Three years ago the debut with "Showbiz" catched
everyone's attention: in a time when nu-metal was the
most popular genre, three skinny guys from the english
countryside had the courage to debut with an album
that mixed hard rock with sudden openings to classical
music. Tormented, strongly intimate lyrics, uttered by
the frontman thanks to his particular voice, not
scared at all at the idea of being nearly able to
break glasses with his high notes or expressing his
painful declarations of love openly.
With the following "Origin of Symmetry", they
disproved the legend of the "second cursed album" and
confirmed to be one of the most interesting new things
in the international pop(ular) scene.
Their non-stopping live activity (proved by the
release of "Hullabaloo") reinforced their fame more
and more, until they ended up releasing their third
studio album, "Absolution", in September 2003. Rockier
tracks with more orchestral interludes and more
romantic themes. Love and death, hope and despair,
damnation and salvation, irreversibility and
potentiality, schizophrenia and bliss. To enter the
world of the "absolved" Muse it's like an anaphylactic
shock: those who still assert that Muse are mere
clones of Radiohead, they not only are deaf, but also
they preclude their own musical ecstasy.
But are our three Teignmouth guys aware of this?

INTERVIEWER: In this record you worked with 32
orchestra musicians. It must have been exciting...

DOM: Yes, it's really been, it's been great to use the
orchestra, both to see and to hear. We didn't really
know what to expect, we recorded a few tracks and then
they started to play without having ever seen any
sheet music, it was something new for them as well. We
just played along, making this great jam, casual and
rough, cool to listen to, and we were shocked at how
professional they were.


INTERVIEWER: Have you ever considered the idea of
playing live with an orchestra? It would be one of the
best combinations ever...

CHRIS: It would sure be really good, but maybe just
for some really big show, 'cos it would be quite
expensive to bring at least 18 people on tour with us!

DOM: I think we will do it sooner or later, because
some songs on the album have got long orchestral
pieces and it would be cool to bring the orchestra on
tour. We don't know when it's going to be, but we will
surely do it at some point during the tour, maybe next
year.


INTERVIEWER: Comparing your previous records with this
latest one, it seems like you've really found your way
to absolution, the complete detachment from every
earthly thing, as if "Showbiz" and "Origin of
Symmetry" had been just two mere checkpoints towards
beatitude. How did you work on your evolution, both
from the point of view of music and that of the
lyrics, to eventually ponder this mental condition?

DOM: How did you work on your lyrics to reach this
mental condition?

MATT: How did you work on the music? (laughs)

DOM: We think that this latest album can represent
very well our personality and everything we're able to
create. There's much more personal feelings and
sounds, I think this is due to the way we've composed
it, since we did it in really different circumstances
to those we're used to. "Showbiz" was made when we
were still young, before we had a contract, and we
were playing in local pubs, so we put into it all kind
of familiar stuff; "Origin of Symmetry" was recorded
in a studio while we were touring, after signing a
contract, around the world, living in a chaotic and
crazy way, sort of blind, in a sense: I think the
album somehow represents this confusion, and like we
were leaving the past behind and feeling a bit
disconnected from what we used to be. This time,
instead, we've taken some time to rest, and we used
this sort of ex warehouse as our studio to play in
everytime we were feeling like it: it's been nice not
to have to do any advertising, not to have all the
responibility for the tour. It was a room to meet and
play music, and it felt good, as if we hadn't been
doing it for a while and then we had met again and
started playing again, like something fresh and new. I
think this is why the album seems more personal.


INTERVIEWER: In this one, it seems like there is more
room for the orchestral pieces, while the rock pieces
are even rockier, full of anger and hate: a sort of
bipolar attitude that hits the listener with a great
strenght in both cases. What helped you broaden your
way of expressing yourselves in music this way?

CHRIS: I think it's linked to the idea of freedom. If
we go back to our first album, we never stuck to a
definite sound or a particular style. Even on "Origin
of Symmetry" there are very different sounds in the
way the songs and the music came out. It's something
we've never been scared about, I mean, trying to use
different solutions at the same time; we never stuck
to a particular genre or stuff.

MATT: My opinion is that some of the bipolar elements
are due to the fact that I play both piano and guitar,
two different instruments that can generate totally
different sensations and atmospheres. When I play the
piano, the music seems to be more abstract, thus not
necessarily aggressive; while when I play guitar the
atmosphere results stronger and more direct. The
dualism comes from the difference between the
piano-based songs and the guitar-based ones.


INTERVIEWER: Speaking of the lack of time, "Time Is
Running Out" is a grand example of how love and death
are very close to each other in your lyrics, an
example that may remind of a typical romantic attitude
of the XIX century: have you ever felt like the
depository of the principles of Sturm und Drang?

MATT: I wouldn't know... I think that the music of XIX
century and the piano music in general have influenced
the band, probably this is where the influences you're
talking about come from. I think that piano music can
create really intense emotional atmospheres, maybe you
can obtain them playing guitar as well, but I think...
I don't know really...

DOM: Can you go on now?

MATT: I think that music is something really important
in one's life. You put lots of passion in some songs,
the passion you've grown up with, it's something many
people like to do, so many of one's emotions come out
of the tracks.


INTERVIEWER: "Apocalypse Please" is quite a turning
point from the point of view of the lyrics, since
you've always been looking for inspiration from the
inside, in your previous stuff, while this song seems
to take its lifeblood from what's been surrounding you
and us in the last months... how did you find out to
be this open to external input?

MATT: I think it's something that happens when the
more time passes and the more you become aware,
traveling around the world can make you more open
minded expecially if you come from a small town. When
you live in a small town you aren't that close to what
happens outside, while when you travel or you're
touring, you start pondering more things outside
yourself.


INTERVIEWER: There are a few songs that caught our
attention and we can't stop listening to: first of
all, "Blackout", this ballad full of grace and
emotions, that seems to be inspired by Schubert's "Ave
Maria" and Gerswhine's rhapsodies. Has it been a
conscious choice that of differentiating this song so
much from the others, since the rock attitude of Muse
doesn't really come out... although it tries to?

MATT: We've surely been trying to make a different
song, something we had never made before, in order to
experiment a new way of making music. It's been
influenced by very classical songs of the 30s and the
40s, those played by big bands that performed in
proper situations and realized a more complete
performance, playing live all together without any
computer and yet obtaining a complete, huge sound. We
wanted this song to be different.


INTERVIEWER: We talked about rhapsodies, which make me
think of another song, "Butterflies and Hurricanes",
which seems to be structured like Queen's "Bohemian
Rhapsody", continuously changing its pace and vocal
parts which are sung all together... since this album
describes the latest tumults of the world, can this
song be interpreted as a representation of the
schizophrenic world that surrounds us nowadays?

MATT: This song is about hope, about when you fight
for something even in those moments when everything
seems sad and depressing, in that moment you have to
be strong enough to keep on fighting and forgetting
about everything else, not caring about how bad it may
seem, it's never the way you expect it. As for what
concerns the musical aspect, there are two different
piano parts: one is very minimalistic, in a Philip
Glass style, or a Steve Reich style, and another one
in a Rachmaninov style or a Chopin style, two artists
who have a more emotional way of playing. I think this
song has a sort of "lid" that sounds kinda like
"dindindin...", sort of mechanical and continuous, and
then in the middle there is this explosion of a more
emotional sound. I think it has some kind of deep
meaning, but I can't explain it!


INTERVIEWER: Anyway, your music is always so visual
that we wonder if you will increase the experience of
"Hullabaloo" with a movie at the cinemas... as Pink
Floyd did with "The Wall", or The Who with "Tommy". Do
you think it would be worth trying?

CHRIS: I think it would be an interesting thing to do,
but involving different people, since it's something
totally different to what we usually do. It's surely
something interesting to care about.

MATT: We should make a musical... (laughs)

DOM: Yeah, we're already thinking of making a musical,
a really big one! Instead of staying on stage, we
would spend our time building the cast and seeing
actresses; we would play the role of the band who play
on stage, or anywhere else, maybe at the sides of the
theatre...

MATT: We'll stay behind and play, while the actors
will play ahead of us. Anyway, these things need lots
of experience, which we lack. Making a film is not
something you do everyday, so I think that when you do
this kind of things you need t co-operate. If we met
someone who has got something like this in their mind,
though, we could consider the idea of doing it.


INTERVIEWER: What do you think about The Darkness?

MATT: They take the piss...

DOM: I like them, they're cool and they make me laugh
when I see their video and I think they make many
people laugh.

MATT: I like their costumes...

DOM: I like his stunts!