Entrevista (Matt) Visions. 04/2008

"I like it to be ignored"

Again something gigantic at Muse: Recently, both their concerts which took place in the new Wembley Stadium were released – one on CD, one on DVD. The „Haarp“-called recordings once again prove: More rock is not possible – at least in England. Singer Matthew Bellamy stays down-to-earth as always during this interview in Dublin, though.


Matt, what can you unveal about the science of the gigantic, of which you are obviously masters, when you see stage and show of your new Live-DVD?

This science is not the result of the band or even the music, it’s the popularity of what we do. People want to see spectacles, they want to see the feelings of music in a bigger context. The wish of something big exists and I guess we tried to fulfil this.

How did that work, now?

It’s in the music which is a universal language – it’s a language which is above any real language. The proof: We’ve played concerts in the Far East where the majority of the audience was unable to understand a single word of our lyrics – they acted nearly the same as people that do understand the lyrics, though. That’s the cause why lyrics are less important for me. They only support / stress the pure vibrations of the music, itself. In a world like ours, concerts become more important. When times are more frenzy and people feel more apart of each other, something simple as music seem to be a connecting element. People can say: Look, at least in this we are together.

The only thing of your rock shows that is not gigantic is how you communicate with the people. We do you hardly ever talk to your audience?

I’ve always felt uncomfortable that we are too shy to communicate more with the audience. I think it’s the most unbalanced part of our live presentation. I was surprised myself that we even reach the biggest arenas, although this part is completely missing. That’s probably why I started to communicate more via visuals – in a subconscious way. You try to express yourself through the kind of your moves and your look, through your body language towards the audience. It’s probably the natural increase of your body language as a compensation for the missing of a real language.

A big club show isn’t a guarantor for succesful stadium shows. As you wondered that evening: „What does it mean for modern music, when Muse fill the Wembley Stadium two times while George Michael is playing in front of a half-empty stadium?“ Well, what does it mean?

It shows that people like you that work in music biz really know who we are. You probably do not know that we are tendentially not popular in the common world, though. We are nobody like George Michael. I think, we are something like „the biggest unknown band“. That’s a real pleasure to me, because it gives us the chance to live a relatively anonymous life without annoyance by the press. The whole thing shows: The media is still interested in the lifestyle and glamour of people. They start in those areas of life in which there is few creativity. At the same time there is a lot of good music out there that connects many people, which is completely ignored by the press. It’s an interesting sign of our time. It’s a sign of that traditional media is still a lot in record sales to decide whether they hype someone. Along the lines of: They were high ranked in the charts, they must be great. On the other hand there is a lot of good music that is downloaded which is hardly recognized or only marginally. I think we are a really extreme example for that.

All this gigantic and that worldwide success – how are you able to stay down-to-earth and not become Rock’n Roll-Divas?

All members of the band have had their periods or moments in which they became a bit like that. One of the main causes why these periods did not last, was because we don’t take each other too seriously. That always happens when one of us becomes a bit egocentric. From time to time you find yourself in such „spinal-tap“-situations in which you moan about a too small sandwich. In such moments you need good friends that tell you how absolutely ridiculously you act. I think, if I was a solo artist, I would have that charater. I would have evolved more in that direction.

Why?

Because I had no one around me to tell me that. If you’re surrounded by label people, media people and fans, all the time, it’s just natural that your environment makes a puppet out of you, a caricature of what they want to make out of you. And you start trying to satisfy those people by trying to be what they want you to. I really like to participate in this madness and just for the fun I act like that, so people see me in a different, special light. But when we talk about my true, my real life, there is nothing like this.

In Italy, where you live, you have build your own studio. Is there any information about the next album?

There are some songs that are not yet ready but in a good development process. Nothing has been recorded but from time to time we work on some details. What we currently recognize: We have a lot of opportunities concerning style/s. I was pretty surprised that the two funk-oriented songs of the last album got such a good reception. Now, we are in a situation, at least to think about whether we go perhaps further in this direction of funk and r’n’b. At the same time I’m writing on a really progressive song. It’s like a slimy opera-version of what we do for years, now. It’s about 14 minutes long and mainly slow and dark. All these are experiments that are fun – at the end it’s all about which are the songs with the most powerful melodies. So basically, everything can come completely differnt.