Bands don’t get much bigger than Muse. Which perhaps explains why their record label is so paranoid about their new album getting leaked that TNT was driven across Sydney to a secret location, strip-searched and locked in a sound-proofed room to listen to it before being allowed to speak to them. And yes, some of that is true.
Hi Chris. So, are you excited about the new album finally being released? Yeah, absolutely. It’s an album we’re very proud of, we’ve put a lot of time and effort into it. We definitely feel like it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. But once you give it to the world, it’s all out of control, so it is kind of nerve-racking.
It’s quite different to your other ones… Every album we have done has been very different and we want to continue to do that. The parts that I enjoy the most about making music is when you’re in unfamiliar territory. It’s like the buzz you get from learning to play your instrument, you know. The first time you ever string a couple of chords together on a guitar is the most amazing feeling you ever have. It’s very hard to replace that, it’s like riding a bike isn’t it, once you’ve done it you can do it. In order to get that buzz, you have to learn other things. I think we do that in music. We know we can do rock, we rock out and we do it well. But we’re not quite sure how to write a song which doesn’t have any guitars or piano in it, or any drums, so doing a song like “Undisclosed Desired” was great. We educated ourselves.
Fed up of talking about it yet? Yeah, we’ve talked about the album for about three months now and yet the majority of the world haven’t heard it. It’s kind of getting to that point now where it’s like “for fucks sake, I just want everyone else to hear it”.
You’re renowned as an awesome band to see live. Why is that? For us, playing live has always been the most important part of being in a band. When you’re 14 years old and talking about being in a band, you don’t think about making records, you just want to get on stage and play in front of people and see people going nuts to the music that you’re making.
Must feel pretty good… I remember how I used to feel when I used to look up at people on stage at big venues and think, “these are big, famous rock stars”. It’s weird because I still feel like that when I go to gigs. I kind of still remember that feeling when I go on stage, you know, and I think to myself “I’m so fucking lucky to be doing this,” because I can remember this is all I ever dreamed of when I was younger. It still surprises me to this day when we go out on stage and all the people cheer. That kind of thing never gets stale. It’s always amazing. It makes you love playing live.
So it’s your enthusiasm that people love? I think there’s that element in us that’s professional, and then there’s this element which is young boys carrying out their childhood dreams. I think people can see that in us, that we’ve got that naivety. It’s a bit like, “wow, where are we?”. I think people latch onto that, they see us as real people. They see that we’re just three guys that fucking love rocking out on stage. When I go to a gig I want to see a band enjoy themselves. There’s nothing worse than a band just fucking staring at their shoes and not getting into it. No matter how good the music is, I hate it.
You’re Yorkshire-born and a bit of a Rotherham fan aren’t you? I am yeah. The last few seasons I’ve probably managed to get to five or six games a season. I’m kind of like one of those hardcore fans who doesn’t go to many games.
Aren’t the Chuckle Brothers always at their games? Yeah, I think they’re like official bloody sponsors or something like that. It’s a bit of a sad one really, I’m sure there’s other cooler people from Rotherham.
Are you coming Down Under soon? Yeah hopefully next year. There’s obviously talk of certain festivals. But nothing’s confirmed. We’d like to get over as soon as we can. I’m pretty sure that regardless of what happens, we’ll be in Australia or New Zealand first half of next year. Muse’s new album, The Resistance, is out now
