Muse Showbiz interview - Matt Bellamy [ROCKIN'ON (April 2000)]
"I had a vague sense that if I concentrated on my suffering and expressed it, I'd succeed. But I also know that I shouldn't continue like this."
A despair machine with airbags? Muse ascends to heaven after being betrayed by all ideals, fully supporting their debut work "Showbiz", which is full of terrifying intuition and excessive emotion!
Interview: Naoya Sanada, Interpreter: Erika Yamashita
"A person who tortures you and then kills you can be considered a devil, or an angel who liberates your soul," says Matthew Bellamy in this interview, but in Muse's music, the devil and the angel are making a secret pact. The sound of thunderous distortion guitar and beautiful falsettos resonates as if they are ascending to heaven while cornering themselves in a situation of despair and no salvation. As Nirvana faded away and Radiohead began to look at the world rather than at their own inner selves, a group of people emerged who pulled out the "double-edged sword of introspection and liberation" that had been stuck in the ground and started swinging it around. They were selected as the best new artist by NME, and there is a strong feeling that they will cause a downfall in the scene. Perhaps because they are produced by John Leckie, some people still dismiss them as followers of Radiohead, but the rough performance of this three-piece band is more bold than precise. They are dominated by a bold innocence that actively tries to create new dramas rather than a pessimistic view of the world. Above all, Matthew travelled in Spain and Greece when he was 17, and his musical experiences seem to be reflected in their scales and rhythmic aspects. That is probably their uniqueness. In other words, if Radiohead is a giant mirror with a macroscopic view of the world, Muse is a raw collection of flamenco, European folk and grunge music that picks up every little sadness and burning emotion that can be found on the streets of the world.
The irony of the new generation's rejection of the ‘showbiz’ situation of grunge's heyday, where suffering is celebrated, is a sign of a new generation's enlightened intelligence, but what are they up to and where are they headed? We caught up with them to find out. By the way, Yamashita said of their live performance, "Their performance was amazing, like King Crimson." What is it about these guys, despite their youth?
I was surprised when I heard the album "Showbiz", because I haven't heard such a graceful, energetic piece of work in a long time.
「Huh? (A look of complete surprise on his face).」
You've had a lot of offers to open for big names like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the Smashing Pumpkins, but were you able to predict such a favorable situation before your debut?
「I don't know. I'm not really surprised. My father was a musician, so I grew up looking at pictures of him when he was popular, and I just took everything for granted.」
Really? Your father was a musician. What kind of band was he in?
「A band called The Tornados, from the early ‘60s. Musically, they were doing something completely different from me. My father wasn't a songwriter, he was more of a rhythm guitarist. And I've been playing in bands since I was about 13.」
Musically, you were inspired by Sonic Youth and Nirvana, as well as flamenco and Italian folk music. In fact, I can hear some of those flavours in the songs and grooves on the album - what was it that appealed to you? Flamenco is melancholic.
「It's also passionate.」
That's right. Is that what attracted you to it? Your music is like that too, melancholic but passionate.
「I don't know exactly what attracted me to it…… When I first started learning to play an instrument, my dad had all kinds of records at home. My dad was into American blues, so there were a lot of blues records. But you know how when you're a teenager, it's always better if you're different from your parents? I thought I liked the bands you mentioned, the heavier stuff to a certain extent, but then when I turned 17, I was travelling around Spain and I saw people playing guitar on the street, and they were doing things on guitar that I'd never seen or heard before. It was amazing. I was just so excited. And they're doing it with no effects, no amps, just the guitar itself, and it's so impressive and heavy. So I used to grow my fingernails out and play the Spanish guitar a lot. Now I've switched to electric guitar, so my technique is probably not as good, but I think I'm doing more experimental stuff now.」
Speaking of experimentation, some artists have cleverly absorbed technology and other innovative elements of dance music. Radiohead might be a recent example. Why haven't you gravitated in that direction?
「Well, I think the question is, is technology really helping humans? I might have said this before, but I think this is the fundamental question of my expression. But I use computers a lot myself, and I think I'm quite familiar with that kind of technology, but still. The song "Sunburn" is about that kind of theme…… I think there are about two songs on the album. It's a song that kind of touches on the difference between science and religion, or technology and hope. On one level, human beings shape their own reality and believe what they want to believe. Then science steps in and proves them wrong. "Sunburn" may not mean anything to other people, but to me it's about moths. Moths fly towards the sun or the moon. That's what they're programmed to do. They don't actually get there, but the reason why they fly towards them is to find their other half. If they fly in the right direction, they'll find their perfect half. But sometimes, you know, some of them hit a lightbulb. What's that like? Because you think you've found what you've been looking for all along, and you go towards it, and then you hit a lightbulb?」
(laughs) Yeah.
「I think technology does that to humans, giving us what we want, what we hope for. We don't want to hit the lightbulb. It's very off topic (laughs), but that's why I try to avoid relying on technology as much as possible and concentrate on what humans can do. It's much more difficult and challenging to improve as a player. No matter what the drummer hits, the computer can fix it and make it a perfect beat. It's easy to take shortcuts. But I like human imperfection better.」
I see. I'd like to ask you about the theme of your lyrics. In your lyrics, as in "Sunburn", the words ‘burn’ and ‘burn out’ appear frequently. What is the image or meaning you put into these words?
「Oh, you know, after you die, or rather, when this life ends and you move on to the next stage, you part with your body. Have you ever seen the film "Jacob's Ladder"?」
I believe it's a film about a near-death experience, isn't it?
「Yes, yes. Or "Hellraiser". They are all pretty dark stories. In short, the person who tortures you to death could be considered a devil, or an angel who liberates your soul…… Hahaha, no, so what I mean by the image of burning is that it goes beyond the physicality. We have decided to believe in our physicality as reality, but nobody knows about the world beyond that. For example, there seems to be something built into us as organisms that somehow makes us believe in something like an afterlife, but nobody knows what it is, and science can't prove whether it's true or false. We all make up our own belief systems, and science destroys them. Is that a good thing? I would think about it.」
Did this distrust of science stem from any specific experiences?
「Hmmm…… (thinking) You know, we all talk on the internet all the time, don't we? It's just how many people are looking to connect with other people. We are now trying to use science and technology to take over what religion once did. We all turn to the Internet because we want to feel like we're not alone, we want to be connected to others. It's the same with TV and all the other technologies. But the more we rely on these things, the more we forget that we are inherently connected without the power of technology.」
On the other hand, words like ‘sin’, ‘mistake’ and ‘shame’ often appear in your lyrics.
「Aha, hahaha.」
Is this because you're potentially religious? I think technology and the absence of religion were also key points in our last interview.
「Well, I don't know much about religion, so I don't think that's what it's about…… You have a conscience, and sometimes you go away and do what you want, but then you come back and think maybe you were wrong after all. In other words, it's a moral conscience. Everyone develops their own morality in the process of growing up, but morality is influenced by all kinds of things. Friends, family and, in this day and age, the kind of media you're exposed to growing up is a big factor. I think I'm from a generation that was raised on TV, not religiously, but half worshipping it from a very young age. And I took a media study course at school, and that's when I realized how much of the media is staged, and how different the things depicted there are from reality. They are always trying to sell you something. Since I realised that, I feel like a part of my development has been betrayed. I thought TV was the truth, and I was shocked to find out it wasn't all the time.」
I see. But why is it that you, such a young and colourful man, have to sing "I’m busy mending broken pieces of my life" on your album?
「It's like I've lost someone I really, really loved so much that I can't separate myself from her…… I could see that our relationship was over, but I was so devoted to music that even that became secondary…… That's what I'm singing about. I really, really love you, but somehow music is more important to me than anything else…… That's what it's about.」
Huh. In any case, I think your expression starts from a place of betrayal, or a dead end. Technology is unreliable, religion is obscure, the moth that was supposed to be heading for the sun hits the lightbulb, and so on. The song "Showbiz" was written because you're from a generation that has witnessed the dead-end situation where grunge has already become industrialised and despair and self-destruction are celebrated, but do you feel despair or discomfort about even despairing?
「Yes, that song is definitely about what you said. It's about the commercialisation of despair, and the celebration of individual suffering by other people. That's the situation I'm singing about. Because it's happened to so many people before. Jeff Buckley, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix…… There are so many. And I'm starting to realise for myself what this whole album I've made is about. I was vaguely aware of it, you know? I mean, if I concentrated on the struggles of life and expressed them, maybe I could easily be very successful. But there are other things to express in life, and they can be more interesting than suffering. So I'm pushing myself inwards a lot on this album, but I know that I shouldn't continue like this.」
In your generation, do you feel a different kind of frustration in terms of how you let out your frustration and despair?
「Well, I think there are various ways to do that. For example, if you look at the history of Tom Waits, Queen, and people like that, I think the next direction for us is to be able to express not only our own feelings but also the feelings of other people.」
Did the death of Kurt Cobain, for example, have any influence on these ideas?
「I wasn't particularly upset at the time. All I felt was, why are people dying so quickly? But the most disappointing thing was that there was no more Nirvana music. That was the most disappointing thing.」
So do you feel confident in your own ability to express yourself in a fictional way? There are some people who don't feel satisfied until they get all their dirty parts out.
「No, I did theatre when I was a student. In acting, you first learn how to express yourself openly. You have to portray who you are, what your family is like, and show it in front of a lot of people. After you have practised that, you team up with someone else and exchange information with each other, and then you express yourself as that person. That's how you learn to express yourself first, and then other people. I think it's the same as that.」
I see. So, did you have an intuition that your encounters with flamenco and Spanish folk music would stimulate you to play music, but at the same time help you to describe other people and the world?
「Yes, I think so…… Yeah (laughs). I've only just started to realise this. I didn't think about it in the past, but as I've grown older, I've come to realise that I can look at things from different perspectives.」
What dangers and negativity do you see in this ‘self’ that you say we 'shouldn't push inwards'?
「I think everyone is dimly aware that there are certain aspects of themselves that give them a hard time. I think it's aggression. It's definitely easy - maybe it's different for women - but for men, it's very easy to rely on this aggression. In short, it's hatred. You get close to hatred, you say you hate someone, and then you sing a song about that (laughs). It's more difficult to lean towards the positive and sing something positive, about how much someone means to you, or something like that. You mentioned Kurt Cobain, so I'm going to say it, but I think he leaned too much towards the aggressive side. I think that's dangerous.」
I see. I understand. So, for the last time, what is the meaning behind the band's name, which seems narcissistic? When you consider the absence of religion, it could be taken as a declaration that you at least want to be beautiful and divine. I mean, you've made such a good album, so I'd like you to say so (laughs).
「Yeah. Hahaha, well, to tell you the truth, we were young 16-year-olds at the time. And we had a good art teacher at school—」
Oh, a female teacher?
「Hahaha, yes. She was a very nice person (laughs). ……We were taking art classes, and one day she told us about the various meanings of the word MUSE. She told us that MUSE is something that you can't see, but that somehow it gives a spark to people and makes them create something wonderful. We decided that this was cool, it's short and it's a good name for a band. We've been using this name for years, so I guess the word has had some kind of subconscious influence on us, but when we decided on it, we didn't really have any deep feelings about it.」
I see. But I heard that even at your live shows, your performance was so high-level and godlike that even the older audience members were so surprised that their jaws dropped.
「Eh (smiles shyly, as if troubled). ……No way.」
As everyone has said, your voice is so beautiful that I get jealous when I hear it, but since when did you realise you could produce such a falsetto?
「No, it must have been in the last two or three years. It was only after I came back from my trip that I realised I could do this kind of voice. Before that I was singing in a very quiet voice. I was nervous and embarrassed, and I always felt like the guitarist who was trying to sing somehow. But as I grew up, I think my body changed. Even though my voice changes when I'm about 10 to 12 years old, it's probably around 18 when I'm fully grown up. That's when I suddenly became able to produce a voice from the depths of my body. It wasn't because I wanted other people to say I was a good singer that my voice came out, it was because I wanted to shout and scream without reservation. I pushed the limits of what I could do, and that's how I got here.」
Translator's Note: This was one of the earlier interviews that I didn't realise that I was missing until I was checking over Mercari.
I haven't seen or listened to a King Crimson album before, but at this point, the sheer amount of times that I keep seeing the Japanese journalists comparing Muse to King Crimson is almost tempting me to go try out and listen to their album.
After translating and reading this early interview from 2000, it almost feels as though Matt was such a Luddite at his young age. But at the same time, I also remember and bear witness to Matt and his bandmates embracing technology quite enthusiastically in their private lives and in their music and live shows, with the ultimate culmination of it being their 2018 album, Simulation Theory.
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