Matthew Bellamy and Dominic Howard form with Christopher Wolstenholme, the British group Muse. Born in 1994, 28 years ago, he has sold more than 30 million records worldwide, is also making a splash on social networks with more than 2.5 billion views on YouTube while receiving numerous awards. and awards such as two Grammy Awards in the category of best rock album in 2011 and 2016. This Friday, August 26, the ninth album, Will of the people.
franceinfo: I have the impression that Will of the people is a cry of alarm, that it is something that you really care about.
Matthew: Yes, that may be true. We’ve been in Los Angeles for a while. We spent the whole pandemic there, we saw the riots, the whole government transition which was quite complicated. There were also a lot of fires. So we lived through this period where for a year, it was really very unstable. So I think yes, obviously, it influenced the album.
You say a lot of things in this album, it’s really a committed album. We feel that you are also trying to move people with the song: Won’t stand down. Was it important for you to come back to the fact that no, you can’t let yourself be walked on, that you absolutely have to stand up against that?
Matthew: Absolutely. Besides, I would like that to be a general message for many of our songs. And then the experience of life shows us how much you have to rely above all on yourself to get through this kind of hardship and difficult times.
We also have the impression that Muse is against authoritarianism.
Matthew: Absolutely. Me yes in any case, Dominic, I’m not sure! Are you a communist? Me, of course I am.
Dominic: Yes, I never liked being told what to do, that’s for sure.
Since your beginnings, what stands out is your freedom. Do you still feel so free? And precisely, is freedom what you seek every day when you compose, when you create?
Matthew: Already for us, it’s really the freedom to do this job, to be able to express what we want to express. We have all become aware of the liberal democracy we love, which is threatened from the outside. And that’s something that, I think through all our albums, shows that our freedom is threatened a little bit, often precisely by authoritarian figures. But there, it becomes a little more direct with, for example, the situation in Russia.
We really live in a time when our way of life, liberal democracy, is beginning to be threatened.
Matthew from Museat franceinfo
In this album, you say things. You talk about the pandemic because it echoes the creation of this album. There is also this war in Ukraine. I would like us to address it because there is a clip that was shot in kyiv and I would like to know how you live with it, knowing that you were already affected a very long time ago with the war in Iraq.
Matthew: Indeed the video was shot in kyiv before the war in Ukraine. It was quite unusual and then quite creepy for all the people who worked on this clip to know that here they were working there and that their life, overnight, changed. So it’s quite tragic to watch, actually.
When we talk about Muse, we also think of the fact that you are stage animals. And I would precisely like to know what the scene represents. Because when we listen to this album, we realize that you also created it for the stage.
Dominic: It’s true that you can’t help it. We know that when we make a song, we will necessarily have to play it live. We even think of the people who will sing it when we are in the studio, we imagine them singing the chorus.
The fact that our songs are played live is a bit of a motivation to make music.
Dominic from Museat franceinfo
What does it mean to play in France with this French public that has totally adopted you?
Dominic: There is always an incredible energy to sing the lyrics super loud, to have a good time. The French public is my favorite. We always felt really at home during our concerts in France. From the beginning, we really have the impression that our real fans are actually French!
Matthew, you are the voice of Muse, but what place does she have in your life?
Matthew: I’m not very outgoing, I’m more of an introvert and so for me it’s a bit of an unusual role to be in the limelight as the lead singer of a band. I think I see myself more as a composer, a bit in the background, but I think that live shows are very important to me because we really communicate with people.
How do you view this course? 28 years old, nine albums.
Matthew: It’s quite amazing. I think that when we started, we didn’t think it would come to this, that it would take so long. We are very lucky, very grateful especially to be able to make music and that people still want to listen to it. That’s great. And then, I believe that we will continue as long as we have new ideas, we will continue.
Dominic: The most difficult or weird moments were really at the very beginning of the band, I think. We almost broke up on album number two. It was such a transition from doing nothing and being a band that travels the world, it was very difficult at that time. But here it is… Hoping that there are still ten more years!
Muse will be in concert, at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, on October 25, 2022.