TOP OF YOUR LIST OF QUERIES FOR THE TEIGNMOUT TRIO: ALIEN ABDUCTION, GETTING JIGGY WITH LILY ALLEN AND WHAT WE CAN EXPECT FROM THEIR GLASTONBURY SET. ASSUMING THE "LITTLE GOBLINS" DON'T GET THEM FIRST.
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It’s safe to say that it’s a world away from the green fields and pagan vibes of the Glastonbury Festival, but this is exactly where we find Saturday night’s headliners Muse, dipping their toes into the pool and partaking in some midday sushi.
“It’s the best festival in the world,” says frontman Matt Bellamy. “When we were younger bands never used to come down to Devon so we’d go to Glastonbury, it was the only place we could see them. It’s 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, ‘That’s what I wanna do.’”
This will be the second time Bellamy and bandmates Dom Howard and Chris Wolstenholme have headlined the festival – the first, in 2004, was marred by the sudden and tragic death of Howard’s 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 days’ time, they also have to record a new song for the next Twilight film with Butch Vig at the helm and for Bellamy there’s a tour of some of Hollywood’s pricier real estate to fit in (Christina Aguilera’s 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 “friendship” Bellamy sparked up with Lily Allen at the recent Big Day Out in Australia.
So, gentlemen, when you are ready…
Glastonbury, what should we expect?
Matt Bellamy: I don’t wanna say it in case it doesn’t happen, but we are thinking of doing a full orchestra for Glastonbury. The logistics are going to be fucking hardcore… We’ll keep it formal.
Hydroponics or hallucinogenics?
Dom Howard: The last time I smoked was when we were in Amsterdam. “Let’s go and have a few for old times’ sake.” And I got absolutely boxed in 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.
You’re offered the chance to play the opening of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Money is no object. What do you do?
Matt Bellamy: Something with magnets. You know in Back To The Future II they built this fake street with really strong magnets so they could do the hoverboard thing for real? You’d have to get thousands of 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.
Matt Bellamy and Lily Allen: what really happened?
Matt Bellamy: No comment. Had a few nice days out, had a little chat about the music business…
Dom, you’ve been hit by Matt’s flying guitars before. What measures do you take to protect yourself from his ‘theatrics’?
Dom Howard: My reflexes have become a lot quicker. I had stitches in my eye once after he cut it. And a tetanus injection…
Matt Bellamy: In 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, “Nah, that’s just too ridiculous”?
Matt Bellamy: That all the oil in the world is just endless. There’s 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 it’s running out to keep the price high. It’s one of those mad ones I’d like to be true.
Matt, do you still use your jetpack?
Matt Bellamy: I don’t understand how it ever became a jetpack. It was a paramotor: a 50 cc engine with a propeller and a parachute. I took lessons, it was what I was gonna do if the band didn’t 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 it’s 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 I’m gonna get straight back into it. Not just gigs, I’d do sporting events as well.
Do you ever read any of the online erotic fiction written about you?
Dom Howard: No, but I’ve seen weird things on our message boards. The fans there are quite active, they have these threads called Pornogenic Dom, Pornogenic Matt, Pornogenic Chris. They started off using these pictures of us pulling weird sex faces when we are playing live. It’s our cum faces, basically. It gets weird out there.
One for Dom and Chris. What’s the most embarrassing thing Matt has ever worn?
Dom Howard: 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, black pin-striped pants, a grey suit jacket, waistcoat.
Chris Wolstenholme: There was the time that he turned up at the Q Awards and he’d been locked out of his house. He came in his gym gear.
Now you are more famous, do you think you’re more likely to be kidnapped by aliens?
Matt Bellamy: Dom has actually been abducted by aliens. But he’s done research and found out that it’s actually something called sleep paralysis.
Dom Howard: It’s when you’re extremely tired, you go to bed and you fall asleep but you suddenly think you’re awake and you can’t move. You’re effectively paralysed in bed. And often what’s associated with that is a weird presence in the room.Matt Bellamy: Tell him about the little goblins.
Dom Howard: I’ve seen little goblins running around at the bottom of my bed. I’ve been dragged out of my bed… So there are extreme cases where people do feel like they’ve been abducted by aliens. But really they are just suffering from sleep paralysis. But I’ve certainly, honestly, experienced it, so I’m comfortable that it’s not actually alien abduction. I didn’t wake up with a sore bum.
Matt Bellamy: I’m so glad someone has taken over that role in the band. I hope you know I’m not the fucking weird one now.
Ever had a near-death experience?
Chris Wolstenholme: 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.
Matt Bellamy: If it had jolted any more Dom would have just come out and said, “I’m gay!”
How’s the stockpiling for Armageddon coming along? Have you killed any chickens recently?
Matt Bellamy: 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 you’ve got Bolognese, lasagna, curries… A two-year supply and a varied menu. Well, it’s actually a year’s supply when these to come round.
As Teignmouth boys, can you recommend the best place to get a Devon cream tea?
Matt Bellamy: I’d go down The Beachcomber. It’s not one of those places full of posh old bids. It’s a proper old-school seaside café.
Liam or Noel Gallagher?
Chris Wolstenholme: I had a bit of a run-in with Liam’s security guy at a festival in Belgium. He didn’t like me playing football. Then he nearly kicked my head in.
Dom Howard: Cos you were kicking the ball against their dressing room. But basically Liam didn’t have the balls to come out and tell you himself.
Has David Icke invited you round for tea and biscuits yet?
Matt Bellamy: Still waiting. We played on the Isle Of Wight and he lives there, I thought he was gonna hook up for a little chat. But I’d like to meet him at some point. He tours all over the place with his combination of genius and crazy talk. I’d say it was 80 per cent genius and 20 per cent just sheer madness. That’s the lizard bit. But 80 per cent is well researched. He’s pretty on the case.
Matt, you’re neighbours with George Clooney in Lake Como. Ever been invited round for dinner?
Matt Bellamy: Unfortunately not. I have seen him cycling back and forth; he likes his bicycle. I was hoping for an invitation to play poker. I’d take him on, heads up, 10 grand apiece. I am 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 yourself on Guitar Hero?
Matt Bellamy: I’m crap at Guitar Hero. I can’t get my head round it. I can’t get the coordination of the buttons and everything. These two are really good at it. I had a go at Livin’ On A Prayer, though, and I like Willie Nelson’s On The Road Again.
How long before Muse become the first band to play a gig on the moon?
Matt Bellamy: Twenty years. We’re already working on the first-in-space one. We’ve 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 that’s one of the angles we are going down. There’s a chance we might pull that off in five years.
As the band’s resident “ladies’ man”, who’s the most famous person you’ve hit on?
Dom Howard: Jane Fonda. She’s 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. I didn’t charm her enough.
What’s the best piece of advice Bono gave you when you supported U2 earlier this year?
Dom Howard: I had a couple of slightly drunken chats. He was talking about how great it is to be a support band: “Oh, it’s brilliant being a support band, you just enjoy yourselves, do a short gig then you’ve got the whole night to have fun…” Just wise words, I suppose. Enjoy it while it’s there.
Matt, you once worked as a painter and decorator. How much would you charge to come and do my living room?
Matt Bellamy: 10 an hour. I’d work a nine-hour day, with an hour break. I’d be more than happy to do that, o be honest. Some of the best times I’ve 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?
Matt Bellamy: 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 own the bar has lined up something where it’s all gonna be free.
When can we expect the Chris Wolstenholme solo album?
Chris Wolstenholme: I dunno. There’s not been time for any of us to do anything like that. We pretty much go straight from touring to recording. Maybe one day… I’ve got a few little bits and piece. What genre? I’m sure it’ll stay in the realms of rock.
Matt’s dad was the guitarist with The Tornados. When are you going to invite him onstage for a jam?
Matt Bellamy: We could get him on for Knights of Cydonia. The rhythm in that is quite influenced by the things he did, a lot of Tornados tracks had that rhythm.
Matt, how in the name of Christ do you stay so thin?
Matt Bellamy: Dunno. I eat a lot. Loads of paste, I don’t hold back. Maybe I burn off a bit of energy onstage. I’m 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 headline fight between you and U2?Matt Bellamy: It’s a tough one. We’re betting on the idea that U2 are gonna overdo it. To the point where all the people go, “This is Glastonbury. This is the U2 extravaganza.” And we’re thinking that maybe Glastonbury might think that’s a bit off. So we’re going in the opposite direction. We’re gonna go lo-fi and just… musical. We’re gonna spend our money on an orchestra as opposed to production. We’re going for music.
Dom Howard: But in an actual fight, U2 are all surprisingly small.
Matt Bellamy: And me and Dom thought we were short. If it’s an actual fight between productions, we’re gonna have 50 musicians with us. So, as long as the orchestra is on our side, it’ll be 60 against 4.
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Sumber: Q Magazine
Glastonbury Edition - June 2010
