© 2007 Fairfax New Zealand Limited. All Rights Reserved.

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Muse's Matt Bellamy offers VICKI ANDERSON a few revelations about conspiracy facts and life on Mars.

Get set for the best live gig of your life at the Westpac Arena on Sunday when UK new-prog rock supergroup Muse will surely send the stage into lift-off mode.

Muse -- Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard -- formed in Teignmouth, Devon, when they got together as 16-year-olds after their former bands combusted. All those years ago they left their plastering jobs and took a gamble on music. Fast forward to 2007 and, deservedly, they've just been voted the Best Live Act in 2007 by Q Magazine.

I'm expecting to talk to Wolstenholme so it's a real surprise when the big cheese of Muse, Bellamy, rocks onto the line.

If music is the voice of each generation then Bellamy should be considered the mouthpiece of the conspiracy theorists, or factualists as he'd have them known.

Luckily, my mate Raoul has often bent my ears with his theories on global domination and what really happened at 9/11 so I'm well prepared for a 45-minute conversation about hidden world news.

"A lot of people get labelled as conspiracy theorists," says Bellamy. "It's a clever way of making someone devalued; lessening what they're talking about before they've even talked about it.

"It's close to propaganda calling people conspiracy theorists. In lots of cases, they are actually conspiracy factualists."

Who engineered 9/11? Was there really a plane? Is global warming a swindle to keep the developing world in poverty? Is oil running out or is it a hoax to drive prices up? Is there a clandestine organisation of conglomerates looking for New World Order?

"There's loads of ideas out there. The ones I like the most are the ones where people tend to stick to the facts."

Muse aim to encourage "sheeple" to open their eyes and minds with their various lyrics on these topical subjects.

"There are a few risks out there in life but you're far more likely to get knocked down by a car than bombed by a terrorist. It's just non- stop stuff to make people scared and make them buy more things off the internet and hide in the house. It's a horrible way of making the sheep afraid to leave the herd."

Bellamy is suspicious of surveillance technology and the apparent ease with which people can tap into your private life. He believes identity cards are not far away.

He believes that people need to wake up and march in protest more often.

"The only way to get change is for the masses to team together and start marching in the streets.

"Democracy has had a go, but now we need a, hopefully gentle, revolution.

"It's unusual I talk this much about it in an interview, really. There's definitely a fair few songs on the album that really go for this kind of stuff, but there are other elements, too. I try to sing from various perspectives."

Muse's latest album, Black Holes and Revelations, is simply a stunner; orbiting whirls of soundscapes and distortion distorted within an inch of its life.

I have a theory of my own. I ask Bellamy if the sexy track Supermassive Black Hole is an ode to supermodels. Part of the lyrics are, as far as I can make out: "Grey shoes burning in the dead of night and the super star's sucked into the super masses." Bellamy, however, laughs loudly.

"There are no burning shoes, woman; the word is glaciers," he laughs. "It is sort of more like a shallower approach and I don't mean that in a negative sense, some of our music tends to be deep and complex. It's nice to take a breather now and then do something a bit more light-hearted. Starlight was a bit like that. It was a big change for us, exploring the more optimistic side.

"Some people in bands tend to get all caught up in boxing themselves into one particular thing in the hope that will make themselves stand out a bit more. I used to think a bit like that, I suppose, but now I just want to be, I sound really '70s man, but I just want to be myself, man.

"With this album we wanted to show that we're not just a bunch of miserabilists."

The Knights of Cydonia -- as pictured on the album cover of Black Holes and Revelations -- relates to another of Bellamy's theories. He believes that we all began life on Mars.

"Cydonia is the area of Mars where people think there are some structures. I like the idea that some kind of battle took place and a few good people decided to bail out and come to Earth and have a go here. They are the Knights of Cydonia. I like the idea of that.

Black Holes and Revelations was initially born in a bat-infested cave in the south of France where the group sequestered themselves. They found a studio that had been closed down for about 50 years. Appropriately, it was originally a knight's templar.

"We were there for six weeks and we were going a bit beserk and mental with cabin fever and then we decided to go completely the other way and went to New York to record. But by that time we were so sure of what we were doing that it all happened very quickly so we recorded most of the songs in a couple of weeks. We actually mixed it in London, but we came to Italy to do the strings."

Bellamy says it's too early to speculate on how their next album will sound. He's thinking of combining electronica with classical elements, but it's not until they start arranging the songs that they take shape and, often, take on a completely different direction.

Muse added Christchurch to their New Zealand playlist as they're keen to check out the scenery and as a response to the loads of requests on their internet message board over the years from Cantabrians.

There's only one person Bellamy hopes doesn't show up at the gig.

"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland. He's a bit of a stalker type. He has endless handwriting in books with words circled and pages ripped out and then he puts in weird cryptic messages with my name. He puts car registration plates with the End Is Nigh written on it.

"The scary thing with dealing with the conspiracy world is that every now and then you get one of those who've gone fully over the edge. Whenever I get a package from him, that's always the weirdest day of the tour."

Muse have come a long way since their teen days of hiring out a boxing ring and stashing cider behind the ropes, "getting drunk and trashing the gear".

"Our dreams came true -- we just wanted to tour England when we started and now that has evolved into a whole different thing. Now it's more that we've become more conscious of the impact we might be having on people. You can't get too caught up in it, but I'm aware of wanting to have some positive impact with what I'm doing. I don't want everyone to get depressed listening to our music. I'd rather help them feel inspired and able to change things; that's what I'm aiming for."

Or as the Knights of Cydonia would say -- Don't waste your time or time will waste you.

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Source :

whoa sounds awesome

There's only one person Bellamy hopes doesn't show up at the gig.

"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland. He's a bit of a stalker type. He has endless handwriting in books with words circled and pages ripped out and then he puts in weird cryptic messages with my name. He puts car registration plates with the End Is Nigh written on it.

hahaha

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Hyper :





I have a theory of my own. I ask Bellamy if the sexy track Supermassive Black Hole is an ode to supermodels. Part of the lyrics are, as far as I can make out: "Grey shoes burning in the dead of night and the super star's sucked into the super masses." Bellamy, however, laughs loudly.

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How embarrassing. I think I would have died right there on the spot!

This article made me smile

haha i liked that interview

"A lot of people get labelled as conspiracy theorists," says Bellamy. "It's a clever way of making someone devalued; lessening what they're talking about before they've even talked about it.
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Muse aim to encourage "sheeple" to open their eyes and minds with their various lyrics on these topical subjects.

"There are a few risks out there in life but you're far more likely to get knocked down by a car than bombed by a terrorist. It's just non- stop stuff to make people scared and make them buy more things off the internet and hide in the house. It's a horrible way of making the sheep afraid to leave the herd."
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Interesting how Matt calls people who don't subscribe to the conspiracy nonsense "sheep" yet still complains that people who DO fall for it are the ones being devalued with a labels.

I adore the man for the music he makes but its embarrassing to hear some of the stuff he supports sometimes.

^it's all about context though. Those are snatches of a 45-minute conversation. Most people do blindly accept everything that's on the news and in the newspaper with the spin journalists give them, you certainly don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that.
He never sounds particularly serious about the Cydonia stuff if you listen to an interview, but written ones almost always suggest he is. Spin.

"There are no burning shoes, woman; the word is glaciers."

That thing about the guy with the handwriting and licence plates is fucking weird though.

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alijw :
There's only one person Bellamy hopes doesn't show up at the gig.

"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland. He's a bit of a stalker type. He has endless handwriting in books with words circled and pages ripped out and then he puts in weird cryptic messages with my name. He puts car registration plates with the End Is Nigh written on it.

hahaha

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scary....
so the obvious question...is it someone from here?

Grey shoes? Is it NME in disguise?

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Acidalia :

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alijw :
There's only one person Bellamy hopes doesn't show up at the gig.

"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland. He's a bit of a stalker type. He has endless handwriting in books with words circled and pages ripped out and then he puts in weird cryptic messages with my name. He puts car registration plates with the End Is Nigh written on it.

hahaha

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scary....
so the obvious question...is it someone from here?

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we are bound to find out

let`s stalk ML members...

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"The ones I like the most are the ones where people tend to stick to the facts."

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Back to the basics

Pretty good interview, although a bit random.

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Acidalia :

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alijw :
There's only one person Bellamy hopes doesn't show up at the gig.

"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland. He's a bit of a stalker type. He has endless handwriting in books with words circled and pages ripped out and then he puts in weird cryptic messages with my name. He puts car registration plates with the End Is Nigh written on it.

hahaha

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scary....
so the obvious question...is it someone from here?

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lol let's hope so! that would make a great post(s).
"I'm the stalker guy who creeps Matt out. look at my notebooks!"

Bellamy's comments regarding politics and conspiracy theories are just cringe worthy.

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Goofeh :
"A lot of people get labelled as conspiracy theorists," says Bellamy. "It's a clever way of making someone devalued; lessening what they're talking about before they've even talked about it.
----------------------------------------------------------
Muse aim to encourage "sheeple" to open their eyes and minds with their various lyrics on these topical subjects.

"There are a few risks out there in life but you're far more likely to get knocked down by a car than bombed by a terrorist. It's just non- stop stuff to make people scared and make them buy more things off the internet and hide in the house. It's a horrible way of making the sheep afraid to leave the herd."
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Interesting how Matt calls people who don't subscribe to the conspiracy nonsense "sheep" yet still complains that people who DO fall for it are the ones being devalued with a labels.

I adore the man for the music he makes but its embarrassing to hear some of the stuff he supports sometimes.

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It's quite the contrary of what he says. I'd say the the sheep were the conspiracy theorists (and they are so by definition) themselves. They spout the same preprogrammed rhetoric that they've learnt from conspiracy websites and youtube, about how Bush was seen with many fireworks round the towers on 9/11 or how jet fuel doesn't burn or whatever, without ever thinking to question the conpiracy theories themselves.

He has the idea right though. Question everything (essentially the scientific method). Where conspiracy theorists often go wrong is when they get a non-mainstream answer the questions can stop and the Government are in fact out to get you.

If he spent just 30 minutes listening to a physicist he would probably learn that his Mars nonsense is in fact actually nonsense and that steal weakens when heated...or with a psychologist explainging how regular people do not, in fact, know what a cruise missile hitting the Pentagon sounds like and will probably confabulate about such emotive events.

When they nest tour in the UK I might buy this and get one of the PMT bezerkers to lob it at him.

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no-name :
Grey shoes? Is it NME in disguise?

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its just one of those moments that you actually feel embarrassed for the person who wrote it

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SpaceDemented :
It's quite the contrary of what he says. I'd say the the sheep were the conspiracy theorists (and they are so by definition) themselves. They spout the same preprogrammed rhetoric that they've learnt from conspiracy websites and youtube, about how Bush was seen with many fireworks round the towers on 9/11 or how jet fuel doesn't burn or whatever, without ever thinking to question the conpiracy theories themselves.

He has the idea right though. Question everything (essentially the scientific method). Where conspiracy theorists often go wrong is when they get a non-mainstream answer the questions can stop and the Government are in fact out to get you.

If he spent just 30 minutes listening to a physicist he would probably learn that his Mars nonsense is in fact actually nonsense and that steal weakens when heated...or with a psychologist explainging how regular people do not, in fact, know what a cruise missile hitting the Pentagon sounds like and will probably confabulate about such emotive events.

When they nest tour in the UK I might buy this and get one of the PMT bezerkers to lob it at him.

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Wow, you're like.... me! But with a better vocabulary. You made my point perfectly sir .

Read one of the books he's mentioned, Crossing The Rubicon by Mike C. Ruppert. It doesn't go into how precisely the twin towers fell and focusses strictly on the government response to the threat before and during 9/11. The devil is in the detail, it's not in all this rubbish like "there was no plane" or "everyone on Flight 92 was kidnapped and murdered" or bad physics.

And he's said many times that he just likes to entertain the idea that we could have come from Mars or that the Queen is a lizard, he doesn't really believe it.

[/in his defence]

Yeah, I agree that Matt doesn't really believe in many of the things he says. He just finds the ideas entertaining or interesting. I think it's obvious after you read a few of his interviews. It's a recurrent theme in his ow lyrics in fact - faith, beliefs, etc. Some ideas are appealing or seductive, but doesn't mean we necessarily believe them.


What a psycho, that guy he described. How fucking scary is it to get "gifts" with your name and some crytic nonsense... I'd be shitting myself, especially if it's a regular ocurrence like it seems. Eeeeeeeeek.

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~screenager~ :
Read one of the books he's mentioned, Crossing The Rubicon by Mike C. Ruppert. It doesn't go into how precisely the twin towers fell and focusses strictly on the government response to the threat before and during 9/11.

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Logical Fallacy #4 (http://theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp)

Argument from final Consequences
Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that is serves.

For example: US Government used 9/11 to their benefit, therefore US Government planned 9/11.

Still Illogical.

Matt will turn to a sci-fi movies producer...

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Acidalia :
let`s stalk ML members...

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Goofeh :
Logical Fallacy #4 (http://theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp)

Argument from final Consequences
Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that is serves.

For example: US Government used 9/11 to their benefit, therefore US Government planned 9/11.

Still Illogical.

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It's quite a lot more complicated than that, but if you're not prepared to look any further into it then that's your choice. Frankly it would be difficult to write several hundred pages based solely on "they benefited so they must have done it".

No offense here but im kind of getting sick how EVERY sinlge interview just focuses on Matt's theories, they are beginning to all the the smae now (interviews i mean, not Matt) Wouldn't you be sick of it if you were Matt? Focus on the music or something for once
And thats my beef for the day

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There's only one person Bellamy hopes doesn't show up at the gig.

"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland. He's a bit of a stalker type. He has endless handwriting in books with words circled and pages ripped out and then he puts in weird cryptic messages with my name. He puts car registration plates with the End Is Nigh written on it.

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scary....
so the obvious question...is it someone from here?




lol let's hope so! that would make a great post(s).
"I'm the stalker guy who creeps Matt out. look at my notebooks!"

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Matt could be wrong.

Edit: We're only having fun and joking around. I personally don't really care.

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idrive1life :
"There's this one guy, I'm not sure where he's from -- he has an East European accent but I think he's from Ireland"

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*doesn't get it*

I still don't understand. Why is that cause for celebration?

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dicko :
No offense here but im kind of getting sick how EVERY sinlge interview just focuses on Matt's theories, they are beginning to all the the smae now (interviews i mean, not Matt) Wouldn't you be sick of it if you were Matt? Focus on the music or something for once
And thats my beef for the day

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Haha i was just gonna say something along these lines Simon, until i saw your post I think its something to do with NZ reporters especially. NZ journalism sucks! I am also sick of them describing Muse as some supernatural outerspace lifeform, jeez i just wish this NME-esque overdescriptive and pompous wankery would die. Journalists need to be more original.

On a more lighter level, I love matts response: "There are no burning shoes, woman; the word is glaciers," he laughs.

well when i was at the bar their managment was getting really fucked off with some asain dude, cant say he looked irish or eastern european lol

but apparently hes been stalking them.

he asked dom for a photos dom said "fuck off"