Interview Transcript - Most Wanted - 18 Feb '08
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 theBellamy 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
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 initially, and Reading as well, probably form about the age of 14 to 18 I went to Reading and Glastonbury every year.
BJ: From what I hear, the V Festival is your only UK show your doing this summer, no I have been bombarded with, and I say hundreds upon hundreds of emails from Muse fans since the word was out you were coming on the show, they’ve all been emailing to say, please WHY, why only 1 UK show?
MB: Well I think really this year we wanted to concentrate on making new music, maybe making a new album or releasing some stuff on the internet, and I think we all wanted to take a bit of a break because we’ve been touring for so long and then we’ve got his studio we’ve been working on and building and in the next few months well be hopefully doing some new songs, we’ve basically put in a few concerts, like we did one in Dubai for some reason, and well be doing a couple in south Africa, south America and just one or two, I think we might be doing one in Dublin and Belfast as well, but were not really touring this year, were just doing the odd gig here and there and I think that hopefully one of the things were going to try and do is a couple of new songs live before we record them, one of the ideas is, this years going to be sort of broken up between a couple of random gigs and in the recording studio making a new album I think.
BJ: Have you ever been to Dubai before?
MB: No I’ve never been
BJ: Its mental, have you been to Vegas?
MB: Many times
BJ: It’s kind of like Vegas, but even hotter and even sandier, with even more money, so I think your gonna have a good time in Dubai.
Muse are a band who, and we were talking about in this in the office today defy being pigeon holed, its impossible to put Muse in pigeon hole. I’m fascinated to know, as a musician, who inspires you, who inspired you to be in a band?
MB: To be in a band? Well I suppose as a concept of the band, it came form a rock stuff like Jimi Hendrix, like when I saw him setting fire to his guitar, I think at Isle Of Wight I think it was, Monterey or something, I went ‘ I wouldn’t mind setting fire to a guitar’ that was… I dunno, groups like led zeppelin, queen, a lot of sort off…the first guitar music I really heard was Cream, Clapton’s cream, you know, that kind of stuff, that was the stuff that made me wanna get in a band if you like. In terms of what inspires me musically I’ve always had a lot of love for you know classical music, you know jazz music and all sorts of genres really, I’ve always loved, you know, even r’n’b music, pop music, whatever, I’ve always been very open minded towards music, and I think with the band I always wanted to be very pluralistic band, I didn’t ever want to be just one style of music simply because, between the here of us we all love so much about music that we wanted to sort of create a band where we could actually explore these different ideas as well as the freedom. I think we’ve managed do that, infact with the last album, the fact you can have an album with a song like Supermassive Black Hole on I and a song like Take A Bow on it is, I’m sort of happy about it because it means going forward we can have more freedom or as much freedom as we want, we can do a pop r’n’b style song, in the style of Timberlake or some weird prog epic with an orchestra, the fact we can get away with that now is what I’ve always wanted really, to have that freedom to explore all the different aspects of music that we love.
BJ: I’ve always thought that you were a band destined to play stadium shows and as you’ve just said, some of the bands that influenced you were the kings of stadium rock, lets talk about the Wembley shows – people say that this was Muse at their very best, did the three of you feel the same when you came off stage?
MB: Yeah when we came off, it was defiantly a defining moment for us, I mean we’ve had a few gigs like that in the years, I remember when we first came off from headlining a few years ago at the Glastonbury festival, it’s the same kind of thing really. It’s almost like every album we’ve ever done has had a certain gig that defines it you know. The first album we did a gig in Paris, our first big theatre gig I remember that as being the bets gig at the time, the second we did a gig in docklands arena and that was the first ever arena concert we did. We came off stage thinking that this has changed the way we see ourselves, its changed the way we think about playing and everything, yeah and Glastonbury we did the same on our third album and I think that Wembley stadium its changed the way we feel about playing live a little bit and its given us inspiration to try and do that more around the world in future and…
BJ: How do you top it though?
MB: Well, within the UK its going to be tough I suppose, you know, what we gonna do, go back to playing clubs again I suppose, pubs and clubs – I don’t know. In terms of around the world, there’s a lot of places we haven’t played so were very excited about taking that show and doing it elsewhere, its difficult to know, actually you know what I can tell you about another gig that I don’t think anyone knows about..
BJ: Go on
MB: Were gonna do a gig in the Albert hall I think, in April, not sure if I’m supposed to say that but it’s a charity concert for the teenage cancer trust.
BJ: Oh yeah cool, well we do those gigs so I think it’s alright for you to say that
MB: Well there you go then, I’m not sure if people know its confirmed yet and it was the last couple of days that I heard about it. The reason I brought that up is because it nice to get back into these classic theatre venues where you can get up close to the audience again, I’m pretty sure that’s something well be doing in the UK a bit is playing a few classic venues on the side.
BJ: So if people missed the Wembley shows, they can now watch it on DVD, god love DVD’s with all the extras and all that kinda stuff. The DVD is called Harp – where does that title come from is it an acronym of some kind?
MB: Yeah it an acronym for High Frequency active oral research programme, which is basically one of the more berserk conspiracy theory’s that we were thinking of when we were loosing ourselves while making the last album and its actually inside the artwork of the album Black Holes and Revelations, I think its the second or third page you can actually see the picture of this thing that was built in Alaska, its basically Nicola Testler came up with this weird theory or this idea to shoot electricity to the ionosphere to make the ionosphere into a large super conductor that can distribute electricity anywhere around the world and this patient was purchased by the American government and sort of suppressed, and I think it’s a real shame because Nicola Testler had this great idea that everyone could have electricity for free all around the world. I suppose it would have riled up a few energy company’s around the world quite badly you know, but the American government have owned this patient for a long while and then this Alaska harp thing that they’ve designed is based on that patent, and I think Russia’s built one and I think China’s building one and there’s a lot of conspiracy theories built around it – what is it all about you know, is it a weapon, is it being used to manipulate the weather, what are they using it for, how that relates to the DVD to cut a long story short, is our set design all these antennas and cables and screens are based on the lay out as the Harp layout you know, so that was kind of why we did it.
BJ: You’ve got to see that. Now something we’ve been talking about on this show for the last couple of months is I was very lucky to go the set of the James Bond movie a few weeks ago and watch it being filmed and we’ve set up this Facebook group and its all about Muse for the Bond theme because the title Quantum of Solace, as soon as I heard that I thought Muse! They’ve got to do it, if ever a band could do a dong with the title Quantum of Solace, its muse, what do you think? Is it something you would maybe entertain?
MB: Id love to get involved in the writing of it, I’m not sure if we should perform it though, I think you’ve got to have a real lovely diva to sing a bond tune.
BJ: I’m not to sure Chris Connell was a…
MB: Yeah I know, I’m not a big fan of that one if I’m honest…
BJ: Me neither
MB: I like the one U2 did for Tina Turner, I think that was really good and obviously all the classics over the years with Shirley Bassey and stuff, I’m trying to work out who is the modern equivalent of that a modern equivalent of a female crooner
BJ: Well there after Amy Winehouse I guess aren’t they
MB: Oh well there you go, she’s brilliant, id love to get involved in the writing of it, I suppose because I’m quite familiar with the theatrical, dramatic side of music, but you probably need someone with a bit more bond!
BJ: Ok you write it and well get Kylie to perform it, how about that?
MB: There you go, perfect
BJ: Infact the poster for the movie looks a little bit like the album cover for Absolution.
MB: Oh really!
BJ: Have a look see what you think. So what’s the rest of the day got in store for you then Matt, what you doing, how you chilling out?
MB: I’ve actually got to do a barrage of interviews today, we tend to cram it all in one day, and them I’m gonna relax, I haven’t been in London for a while actually so I’m going to probably stay here for a few days and just wonder round the streets a little bit and probably try and buy some clothes or something, whatever, just hang out really. I’m going to go to some nice Japanese restaurants because I think that London’s got some of the best Japanese restaurants in Europe
BJ: Youga, just around the corner form here in Brewers street - amazing Japanese restaurant.
MB: There you go, so ill be looking to hang out there
BJ: Listen if you do get the chance to have a look on line at our little Facebook, have a look because there is already thousands and thousands of members desperate to maybe get you not, not perform, write the James Bond theme. And have a look. and Harp is out it’s a two disk with a DVD isn’t it?
MB: Yeah its sort of the best of both nights really Sunday night is the DVD and Saturday is the live disk so anyone that came to either of the concerts will get to have a little bit of a sample of the day they didn’t get to you know
BJ: Well listen always good to speak to you and I’m really looking forward to the V Festival, you headlining is just wow! What a great way to end our summer of live music, matt nice to speak to you
MB: Thanks a lot, cheers
BJ: Take care, bye
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