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If it was the plot of a new Robin Williams movie you'd be puking in your nachos. There's these three Disney-sweet, doe-eyed Devon kids and their school band, right - devoted young pups determined not to lose their grip on their schoolboy dreams of rock Valhalla.
Five years they slog and scrape, painting and decorating by day, regurgitating old fraggle covers in cold local pub backrooms by night until, one day, their fairy godfestival appears in the shape of In The City '98, plucks them from the basement below the deepest pit of obscurity and announces them one of its three glorious champions.
And, hey, you'll love the twist. See, then they get a record deal from Madonna for Christmas. "We were in LA doing a showcase for another record company," singer, guitarist and Muse's central songwriting enigma Matthew Bellamy remembers, "and Maverick heard we were around and asked us to stay a few more days to play for them. We eventually signed the day before Christmas Eve. We got a record deal for Christmas.
" Don't you feel sick to the stomach knowing you're labelmates with Alanis Morissette? Matthew grins. "Not really. They've got The Deftones and I really love The Deftones. The great thing about Maverick is they've only got about 15 acts and they've taken us as a priority. They're not the sort of label who'd drop a band if their first album doesn't sell too well. But we're not corporate at all. We're still independent in this country."
Contrary bleeders, Muse. They (Matthew, drummer Dominic Howard and bassist Chris Wolstenholme) write songs of great depth and import, yet refuse to give even the slightest hint as to their meaning because, according to Matthew, "I let everyone look at them how they want to."
They play spooksome, serrated guitar epics, yet onstage behave like demented gnats on top-grade Vietnam nutter drugs. They've signed to Madso's mega-label in America, yet may still sign to Ruptured Tampon Records worldwide. And they're as allegedly 'corporate' band who refused to play the winner's showcase at In The City because it was too, um, corporate. "We didn't wanna overdo it, play to a business audience," says Matthew.
"And the live thing was a bit of a shambles." Not so their debut single 'Muscle Museum': the primal howl of a throat lined with razor blades and a soul shrunken from playing every toilet venue in the Honiton district, a mighty noise which could have been cloned from DNA scraped from Thom Yorke's own larynx. Oh, except according to their press release, Muse consider such squalid comparisons to be "lazy journalism".
"It's too easy to say, 'You sound like this, you sound like that'," says Chris. "People don't listen to the stuff enough to really make up their own minds about it." But you do sound like Radiohead though. Matthew: "We don't want to get pigeonholed so easily."
Oh come on. If there was a National Sounding Like Radiohead Championship you'd be on the expert judging panel alongside Radiohead and another band who sound exactly like Radiohead.
"We take our influences from a lot of American bands like Nirvana," Matthew asserts. "And, yeah, Radiohead at the time of The Bends were doing new things with guitar music that it's not hard to be influenced by. If that's your opinion, fair enough. I just don't care.
Muse then. Sound like Radiohead. Only better.
Muse - a band from the seedy backwaters of Teignmouth on the South Devon coast near to Torquay. There is quite simply nothing to so there except for an outdoor swimming pool. which nobody over the age of five or with any concern for their health ever dares step foot in. The lead vocalist/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist is Matthew Bellamy, the bassist/backing vocalist is Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard plays drums.They tour the world constantly in a big orange bus, and are in the middle of supporting some very big bands including Skunk Anansie, The Chilis and The Foo Fighters. Over the summer they've also played a shitload of festivals including Glastonbury, Reading and Woodstock, and basically become really popular.
They've been signed in the U.S. by Madonna's Maverick label, which also has Alanis Morisette and The Prodigy, for a deal apparently worth £1million! They've also signed to Mushroom Records in this country. Their debut single with Mushroom is Uno, which was released on Monday June 14th, followed by the realease of Cave on September the 6th. The two singles reached nos. 73 and 52 respectively. And now Showbiz, Muse's debut album has finally been released, and it's spankingly good. Muscle Museum has now also been released, and was expected to enter the Top 40 to become Muse's first Top 40 hit, but sadly just missed, entering at no. 43.
Sunburn, the first song on the album, is the next to be released as a single in the UK on 21st february. And I can also confirm that Cave is being released in the States very shortly. Stay logged on for more details as I get them.
MUSE won best Newcomer at the NME Awards in February, beating off competition including Macy Gray and Basement Jaxx. It seems that despite their lack of Top 40 singles and an album chart high of no. 69, the lads are ever-increasingly popular with fans. So now all we need to do is buy more copies of the singles. Sunburn entered the chart at no. 22, and current single Unintended entered the chart on Sunday June 11th at number 20 - their first Top 20 hit. Muse have taken off in a big way, long may it continue...
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