, creating the Rocket Baby Dolls.

Music

Chris plays bass and provides backing vocals, as well as the occasional synthesizer lines (such as on Hysteria, Madness and The Void), drums and percussion (Pray, Supremacy, Apocalypse Please). He also sang and wrote two tracks on the sixth studio album (The 2nd Law), When the band started playing Plug In Baby live, he asked for a new set of strings to be put on his bass each time they played it, to get just the right sound he wanted. Chris is a big fan of the Beach Boys. His displayed vocal range goes from G2 to D5, with modal highs up to B♭4 which he has hit several times live during songs as Follow Me and Dead Star. His lowest note was hit during Shepherds Bush Empire in 2013 at the end of Save Me, and his highest can be heard during live performances of Uprising, at the "Come on".

Wolstenholme was also part of various side-projects involving smaller local bands Chris is friends with. In 2008, he joined Hey Molly on drums, the performance can be seen here. In 2014, he joined an English 2 piece rock band Moriaty as an unofficial third member, and he played bass guitar on their new EP 'Bones'. He was also featured in the music video, and it can be seen here.

At his home, Chris transformed a wine cellar into a home studio in which he records and writes his own stuff, sometimes records stuff for Muse and he occasionally records and producers local bands.[1]

Previous jobs

  • Guitar shop assistant

Twitter and Instagram

On the 2nd September, 2010, Chris invited fans out for a game of football in Manchester via Muse's Twitter. This resulted in a number of fans thinking that Muse's account has been hacked up until the moment when Chris tweeted a photo of himself and a football. Soon after, he got his own Twitter account (@CTWolstenholme).

About a year after Dom's first Instagram post, Chris posted his first Instagram photo of Dom with cupcakes in March of 2015. His Instagram username is @ctwolstenholme78.

Trivia

  • Chris used to be married to Kelly. He once lost his wedding ring at a gig in Japan, but got it back when a fan returned it (for which they received a lifetime supply of Muse gigs). He again lost it at a pool in LA a few months later, but has since tattooed his wife's name on his left arm (this has since been covered over).
  • Wolstenholme is well-known as the least vocal member of the band, leaving the majority of interviews and other promotional activities to Howard and Bellamy.
  • Wolstenholme injured his arm during a football match with Didz Hammond of The Cooper Temple Clause.
  • Wolstenholme supports The Millers (Rotherham United FC).
  • Wolstenholme had an IBM T60 laptop, but it is now broken due to tonic water spills and space bar demolition. Instead, he now owns a Macbook Pro.
  • Chris is a fan of video games and the Nintendo 64. His favorite game is "The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time".
  • Apart from Black Holes & Revelations, Wolstenholme has spawned a baby with his ex-wife Kelly around the time each album was out. (Baby No.5 was the cause of Muse having to cancel shows in Kansas City and St. Louis.)
  • Wolstenholme's children are named Alfie, Ava Jo, Frankie, Ernie, Buster and Teddi[2]. He will add two more children, Tabitha and Indiana, to the family (Caris' children). In addition, Caris and Chris recently had a child named Mabel Aurora.[3]
  • Chris got married in 2003, however, by 2016/2017 it seems that they have got separated, since now he's dating Caris Ball and later confirmed by Chris in 2018 on Instagram.
  • Chris and Caris Ball were married on December 1, 2018.
  • According to Wolstenholme's biography from Taste Media, Wolstenholme once almost choked on a Smarties cap.[4]
  • Chris smokes but gave it up when the smoking ban came into force. In 2009 he took it up again & has been seen smoking a pipe. [5] In mid February 2011 he announced on twitter that was no longer smoking.[6] He smoked a Gamucchi Electric cigarette but announced that he was back to smoking regular cigarettes in May 2011. [7] However, he recently said that he hasn't smoked since then. [8]
  • Chris was lucky enough to once get to stand in on a sound-check with his idols, Status Quo.
  • The first gig Chris went to was a Kylie Minogue concert.
  • Chris is often seen headbanging during music videos and live performances. In 2006 he explained in an interview how he damaged his neck & hired a sports therapist to work out the knots from years of physical abuse. Wolstenholme rarely headbanged during the Black Holes tour, but has started headbanging again.[9]
  • In an interview with The Times magazine, he admitted to being a "raging alcoholic" and talked about the depths of his addiction. His father died of alcoholism when he was forty which brought Chris to realise he was well on that way. Half-way during the recording of The Resistance he checked into rehab and has been clean ever since.
  • Chris is a PS3 fan according to one of his tweets; "You're a Nintendo fan, are you getting the 3DS? It makes me dizzy, personally" to which Chris responded with "Im more of a PS3 guy".
  • Chris owns a massive collection of over 130 guitars. Including his touring "stuff."
  • Chris plays as a centre forward when playing football.
  • Chris trainers are size 11.
  • Chris was asked to play on Status Quo's guitarist Rick Parfitt's post-mortem studio album Over and Out, released in 2018, shortly after Parfitt's death. He played bass and rhytm guitars, filling in for Parfitt, on the song Long Distance Love. All the parts were recorded in his home studio. The song can be heard here.
  • Chris has two maltese dogs, a samoyed named Kevin, a terrier named Ruffio and a lizard named Ronson.

Miscellaneous

References

  1. ↑ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324436104578579073727641966
  2. ↑ http://twitpic.com/33unip
  3. ↑ Matthew Bellamy & Dominic Howard. (2018-08-07). Matt and Dom from Muse on Jonesy's Jukebox. Youtube. Retrieved 2018-08-07 from youtube.com.
  4. ↑ tastemedia.com
  5. ↑ http://www.7days.ae/en/2008/02/18/jen-staying-away-from-friends.html
  6. ↑ http://twitter.com/#!/CTWolstenholme/status/35095495105839104
  7. ↑ http://twitter.com/#!/CTWolstenholme/status/70475477302788096
  8. ↑ http://twitter.com/#!/CTWolstenholme/status/137506646602682369
  9. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vmYjBN44jY

See also

Archived interviews with Christopher Wolstenholme


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