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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Title: Blood In The Mouth, Absolution In Mind. Synopsis: Dom jumps out of the freezer long enough to chat to us about his bursting dingy? Cast: TBM & Dom [photos by L. La Mer] Air Date: 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to our beautiful city. Thank you. You've traveled quite a bit. Is there one place that's left an indelible impression on you? Ah yeah. Lots of places all around Europe obviously, but I think Japan is something that's initially a bizarre place to go to. The first time you go there, it's such insane culture shock. [laughs] I mean, everything about the culture and way of life can be opposite of what we're used to over this side of the world. That is something that sticks out as being a crazy place to visit but really memorable. We've been there six times or something like that and I've started enjoying it a lot more, from the food to the people, to the way of life and everything about it. What inspired the heavier rock sound on this album? Was there a specific goal or are we just listening to the natural evolution of Muse? I dunno...We've always had the heavier rock side but I think it's only on this album that Rich Costey actually understood that side of the band, found it and captured it on record...really, on tape. We've always been able to put out those kinds of riffs particularly in a live situation. We've always done that but I think on the last two albums we just didn't really find a really heavy side to the band. You know? Sometimes it's hard to find, kinda depends on who you use I guess. Both those two albums were mostly done with John Leckie who's not a rock producer really. He hasn't done very heavy things in the past, whereas Rich Costey has worked with Rage, Mars Volta, Cave-in and stuff with Philip Glass as well. So he's done all kinds of things. I think he just found the heavy side and worked out a way of capturing that and getting us to play it in the right way so that it sounds heavy on the album. Was there an 'ah ha!' moment where one thing stood out and you said to yourself 'that's what we wanted!' Yeah I think that happened on many occasions actually. Such as? He's really the closest producer that we've worked with, who really got his head inside the songs and really understood the band. As far as creative comments, he would come out with really broad statements like "How can we make this riff heavier?" That kind of thing you know? Before we actually started recording, he'd make us play things and put us on the spot to actually come up with things and make things better and out of that, a lot of things did change. 'Stockholm Syndrome' is probably the heaviest thing on this album and that whole song came about from a live jam riff that we were doing early last year. Where does the Absolution title come from? Well, from the song 'Absolution' really. That song was really about the process of making music and the process of finding different ideas to make music seem very confusing. You draw lots of inspiration from lots of different things; different places and through the course of writing songs, it can kind of make you understand where all these crazy ideas are coming from. So, yeah that was kind of the process of making music into some kind of absolution. [laughs]    What are you personally looking for absolution from? Well nothing that's in a religious sense really. When you've done something wrong and have sinned and are being absolved... What about in your day-to-day life? I think we're pretty open really. I don't really dwell on things like that. It's more about the process of making music for me than the tales of life really. When I look at your CD cover, I come up with a million different interpretations but I'm wondering what you see. [I show him the CD cover and he lets out some nervous laughter] It kind of represents some kind of judgment day, and these [points to the silhouettes] are like souls leaving the earth, going somewhere. It's the end of the world or something and these are all the souls disappearing, getting taken away somewhere, maybe hell, maybe a better place, and you've got the one lonely soul, one lonely man looking up going "Why haven't I been chosen?" He's got the jump suit on and the gas mask. Still, he hasn't been chosen. Or you know, maybe he has been chosen and that's why he isn't getting taken away. So it's definitely open to interpretation. [laughs] Who came up with the concept for it? It was us and Storm Thorgerson. We wanted to use him because we wanted to do photography based stuff and of a slightly surreal nature. We came across Storm, he'd done all the Pink Floyd stuff, so we checked him out, checked out his website and phoned him up. That's cool. Yeah it's very cool. The album doesn't exactly deal with fluffy things such as puppy dogs. Instead, some of the lyrics are about your hard times ahead, the end of the world type of thing. Do you guys see yourselves as pessimists or realists? Umm...not pessimists. I think we're realists, just in light of what's been going on around the world over the last couple of years... Crazy things have been happening that have affected everyone's lives really and I think the subject matter in some of these songs, are definitely exaggerated like in 'Apocalypse Please', which is very theatrical and over the top. Well, I think some of these things are just what people think about you know? The world ending, what's actually going to happen in the future and how we're going to move forward...I think those are things that people think about all the time. What news event or story in recent history really hit you the hardest and has influenced you as a musician? I think certainly the main things that have happened in the last year or two years after 9/11 that have shaken up the whole world really and made everyone go, 'Wait a minute, what the fuck's going on? The whole world's actually very unstable isn't it?' It's probably always been unstable but it's become much more apparent. Severe things have happened. Around the time of doing the album, the war in Iraq was kicking off as well, and I think that kind of influenced the vibe in the studio really. It kind of brought more attention to certain songs like 'Apocalypse Please' and the album in some kind of way made more sense. When your video first came out, Muse fans were devoting entire message board threads, theorizing about the meaning of it all... Which one? 'Time Is Running Out?' 'Sing For Absolution.' The spaceship one? Yeah. [He Laughs and then contorts his face as if to say, it's really not that complicated.] That happens to a lot of artists really. People get quite obsessive about things and read into things to a ridiculous level. Some tracks are very simple on this album but you could always go further and go way too deeply into it. That's what's nice about music really. I think the stuff we've done has always been open to interpretation. Our previous albums I think were more or less direct subject matter but that's the nice thing about art...it's kind of what happens when you look at a painting or something you just... Interpret? Yeah interpret and look at it your own way and I think many people will see different things in it. It's kind of the same thing with music really. But yeah, some people go far and dig way too deep. But you know, people did that with all kinds of bands like Nirvana and stuff like that but they went excessively far. You guys started playing music at very impressionable ages, at a time when environment plays a big role in the shaping of personality. With that said, how do you think your music would sound had you all been raised in London instead of Devon during those Rocket Baby Dolls days? No [laughs] We probably wouldn't be sitting here right now! No? No, no. I think what was kind of good about Devon was the fact that there was no music scene at all. Nothing. During the time that we were starting music, 1994-95 there was the whole big Brit Pop thing that was cool at the time but we didn't particularly like it. It was a real kind of London, Camden thing. I think if we were living in London we probably would have liked it or been involved with it in some kind of way and that died a horrible death didn't it? [laughs] It did. All those British pop bands. Yeah, I think we probably wouldn't have been in this band. Well I'm sure we would have been in this band but would have sounded completely different. We would have split up by now or something like that. [We both laugh] Asides from forming this band with your friends... what's your fondest childhood memory? Fondest childhood memory? Ummm for some reason I'm thinking of my earliest childhood memory which is - I've got a memory of being a one year old on a beach in Spain, in an inflatable boat on the beach like a little dingy and it bursting... Oh no! ...and me sitting inside it and crying about it. Hence a fear of water? [laughs] No. I was only on the sand. It burst on the sand! Oh okay. I started crying umm that's a fond memory? [laughs] I mean, I remember lots of cool things like Devon had a real sense of strong friendship in the community. All the friends would hang around and go to each other's houses and play music, listen to music, discuss music in a sheltered way but in strong friendship situations. Why do you think the friendship survived all these years? I guess because we all grew up together and we've known each other for such a long time. We've moved from young teenagers to adults and stayed friends. We stayed friends on the other side and I think that's why we're still going now. I still know a lot of people, I've still got friends at home that I see regularly and that I've known since I was eleven. It's because none of the friends that I know now are from Devon; we all moved down to Devon when we were age four or five. Our parents moved there so something that we all had in common was the fact that we weren't actually from Devon. That's why we all grouped together and stayed friends and now, everyone's gone to London. [Laughs] People always say that Dom is very calm and collected. Is that an accurate depiction of you? Ummm sometimes maybe? [Laughs] When was the last time that you lost it? Last night! Oh? I was being a bit stupid on the bus and trying to jump in the freezer. In the freezer? [Laughs] Yeah and getting in Chris' bunk with him and falling out of the top bunk. I don't know, everyone goes through periods when they kind of let go and lose it a little bit. It was one of those days. I heard that poker is the new addiction of choice... Yeah! What was it before that? Umm [he thinks about it for a while then shrugs] Shit, dunno. This is the thing that's taken hold of everyone communally. It's something that everyone's gotten into playing all the time. So I guess it's the first thing. Yeah we gamble amongst ourselves and we've been out to casinos and totally lost it in Vegas. We played for hours and hours but we really had a good time so it's kind of taking over. Matt's got quite a heavy addiction; he plays online a lot. Constantly yeah. Winning and losing online. [Laughs] Everyone's happy to hear that Matthew's recovered from his little accident... Mmmm... [nodds] But I've heard some really crazy things such as one of your devotees wanting to catch some of Matthew's blood in his mouth. [There is a shocked look on his face] Oh right? Do things like that disturb you? Uh yeah! [We both laugh] Now that you mention it, yeah. After that night, after we finished the set, well...finished five songs, Matt went off to hospital but we ended up hanging around meeting some of the fans. They had the setlists with blood on them and stuff like that and they were going "sign this, sign this." But catching blood in the mouth, I dunno. That's a bit much yeah! That's crossing the line. Wanting to catch blood is definitely crossing the line. That's probably the sickest think I've ever heard! [Laughs] How would you describe the typical Muse fan? Asides from the one who... Asides from the psycho. Exactly. I dunno. It's hard to generalize really because I kind of feel like the people who come to see us play are a real mixed crowd age-wise. When we play in Europe, down the front, you might get the girls who think they fancy you, that kind of thing and a few rows back, you've got the people who just go mental and really kick off and then you've got those metallers with Slipknot t-shirts on. That kind of thing. As you get back, you can get the older people up to sixty or something. We've got a couple of sixty year old fans. They kinda like to see us for the classical element...that kind of thing. You've got people who come and see us for the rock side of things. It's fairly mixed but I think they've normally got the long-sleeved t-shirt on with like a short-sleeved t-shirt on top [Laughs] Dyed black hair and...uh dunno...a pair of fish net tights! [Laughs] Muse is huge in the UK and you're gaining steam in North America with sold-out shows across the board. Has this popularity caught you by surprise? Totally! This whole tour has caught us by surprise. I mean, it's a total shock that this amount of people would come to see us play. I had no idea...I thought we'd be playing for twenty people in a place as big as this room and to think that all of these people actually got to know us without us being here and not releasing our second album here is really amazing. The crowds have been going nuts as well. The whole thing's a real shock but it's really exciting as well. When we go home we get to play bigger places but we haven't played in this kind of size club (1000-2000 people) for a while, so it's a really exciting feeling. It feels like you're playing to people who have never seen you before and they're discovering you for the first time and there's a real nice excitement in the room. Just touching on the fact that you've played bigger shows, I know that Matt has said that festivals inspire the way Muse plays music but when you go on stage at a big festival, is there any extra pressure or is it just business as usual? Yeah it's always very scary definitely! I can't remember what that feels like now because we've been doing this kind of thing (smaller club shows) for a while and got pretty used to it. Tonight seems really big! [We both Laugh.] The first thing we do when we go back is headline a big festival in Holland and I'm sure we're going to be pretty nervous. What's the secret in achieving such an impressively large sound when you're only a trio? I think three instruments is a good combination really because you have to play a certain way to make it sound good. You can't hide behind any other instruments. Everyone's exposed and you've got to push yourself a little more really. We've just never been afraid to try anything out, not just be influenced by one particular genre or kind of music. We just always wanted to experiment and I think having rock influences from bands like Queen and Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, those kinds of things, and classical piano influences, definitely have an effect on that grand scale. Would you ever see yourself bringing in an orchestra in a live setting? We talked about it. We thought we were going to do it but we just didn't get around to it. I think we will do it at some point. It's really amazing to hear them play in the studio, so it would be nice if we could do it live. I'm looking for one word answers. Say the first thing that comes to mind. Record labels [he looks over his shoulder to make sure there isn't a label rep around and we both laugh as he whispers] Overrated. Football Dull Butterflies Dreadful Hurricanes Chaotic George Bush Tosser Your friend Tom Our friend Tom? Good man! The Cure Surprising Are you excited to tour with them? It should be good. I saw them at Coachella and I thought it was alright! Why should the world give a damn about Muse? Because we're good. We're not about trying to be cool. It's all about being music purists, that's the most important thing to us. That's all we care about.    Illustration by D. Howard. Got a comment about this interview? Did you love it, did you hate it? [let us know!] *Muse Photos [click here]