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The Devon-upon-Entire Universe trio Muse have been coming here for years, and though they’ve been progressively growing in stature and nipping at U2’s heels in the So Big It’s Ridiculous Stakes, their performances have never been anything less than amazing.
The band will be back in the antipodes with their mind-bending, visually arresting and American-conquering Resistance tour in the next month. Drummer and occasional fake frontman Dominic Howard phoned in from New York to tell fans what to expect this time around, why rotating 360-degree risers aren’t as fun as they look and how recording bass drum sounds in a swimming pool is a totally legitimate thing to do, even when said pool is full.
“Well, you know, arenas, not stadiums. Like what they play basketball in and stuff.” There is, apparently a difference. Howard, humble rock star that he is, would like to point out that Muse are currently playing an arena, rather than a stadium tour across the US of A. Not that it makes much difference when you consider the kind of set-up the band has going at the moment. For Howard and bandmates Matt Bellamy and Chris Wolstenholme to put their current show on the road, they need no less than eighty crew members travelling with a custom-made stage. “Sometimes you can turn up and the stage is already there,” Dom jokes, “but that doesn’t work for us.” That might have something to do with the ridiculous set-up the boys have going at the moment, which includes purpose-built skyscrapers for each player, enough lights to blind an entire invading alien army and, you know, a giant UFO with an acrobat inside it.
“So it’s actually a massive helium sphere,” explains Dom, “which is controlled by two guys with ropes because naturally it just wants to float off back into space. It looks so cool and it looks good for us, too, because we have something to get distracted with given that nobody’s looking at us at that point in the song!” The subtle difference between a stadium and an arena tour, then, “is the amount of crazy shit we get to pull off. Like in Europe, we had this massive spaceship docking on the stage and we’d walk out of it.” Howard is nevertheless wary about the prospect of bringing the UFO to Australia, “We are doing one outdoor gig in Perth, though, so they might get lucky.” The rest of the bells and whistles, however, are on their way over, including the best ‘party trick’ of all, the skyscrapers.
Nobody has it worse (or better, depending on your ability to deal with heights and motion sickness) than Howard, whose drum riser not only propels up to five metres off the ground, but also spins around, while he’s playing. “When they stop [at the top] they kind of shake and wobble…it was slightly nauseating,” he says, “The whole drum riser also rotates around 360, so I can face the entire audience who are behind the stage; to be honest, that’s a bit weird. Looks cool, but it really puts me off a bit. Most times I just try to close my eyes, try and remember where the drums are!”
The interests of their fans, who plainly are the kind of people buying seats behind the stage, have really always been Muse’s priority. It’s the reason that they’ve got a massive website with over 300,000 members that’s growing every day, their own Wiki which is constantly being updated with everything from the type of guitar Bellamy plays through to Dom’s brief fling with pink pants and a forum full of diehards, many of whom follow the band across the Continent whenever they embark on another tour. “Oh yeah,” Dom laughs, “we get lots of travellers. There are those people who will come to a huge bunch of gigs. It’s great, sometimes you see them again and you get to say hello, and if they’re cool, you can hang out and meet them properly. We do get that sort of… reaction. Our fans are either diehard passionate or they hate us, but we don’t get a lot of middle ground.”
In case you haven’t heard The Resistance, Space Dementia or perhaps their latest polarising opus, Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever), Muse don’t do a lot of middle ground recording, either. Fans have famously retold the story of how the band cut Absolution opener Apocalypse Please underwater, and Howard is on hand to confirm the rumour. “We were in this studio in Ireland and really isolated,” he says, “and we were just trying out all the different rooms for sound, as you do. The hotel’s swimming pool was great, though, because it supplied this massive reverb. I set up some bass drums and got in the pool to play them, ‘cause that was the most comfortable thing to do.” Its kind of what you’d expect from a band that cut a three-part symphony on their latest record. “We do a lot of experiments with old and rusty things and we hit them to see what happens,” Howard admits, “a lot of the time, nothing happens.”
America is strange place for Muse, having only recently warmed to the group properly, in light of their involvement in the Twilight films. Dom admits it’s strange playing songs like Plug-In Baby, New Born and Feeling Good that weren’t even released in the States the first time around. Unlike Australian audiences, who Howard believes he could play Muscle Museum to and they’d know most of the words, most Yanks only own the band’s last two albums, so they’re being re-taught the back catalogue. That being said, the band’s most recent accolades, including Best Riff of The Past Decade and Best Cover of All Time certainly haven’t hindered the recognition of their more classic cuts. But Howard still believes in the power of the tunes themselves: “ Plug-In Baby is juts one of those songs that when you hear it, it’s just so upbeat and positive in its vibe, that you don’t really need to know it to kind of understand what we’re doing. You don’t need much training for that one!”
Australian fans of Muse will also be interested to note that this may be the last time they’ll see the band for a while; after almost ten years without either touring or writing, Dom reveals they’re hoping to take a bit of siesta next year. “Generally we’re going to take it easy I think, and maybe think about some new stuff towards the end of the year,” he says, “We might play a few gigs in places we haven’t been to in ages, like South America or Eastern Europe, but other than that, maybe just kick back and reflect.” And that’s a good thing, because really, there’s no worse a place to kick back and reflect than on a twirling drum riser, five metres above the Earth.
http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/features/26402/Muse?page=1
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