Select - The think tank (november 2000)

Muses’s Matt Bellamy, whats with the blue hair? It’s actually supposed to be black. It’s been vibrant blue for a few weeks and then I tried to dye it black but it came out sort of naff. I’m sort of progressing back to where I was when the band started and we were all into wearing make-up and weird crap. We were quite punk back then and then we went a bit boring for a couple of years. Now it’s a little bit more rock’n’roll. You’ve done 47 festivals this summer. Which was the worst? "Probably in Switzerland. I’d just got out of bed and totally forgot we were playing early so I didn’t hold back on anything the night before. And also I forgot that it was hire gear so when I went to break everything a couple of hire guys came out and nearly beat me up. I was fighting over the bass amp with the main guy. I just really lost my cool and went too far and I regretted it instantly. It’s the main hire company in Germany and the surrounding countries and we’ve been banned from hiring anything from them. Ever. For the rest of the tour the whole crew were looking at me going, ‘You dick!’ How did you amuse yourself on tour? The main entertainment is the people you meet along the way. We’ve got this old bloke with a walking stick who’s very strange, very posh. He’s never heard rock music before and he thinks we’re modern classical music. We went through a stage of bringing people on the bus and having a laugh and then realizing It was a big mistake. You get people you can’t get rid of and they end up crossing borders with no passports and all this sort of crap. There were two French 17-year-olds that hid in someone’s spare bunk and we woke up in Spain and found them. [Suddenly brightening]. At Leeds a group of girls turned up in PVC nurse’s costumes and goth make-up saying ‘We’ll do anything’. So that’s all right. When you’re bored that’s the ultimate way to kill time. Your new single Muscle Museum features a dark trance mix of Sunburn by Timo Maas. Are you into his stuff? It’s all right. T’s something I don’t really know much about. In terms of dance music I don’t really care. I’ll dance to anything, and I mean anything. Have I ever done E? [Suddenly flustered] I’m not going to answer that question, sorry. What do you think of the theory that Muse and Coldplay are the dark and the light sides of the same coin? Erm, I can’t comment because I’m such close friends with those guys. I think there may be an element of that, personality wise. He [Chris Martin, Coldplay’s singer] definitely holds on to certain ideals that were broken before I reached the age of ten. I think some people take positivity from realizing that other things are broken and some people take positivity from not facing up to those things and pretending they don’t exist. Their approach is quite dreamy. Maybe I’m more of a realist. You’ve written all the songs for the next album. Can you give us a sample lyric? I’m really embarrassed about my lyrics. I think they work well when I sing them with a tune but on their own they’re not very good. My favourite new song hasn’t got a name yet. We might call it ‘Bliss’. There’s quite a few songs on the LP about meeting people who still hold on to their ideals, but it’s nothing to do with Coldplay, OK? This goes back to when I was much younger. You come across people who are unscathed they haven’t seen anything so they don’t know anything. Once you’ve opened up that scope you can never go back and these songs about desperately wanting to go back more than anything else in the world, and wishing you could steal somebody else’s joy. Do you like the new Radiohead album? I don’t know. It’s very weird. I’ve only heard four songs on Napster. The good things is I can’t believe people can possibly compare us to that now. Whereas with the first album I had to justify it and go ‘John Leckie, Jeff Bukley, blah blah blah’, now I can just laugh. I’ve got no plans to go in that direction to be honest but, yeah, it sounds interesting. I think Radiohead’s main concern is to always try and do something that’s cutting edge and new. Rather than good Are you a Napster fan? Yeah. It turns my laptop into a jukebox with access to everything and that’s got to be a good thing. I searched for a Muse song we haven’t released yet and there’s a hundred versions on there. I’m not sure how to take the whole thing. I’m into it. But I want to prolong a reasonable living in music. Maybe Napster wille ventually deteriorate the quality of trecording new artists get to make because you’re not going to get the chance to spend £100,000 on making an album. You told Select you had a penchant for internet porn. Do you subscribe to the hard stuff or make do with low-quality but free video grabs? I haven’t got a credit card. I had one a few years ago and spent it all in a few weeks. I spent two grand on guitars and amps and then I told them lies about my job to get them to up my limit to £4000. then I bought a computer and that was it., I was fucked. I only managed to pay it off a few months ago. Anyway, everything on the internet’s free. You’ve just got to know where to look for it. If you have to pay for it, it defies the point. Have you been hooked by Big Brother? I only saw half an episode so I find it difficult to grasp. I think it’s a bit boring. It hints at something that could be way more exciting. We should just be open and put a load of people on an island and make them fight for survival and we can watch them all kill each other. The truth is everyone would watch it, even people who say it’s morally wrong. And also there are so many people who would do anything to be famous, even if it meant dying. What do you make of Eminem? I think that what he’s doing is alright. The only thing that concerns me is the record company marketing it at very young people. I think that’s a sign of the times. Can you to be too young for Muse? Ha ha! I can’t say that but there have been young people who’ve asked me for autographs and I’ve thought, ‘what is it you like about us? You can’t get it.’ I don’t know, cos when I was young I saw films and listened to stuff like that. And look what it’s done to me, ha! Select Dorian Lynskey

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