Muse news

Watch: Matt wants a boy!

Fri, 20 May 2011 20:25:01 +0100

Chris from Muse tells Absolute Radio's Tania Snuggs at the Ivor Novello Awards, that frontman Matt Bellamy's hinted he'd like a boy ahead of the birth of his first child with Hollywood actress Kate Hudson.

Watch: Interview at the Ivors 2011

Fri, 20 May 2011 17:49:18 +0100

Absolute Radio's Tania Snuggs talks to Chris and Dom from Muse at the Ivor Novello Awards in London, where they revealed frontman Matt's hinted he wants a boy ahead of the birth of his first child with actress Kate Hudson.

Watch: Interview on the red carpet

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:47:28 +0000

Chris from Muse chats to Adrian Hieatt about the band's plans for the new album, and the fact that they're running out of space for all the awards they keep winning.

Watch: Interview

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:59:38 +0000

Matt Bellamy chats to Adrian Hieatt about the band's new album and his plans for the record, as well as where he keeps his awards. This interview was filmed at the NME Awards 2011 in London, where Muse won the prize for 'Best British Band'.

Watch: Interview

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:55:06 +0000

Chris from Muse chats to Adrian Hieatt after picking up the prize for 'Best British Band' at the NME Awards 2011. He also reveals an intimate detail about an encounter with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters...

Watch: Interview

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:40:34 +0100

Matt Bellamy from Muse chats to Absolute Radio at the Silver Clef Awards 2010. He tells us about the band's plans for their upcoming Wembley shows.

Watch: Interview at Big Day Out

Wed, 12 May 2010 16:44:28 +0100

Matt Bellamy and Dom Howard from Muse join Absolute Radio backstage at Australia's Big Day Out festival.Ben Jones speaks to them about touring, Matt's nice outfit, Muse's tribute to AC/DC and something about the Twilight Eclipse film....

Watch: Dom from Muse at the NME Awards 2010

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:28:42 +0000

Dom from Muse chats to Absolute Radio's Adrian Hieatt on the red carpet at the NME Awards 2010

Listen: Dom Howard on Muse's arena dates

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:17:41 +0000

Dom Howard from Muse speaks to Adrian Hieatt about their upcoming shows at Manchester and Wembley. Visit Absolute Radio Ticket Store

Watch: Q Awards 2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:50:33 +0000

Absolute Radio's Tumshie Smillie talks to "Best Act in the World Today" winners, Muse, ahead of the 2009 Q Awards ceremony. The band were apparently "quiety confident" about the award, but also said that they are felt privileged to be nominated among so many other great acts.

Listen: Interview

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:06:30 +0100

It's been 10 years since their debut album and 'the biggest band in Teignmouth' are now widely regarded as one of the best live draws in the world. Matt and Dom from Muse join Ben Jones to talk in detail about their 5th studio album 'The Resistance' in this full and uncut interview.

Watch: Muse at the NME Awards 2009

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:04:46 +0000

Interview Transcript - Most Wanted - 18 Feb '08

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:04:09 +0100

Matt Bellamy, frontman of Muse was talking exclusively to Ben Jones on Most Wanted as they discussed everything from writing the new Bond tune, to being unworthy of winning Best Live Act at the BRITs and setting fire to guitars.

Bellamy also announced exclusively that the trio are to perform at The Teenage Cancer Trust gigs this year at the legendary Royal Albert Hall. This revelation comes only days after being confirmed for V festival which will be their only European Festival appearance of 2008.

There has been much talk lately of who will be penning the theme tune to the next Bond film 'Quantum of Solace'. Ben Jones has started a campaign to get Muse to sing the next theme tune to the Bond film. After all, who better then a home-grown English band to sing for the best series of British films?

Ben started a group on Facebook which has attracted a large response from fans all over the globe. Ben Jones asked Matt Bellamy his thoughts on the issue in this interview.

Muse have previously won two BRIT Awards for Best Live Act. Matt Bellamy seemed a little bit confused over how many awards they've won but specualtes over who will win it this year none the less.

Listen to the interview.

Transcript

BJ: This is Ben Jones on Most Wanted, it is Monday evening and I’m and as promised lets talk to the man of the moment matt Bellamy from muse, good evening.

MB: Hi how’s it going?

BJ: I’m very well thank you. How are you?

MB: Good Thanks

BJ: Good, so where are you?

MB: At the moment I’m in some weird poncy hotel, in London, no I shouldn’t say that, it’s very nice, its called the Sanderson, I’m not staying here, I’m just here to do some interviews, I think I’m sort of doing a full day of the rounds basically…

BJ: That must drive you crazy

MB: Its alright you know, its been a mellow few months, I’ve just been relaxing for the past few months at home cause we were on tour for 18 months and we stopped in December, so the last few months I’ve just been relaxing in Italy – doing not much really apart from getting fat on pasta.

BJ: Nothing wrong with that! Nothing wrong! What’ s it like actually when you come off tour and you’ve been doing it relentlessly for 18 months and you shut the door on the tour and your go home, its wired I guess not to have that white slip of paper under the door with the itinerary on and your thinking, ‘what the hell do I do now’.

MB: Yeah it can be like that, you can get so used to, I suppose in a band that’s been touring for years, you can get used to the routine of that, you know and that becomes your normality and I suppose coming off tour is I suppose is as strange as when I go on tour, your coming back to a flat full of a mountain of bills and fines that you cant even remember how they got there and it’s very difficult to get back to a sort of normal routine cause you sort of wake up most days and think ‘what am I doing’ because is in a 9 to 5 and you sort of think, well what shall I do?

BJ: Do you miss playing music when you’re off tour?

MB: Well it quickly gets replaced by going back to, I suppose writing music and getting excited by the ideas of recording music which is a whole other type of experience you know, and I think I really enjoy performing and creating music and as I think the last few months have sort of been about relaxing and getting back to some normal way of life, but its been nice though. I think when you’ve had a really nice tour where you’ve really enjoyed yourself and I think last year was probably one of the best years we’ve had for touring, when you’ve come home its just a nice, you know, you feel like you’ve done something or you’ve achieved something. I think the last couple of months have been easier in the past in previous albums when we would only took short breaks between tours, that’s the most difficult time to come back to normality, and as I’ve said in the last few months I’ve really appreciated the quiet you know?

BJ: Do you cook much? You live in Italy, you say you’ve been getting fat on pasta, I imagine that with a fair bit of time off you become a dab hand in the kitchen Matt?

MB: Yeah well you’ve got to be really in Italy, I’m not even near being a beginner in Italian cooking but I’m defiantly picking up a lot of tips and lessons, I can make my own pasta from scratch now, I can actually do homemade pasta and make it from scratch with flour and eggs and cook it probably quicker than you can boil dry pasta.

BJ: Lloyd Grossman! He’s got nothing on you! I can see a sideline here, a bit like Newman did the salad sauces; Lloyd Grossman did the pasta sauce, now there’s the Matt Bellamy pasta sauce.

MB: Yeah, it’s coming; it will be our next merch item

BJ: Next to the T-Shirts and the tour programme's – pasta sauces! There seems to be so much stuff to talk about re: Muse at the moment, despite you being away, there is loads of stuff going on, there’s the V Festival and Harp the live album, well talk about that in a second. It is Brit awards week obviously, in the UK this week. Your currently the holders of the best live act, do you keep much of an eye on who wins what and what do you think your chances are again this year?

MB: I can’t believe we’d win again this year cause I think we won it last year and I think it would be rude to win it twice! So I think well have to hand the torch to someone else this year and hopefully well come and nick it back off them next year!

BJ: I think Take That are going to win this year

MB: Yeah, they deserve it, I’m not a massive fan of their music but I think they’ve done a good job over their difficult come back without Robbie obviously, so I think they pulled it off.

BJ: Also stage show wise, and you guys are the kings of this, visually the take that show was actually kinda cool!

MB: Yeah I haven’t seen it myself, but I’ve heard about it and we’ve actually got the same production manager actually, the guy who does our tour, does their tour so I heard of it, and there’s actually a few bits that I wanted to do that we couldn’t do it for whatever reason and then they did it, cause they did this ‘V’ stage thing that comes down I think from the ceiling or something…

BJ: Yeah, that’s right

MB: I really wanted to do that – damn!

BJ: Outrageous, I can’t believe that Take That stole your thunder matt!

MB: Well I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, it’s a close call I tried to get it going on our reader tour about a year ago and basically we couldn’t do it because we had too much equipment because they are obviously fun guys they don’t have all the drums and amps and stuff you know so its probably easier for them to do it, I actually wanted to do that ages ago but we couldn’t because we had too much heavy gear and health and safety blah blah blah! Health and safety said no!

BJ: Boring! Bring it with you to the V Festival cause your confirmed for V, you last played the festival I think back in 2004 is it a festival you enjoy playing?

MB: Yeah its nice, I find it a nice festival to actually be at you know as a punter as well as a laying it you know, I think its nicely laid out and I like all the grassy areas, I think its probably got the best back stage areas actually, not that I suppose you’ll actually get into that, but try to blag your way into it if you can because it’s a really nice hospitality area and all that, but yeah it’s a nice relaxed gig and I get the chance to go up north as well, I’ve got a lot of family up there so its nice to play up there.

BJ: Do you take much interest in the rest of the line up at a festival, is that important for you in deciding what festival your going to play at?

MB: Yeah, its always nice to know, originally Coldplay were going to play I think, I’m not sure what happened to them…

BJ: I think there are still rumours kicking around

MB: Yeah, yeah because I heard they might do it, and that was one of my reasons why I was tempted to play because there nice guys and we haven’t played with them in a long time, but I’m not sure who is playing now so…

BJ: The Verve

MB: Oh there you go, The Verve, ok. Id be interested to know who else is playing Roundoff your know, I mean really its just a case of knowing how much time I’m going to spend watching other bands, you know

BJ: Were you a festival fan before you joined the band?

MB: Oh yeah, defiantly yeah, well being from south-west Devon, no big bands ever came down to play for us you know, so…

BJ: You gotta go to them

MB: Yeah so we had to go to Glastonbury festival, Glastonbury was where I sort of went and saw loads of bands that I loved initi

Live at V Festival 2008

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:04:18 +0100

Live review and live tracks

In the not-too-distant future, countries do war by pitching supermassive robots against each other in a gigantic sandpit, and Muse are the soundtrack. Meanwhile, back at the Virgin Mobile V Festival, six giant satellite dishes (will they pick up the footie?) stretch across the V stage as if to transmit earth's most angst-ridden bombastic rock band back into space - perhaps from whence they first came?

The riffed-out intro to "Newborn" flips all the giant jumbotron screens to 'CCTV mode' - all black, white and sinister. Think about every Muse show you've ever seen, pack it all together into a tiny memory byte and jettison it. Or for those of you who know them only on record: every element of their live reputation is true. Despite this, at it occasionally crashes back into orbit and "Butterflies and Hurricanes" ends with Matt Bellamy's best go at the infamous camp Liberace-like piano outro that we've ever seen whilst "Feeling Good" is angst-ridden, vital and raw, but too much a reminder of the sick Michael Buble version we've been forced to vomit to recently.

But after the encore, when we're galloped out to "Knights of Cydonia", Muse remind us why they're the easily the greatest rock band at V this weekend and, just possibly, contender for the whole planetary title. When the gladiator robots are finally called up to fight, can we get an invite?

Photos: V Festival 2008

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:47:33 +0100

Interviewed on Most Wanted - 18 Feb '08

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:03:25 +0100

Interviewed at The NME Awards - 28 Feb '08

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:25:51 +0100

Muse were at the NME Awards to pick up their award for Best Live Band and took the time out to speak to Tania Snuggs from the News Team on the red carpet.

Matt Bellamy talked about being pleased about winning the award over those cheeky Northerners Arctic Monkeys and also about their headline slot at this year's V Festival which might hold a couple of surprises and, of course, the Bond theme.

Listen to the interview from the red carpet.

Check out the rest of the NME Awards winners, more interviews and photos in our NME Awards coverage.

Teenage Cancer Trust 2008 review and pictures

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:12:44 +0100

It’s an extra special night at the Royal Albert Hall. The hottest ticket of the week has come to fruition as this year’s Virgin Mobile V Festival headliners Muse are headlining the penultimate evening of the Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts.

It’s always extra spectacular when a band that is capable of headlining major festivals across the world plays a show indoors, especially when it is a venue as grand as this, and don’t the black-clad trio use every last dramatic inch.

Ben Jones caught up with Matt Bellamy from Muse before the show. Listen to the interview.

As the customary huge balloons drop from the ceiling during ‘Bliss’, it has an extra special feel to it because while in the cavernous Wembley Arena or the expansive festivals there is little to no chance of touching a balloon, here it is almost guaranteed. Some balloons end up on stage and Bellamy finishes the song with gusto, spearing the final confetti-filled balloon with the head of his guitar.

After exiting the stage, Muse are brought back for a stupendous encore. Matt Bellamy restarts the show in the organ gallery as he uses the house instrument to play ‘Megalomania’ – a song the band hasn’t played live for some years now – the way it was always intended.

Closing the evening with a storming rendition of ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ was a masterstroke by a band that strengthens its position as the finest live band around at this moment with every performance. Come 16 August, V Festival won’t know what’s hit it.

Setlist

Take A Bow
Map of the Problematique
Supermassive Black Hole
New Born
Butterflies & Hurricanes
Fury
Feeling Good
Invincible
Hysteria
Starlight
Bliss
Time Is Running Out
Stockholm Syndrome
---
Megalomania
Osaka Jam + Plug In Baby
Knights of Cydonia

Photos: Concerts for Teenage Cancer Trust 2008

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:07:32 +0100

Listen: Matt Bellamy talks to Ben Jones

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:26:45 +0100

Photos: Concerts for Teenage Cancer Trust 2008

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:56:04 +0100

Photos: Muse - Concert for Teenage Cancer Trust 2008

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:55:52 +0100

Photos: NME Awards 2008

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:58:06 +0000

Listen: Matt Bellamy on Most Wanted

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:28:31 +0000

Watch: Butterflies and Hurricanes

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:23:00 +0000