Cash for Questions - Muse interview [Q Magazine (July 2010)]
TOP OF YOUR LIST OF QUERIES FOR THE TEIGNMOUTH TRIO: ALIEN ABDUCTION, GETTING JIGGY WITH LILY ALLEN AND WHAT WE CAN EXPECT FROM THEIR GLASTONBURY SET. ASSUMING THE âLITTLE GOBLINSâ DONâT GET THEM FIRST.
WORDS CRAIG MCLEAN
PORTRAITS SHAMIL TANNA
Located just off Sunset Boulevard in the swanky Mondrian Hotel, the Skybar is one of Los Angelesâ hippest hang-outs. The views of the city are impressive, the vibe discreetly opulent. Sweet-talk your way past the famously selective door staff and you could well find yourself rubbing shoulders with rock royalty or Hollywoodâs A-list.
Itâs safe to say that itâs a world away from the green fields and pagan vibes of the Glastonbury Festival, but this is exactly where we find Saturday nightâs headliners Muse, dipping their toes into the pool and partaking in some midday sushi.
âItâs the best festival in the world,â says frontman Matt Bellamy. âWhen we were younger bands never used to come down to Devon so weâd go to Glastonbury â it was the only place we could see them. Itâs the single thing that inspired us to want to be a great live band: going to Glastonbury and just seeing amazing acts play and thinking, Thatâs what I wanna do.â
This will be the second time Bellamy and bandmates Dom Howard and Chris Wolstenholme have headlined the festival â the first, in 2004, was marred by the sudden and tragic death of Howardâs dad immediately after the band came offstage.
Today, though, the Teignmouth trio have plenty to occupy their minds. As well as preparing for a headlining slot at the Coachella festival in a couple of daysâ time, they also have to record a new song for the next Twilight film with Butch Vig at the helm â and for Bellamy thereâs a tour of some of Hollywoodâs pricier real estate to fit in (Christina Aguileraâs old house is on his list). But infinitely more pressing is the sheaf of questions next to the plate of maki rolls, some of them Glastonbury-themed, others touching on such varied subjects as alien abduction and the close âfriendshipâ Bellamy sparked up with Lily Allen at the recent Big Day Out in Australia.
So, gentlemen, when youâre readyâŠ
Glastonbury: what should we expect?
John Peake, via email
Matt Bellamy: I donât wanna say it in case it doesnât happen, but weâre thinking of doing a full orchestra for Glastonbury. The logistics are gonna be fucking hardcore. Theyâll possibly be in dickie bows. Weâll keep it formal.
Hydroponics or hallucinogenics?
John Buttner, via email
Dom Howard: The last time I smoked was when we were in Amsterdam â âLetâs go and have a spliff for old timesâ sake.â And I got absolutely boxed and paranoid and ran straight back to the hotel. The last time we did mushrooms we ended up in a bouncy castle in the desert outside Las Vegas.
Youâre offered the chance to play the opening of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Moneyâs no object. What do you do?
Alana Honore, Shepperton
MB: Something with magnets. You know in Back To The Future II they built this fake street with reverse magnets so they could do the hoverboard thing for real? Youâd have to get thousands of reverse magnets and cover an area the size of a football pitch, and you could come out on a disc that floats. That would be quite spectacular.
âME AND LILY ALLEN? WE HAD A FEW NICE DAYS OUTâŠâ
Matt Bellamy
Matt Bellamy and Lily Allen: what really happened?
Hugh Moffat, via email
MB: [Small laugh] No comment⊠Had a few nice days out, had a little chat about the music business [enigmatic smile]âŠ
Dom, youâve been hit by Mattâs flying guitars before. What measures do you take to protect yourself from his âtheatricsâ?
Max Devereux, via email
DH: My reflexes have become a lot quicker. I had stitches in my eye once after he cut it. And a tetanus injectionâŠ
MB: âŠIn his bum! We came backstage and he was bent over a table, his bum hanging out. That was the main reason I did it. Any excuse to get Dom to bend over and pull his pants down.
Have you ever heard a conspiracy theory and thought, âNah, thatâs just too ridiculousâ?
Neil Feiler, via email
MB: That all the oil in the world is just endless. Thereâs a mechanism at the core of the earth that basically melts something. And all the oil wells are just constantly filling up again, but oil companies are pretending itâs running out to keep the price high. Itâs one of those mad ones Iâd like to be true.
Matt, do you still use your jetpack?
Kelly Mattie, via email
MB: I donât understand how it ever became a jetpack. It was a paramotor: a 50cc engine with a propeller and a parachute. I took lessons â it was what I was gonna do if the band didnât do well. I got involved with someone who wanted to employ me to fly over a Jamiroquai concert in Verona. It was a cheap way of doing big aerial crowd shots, cos itâs legal to fly over the audience in one. The worst you could do is break a couple of necks. As soon as Muse is over Iâm gonna get straight back into it. Not just gigs â Iâd do sporting events as well.
Do you ever read any of the online erotic fiction written about you?
Joely Byrne, via email
DH: No, but Iâve seen weird things on our message boards. The fans there are quite active â they have these threads called Pornogenic Dom, Pornogenic Matt, Pornogenic Chris. They started off using these pictures of us pulling weird sex faces when weâre playing live. Itâs our cum faces, basically. It gets weird out there.
One for Dom and Chris. Whatâs the most embarrassing thing Matt has ever worn?
Jamie Armwood, Derby
DH: The other night we went out to a bar and we ended up meeting Rod Stewart. And Matt was accidentally wearing exactly the same clothes as Rod â black pin-striped pants, a grey suit jacket, waistcoat.
Chris Wolstenholme: There was the time that he turned up at the Q Awards and heâd been locked out of his house. He came in his gym gear.
Now youâre more famous, do you think youâre more likely to be kidnapped by aliens?
Alex Light, via Twitter
MB: Dom has actually been abducted by aliens. But heâs done research and found out that itâs actually something called sleep paralysis.
DH: Itâs when youâre extremely tired â you go to bed and you fall asleep but you suddenly think youâre awake and you canât move. Youâre effectively paralysed in bed. And often whatâs associated with that is a weird presence in the room.
MB: Tell him about the little goblins.
DH: Iâve seen little goblins running around at the bottom of my bed. Iâve been dragged out of my bed⊠So there are extreme cases where people do feel like theyâve been abducted by aliens. But really theyâre just suffering from sleep paralysis. But Iâve certainly, honestly, experienced it, so Iâm comfortable that itâs not actually alien abduction. I didnât wake up with a sore bum.
MB: [Excitedly] Iâm so glad someone else has taken over that role in the band. I hope you know Iâm not the fucking weird one now.
Ever had a near-death experience?
Mark Leachman, via email
CW: A couple of days ago, actually. Really dodgy flight into LA, the weather was bad. I thought it was all over for a minute. We seemed to drop a thousand feet instantly.
MB: If it had jolted any more Dom would have just come out and said, âIâm gayâ.
Howâs the stockpiling for Armageddon coming along? Have you killed any chickens recently?
Ericka Borucki, via email
MB: No, but a few of them are up for a cull. I have bought a load of freeze-dried food that lasts for 25 years. All you do is add hot water and youâve got Bolognese, lasagne, curries⊠A two-year supply and a varied menu. Well, itâs actually a yearâs supply when these two come round.
As Teignmouth boys, can you recommend the best place to get a Devon cream tea?
Chad Bays, via email
MB: Iâd go down The Beachcomber. Itâs not one of those places full of posh old bids. Itâs a proper old-school seaside cafĂ©.
Liam or Noel Gallagher?
Teddy Powell, Ledbury
CW: I had a bit of a run-in with Liamâs security guy at a festival in Belgium. He didnât like me playing football. Then he nearly kicked my head in.
DH: Cos you were kicking the ball against their dressing room. But basically Liam didnât have the balls to come out and tell you himself.
Has David Icke invited you round for tea and biscuits yet?
Christian McGlamery, via email
MB: Still waiting. We played on the Isle Of Wight and he lives there â I thought he was gonna hook up for a little chat. But Iâd like to meet him at some point. He tours all over the place with his combination of genius and crazy talk. Iâd say it was 80 per cent genius and 20 per cent just sheer madness. Thatâs the lizard bit. But 80 per cent is well researched. Heâs pretty on the case.
Matt, youâre neighbours with George Clooney in Lake Como. Ever been invited round for dinner?
Guy Wear, via email
MB: Unfortunately not. I have seen him cycling back and forth; he likes his bicycle. I was hoping for an invitation to play poker. Iâll take him on, heads up, 10 grand apiece. Iâm good enough at poker to take on someone like him. Or he could come round to mine for some freeze-dried Bolognese.
Have you ever played as yourself on Guitar Hero?
Claire Bagg, via email
MB: Iâm crap at Guitar Hero. I canât get my head round it. I canât get the coordination of the buttons and everything. These two are really good at it. I had a go at Livinâ On A Prayer, though, and I like Willie Nelsonâs On The Road Again.
âIâVE SEEN LITTLE GOBLINS RUNNING AROUND MY BED.â
Dom Howard
How long before Muse become the first band to play a gig on the moon?
Jonathan Van Cleeve, via email
MB: Twenty years. Weâre already working on the first-in-space one. Weâve got two angles, via Virgin Galactic and another company⊠I think Richard Branson wants to use one of our songs in a TV ad, so thatâs one of the angles weâre going down. Thereâs a chance we might pull that off in five years.
Dom, as the bandâs resident âladiesâ manâ, whoâs the most famous person youâve hit on?
Claire Morgan, Clitherhoe
DH: Jane Fonda. Sheâs 72. I like the older ladies, you see. She was hanging around with Rod Stewart the other day. She seemed like a nice lady. But I failed â I didnât charm her enough.
Whatâs the best piece of advice Bono gave you when you supported U2 earlier this year?
Dan Felter, via email
DH: I had a couple of slightly drunken chats. He was talking about how great it is to be a support band: âOh, itâs brilliant
being a support band, you just enjoy yourselves, do a short gig then you've got the whole night to have funâŠâ Just wise words, I suppose. Enjoy it while itâs there.
Matt, you once worked as a painter and decorator. How much would you charge to come and do my living room?
Penny Shore, via email
MB: ÂŁ10 an hour. Iâd work a nine-hour day, with an hour break. Iâd be more than happy to do that, to be honest. Some of the best times Iâve had were when I was painting. But the worst one was when we had to paint a donkey stable. The donkeys escaped one day and me and my mate Jake were both running around a field in our painter gear, trying to get these donkeys back in before the farmer got back. Maybe that's where Knights Of Cydonia came from.
Which of you is always last to go to the bar on a night out?
Paul Cordon, via email
MB: We all manage to avoid getting a round in. We make sure we go out with the people that are gonna buy us drinks. Or we go to bars where the person who owns the bar has lined up something where itâs all gonna be free.
When can we expect the Chris Wolstenholme solo album?
Sarah Foss, via email
CW: I dunno. Thereâs not been time for any of us to do anything like that. We pretty much go straight from touring to recording. Maybe one day⊠Iâve got a few little bits and pieces. What genre? Iâm sure itâll stay in the realms of rock.
Mattâs dad was the guitarist with The Tornados. When are you going to invite him onstage for a jam?
Martin Tan, via email
MB: We could get him on for Knights Of Cydonia. The rhythm in that is quite influenced by the things he did â a lot of Tornados tracks had that rhythm.
Matt, how in the name of Christ do you stay so thin?
Christine Smith, via email
MB: Dunno. I eat a lot â loads of pasta, I donât hold back. Maybe I burn off a bit of energy onstage. Iâm not really a gym person. Maybe I have a fast metabolism. At one point in Italy I was almost normal. But then I backed off again.
Who would win in a Glastonbury headliner fight between you and U2?
Matt Wellner, via email
MB: Itâs a tough one. Weâre betting on the idea that U2 are gonna overdo it. To the point where people go, âThis is not Glastonbury. This is the U2 extravaganza.â And we're thinking that maybe Glastonbury might think thatâs a bit off. So weâre going in the opposite direction â weâre gonna go lo-fi and just⊠musical. Weâre gonna spend our money on an orchestra as opposed to production. Weâre going for music.
DH: But in an actual fight, U2 are all surprisingly short.
MB: And me and Dom thought we were short. And if itâs an actual fight between productions, weâre gonna have 50 musicians with us. So, as long as the orchestra is on our side, itâll be 60 against four.
Translator's Note: "Cum faces"... and Dom really said that out loud and Q published this.
This entire interview just feels gay as hell from the stuff that these bastards are saying out loud to answer these questions.
At this point, I am very tempted to ask Crystal if Musers back then knew about this, and if there was a time when there was a 'pornogenic Muse' meme going on back then that I clearly missed out on.
Also, honestly, I would've wanted to see a Muse vs U2 actual physical fight just to see how hilarious the outcome would be.
Please do support me via my ko-fi! â