MUSE – One of the Greatest Rock Bands


MUSE Rock Band

Welcome to the page that appreciates good music and is home to one of the greatest English rock bands – MUSE. This is your go-to place, where you can read more about the rock music band and everything connected to it. You can find all about how the band got together and some of the challenges that they had along the way to fame. You can learn interesting facts about all their albums and how much time they put in every one of them. Muse has many music award nominations and being one of the most loved rock bands, they have won many of them. You can also find more about all their British and international awards and the most popular songs they have created.

The Beginning

The starting point for the band was way back in 1994 and the place was Teignmouth – Devon, England. Since its forming, the band Muse has always had three members – Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dom Howard. An interesting fact is that none of them is actually from Teignmouth and all three had played in other bands before they decided to play together and form Muse.

Matthew James Bellamy was born on the 9th of June 1978 in Cambridge. You can easily say that music is in Matt’s blood because he comes from a family of a musician. His father is George Bellamy, who was the guitarist in another great music band – Tornados. If you haven’t heard of Tornados, this is the first-ever English band having a number 1 hit in the United States. Matt moved from Cambridge in Teignmouth with his family when he was around 10 years old. When Matt was little, he played piano, and later on, he started playing guitar. He has also tried other instruments when he was young like clarinet and violin. When he was in school, he took a classical guitar lesson. Because of his father, music has been part of his life, but around the age of 14, this was the time that he started playing more because of himself. His parents divorced then and the music was something that helped him.

Christopher Tony Wolstenholme was born on the 2nd of December 1978 in Rotherham, England. He moved to Devon with his family when he was around 11 years old. His mother partially influenced his love for music because she was buying records, and this increased his desire to learn how to play. When he was younger, he learned how to play drums and guitar. Muse wasn’t his first band. He started by playing drums with a band called Fixed Penalty.

Dominic James Howard was born on the 7th of December 1977 in Stockport, England. He also moved to Teignmouth, Devon when he was about 8 years old. He wasn’t into music when he was little. When he went to high school, this was the time when his interest in music grew, because of a jazz band that he liked listening to. That is how he started and decided to learn how to play drums.

Everything started in the early 90’s when Matt and Dom were the ones that met first. Matt didn’t have a stable band that allowed him to perform at his best then and at the same time, Dom was playing drums with a band called Carnage Mayhem. When Carnage Mayhem started showing signs of braking, they needed a guitarist and that was how Matt started playing the guitar and the name of the band changed to Gothic Plague. At about the same time Matt and Dom met with Chris. Chris was then playing drums in the band Fixed Penalty, which was also kind of breaking up. When the other members of Gothic Plague and Fixed Penalty were more interested in other activities besides music, Matt, Dom and Chris were the ones that wanted to have a stable band and wanted to continue with music.

Matt was then very interested in writing songs instead of singing covers. So, Matt and Dom asked Chris if he wants to join them because they needed a bassist and this is how Chris left the drums. They decided to call themselves Rocket Baby Dolls and had a very gothic image. In 1994, they liked the idea to go in a battle of a band’s competition. They showed on the stage with full face makeup and weren’t ready to win. They were the only rock band, so they decided to give their best and bet on emotions. They were different from the others and played very aggressively and violently. At the end of their performance, they broke everything on the stage and somehow the anger inside them came out. In the end, they won.

This was the psychological point when they realized that they want all this to be more serious and that this is what they want. They changed the name of the band and called it Muse, quit their jobs and moved from Teignmouth and since then it was like a new beginning. They choose the name Muse because they wanted something short and they thought that it looks good on the posters.

Further Development of the Band

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The beginning of their career was somewhat rough. They had to play covers and they didn’t like it at all. They wanted more than this and wanted to make their music and write their songs. In the later 1995, the owner of the English record studio Sawmills Studio – Dennis Smith, discover them. In 1998, Dennis Smith decided to offer them to record in his studio and with his help they released the self-titled EP Dangerous, under the label of Sawmill. This was the time when their fan base in England started to grow and they caught the attention of Steve Lamacq, a very influential British journalist, and the NME. At this time, Muse also had few gigs arranged for them in the US, where they also got attention from the record label Maverick. Taste Media, the production company that was founded by Dennis Smith, also arranged deals for Muse across Europe and Australia. Then they released one more EP, Muscle Museum EP, which gain them more and more fame.

From 1994 until 2021, Muse has had a total of 8 albums released:

  • Showbiz – 1999
  • Origin of Symmetry – 2001
  • Absolution – 2003
  • Black Holes and Revelations – 2006
  • The Resistance – 2009
  • The 2nd Law – 2012
  • Drones – 2015
  • Simulation Theory – 2018

Showbiz – 1999

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In the second half of 1999, the well-known producer John Leckie produced the first album of the band. On the 4th of October 1999, Showbiz was the first released album of Muse. It had a real aggressive and expressive emotional style. One of the singles in the album, Sunburn, is about the difficult time the guys had to establish themselves as a band in Devon. The first two singles from the album were Uno and Cave. Showbiz was a good start for the Muse, some called it uncertain, with more than 700,000 copies sold worldwide and the number is still growing. Their first single to hit the top 20 was “Unintended”. Other songs that also had a positive impact on the audience were Muscle Museum and Sunburn. Muse was quickly gaining more and more fame and a lot of fans. All this secure them a place in many festivals and they won a Gold Disk at the Glastonbury festival for the sales they had with Showbiz. At that time, they also had a worldwide tour in Europe, Australia and Japan. The success was even bigger after they released a box set of the debut album in France, which included all singles from Showbiz together with a Random EP for Japan. After that, a nomination for the Best New Act followed at the Brit Awards, which they won.

Origin of Symmetry – 2001

After the big success in Europe, Muse started to work on their second album Origin of Symmetry. John Leckie and David Bottrill were the ones that produced it and on the 18th of June 2001, it was released. It sold 1.3 million copies around the world. It had a completely different direction being heavier and unexpected. The unique falsetto technique of Matt was very remarkable together with his characteristic play of the piano. They decided to use new sounds like wind chimes, organ, parts of bones and Llama claws. The first song of the album was “Plug in Bay” and it reached number 11, which was then the highest ever spot for them at that time. Muse wanted to release the album in the US, but this didn’t happen, because Maverick wanted Muse to change some of the songs before it was released for US audience and the band didn’t agree with this, so, they left the record label. After the album was released, they had another world tour. On the 1st of July 2002, Muse released a DVD named Hullabaloo, which included a live version of some of the singles and a documentary movie.

Absolution – 2003

The third studio album of Muse was released on 29th of September 2003 and it sold a million copies in Europe only. At that time, they worked with the producers Paul Reeve, John Cornfield and Rich Costey. The album was different than the first two (Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry) and Matt Bellamy wanted this time to take a break from layering the guitars and tried just one guitar to stand out in some of the recorded songs. The hit of the album was the song “Time is Running Out” which landed on number 8 in the UK top 10. There were three other songs, “Hysteria”, “Sing for Absolution” and “Butterflies and “Hurricanes”, that found a place in the top 20. In 2004, Muse went on an international tour with having concerts in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Europe. On the 12th of December 2005, Muse released another live DVD which was called Absolution Tour. It contained scenes from their Glastonbury stage act and unseen footage from performances in London on Wembley Arena and in Los Angeles in the Wiltern Theatre.

Black Holes and Revelations – 2006

The fourth album of Muse, Black Holes and Revelations, was released on the 3rd of July 2006. It had a very positive reaction from the critics and it was different from the first three albums and it was inspired by the band’s passion for science fiction. It sold 3,500,000 copies worldwide and it featured different themes including classic and techno. The first song that was released from the album was “Supermassive Black Hole” and it reached number 4 in the UK, which was their biggest chart hit up until then. Other hit songs from the album were “Starlight” (it was their biggest hit in America and it reached number 2 on the US Modern Rock chart), “Knights of Cydonia”, “Invincible” and “Map of the Problematique”.

After the release of the album, Muse had another international tour in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. When it was announced that Muse will be the first band to play on the rebuilt Wembley Stadium, the tickets were sold in less than an hour. On the 25th of September 2008, the members of Muse received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Plymouth for their contribution to music.

The Resistance – 2009

The Resistance was the fifth album of Muse and it was released on the 14th of September 2009. This was their first album that was produced only by the band. It was tailored by Adrian Bushby and it was mixed by Mark Stent. While Muse recoded the album, Chris Wolstenholme was dealing with alcoholism and had to check into rehab. This didn’t have any negative impact on the band’s name and the album topped the charts in 19 countries. It became the band’s third number one and it went to number 3 on the Billboard 200. In September 2009 Muse begun their The Resistance Tour in the town where the band started – Teignmouth, Devon.

The 2nd Law – 2012

The sixth album of the band was The 2nd Law and it was released worldwide on the 1st of October and on the 2nd of October in the US. It hit number one in the UK Album Charts and grab the second possition on the US Billboard 200. A single from the album – “Survival” was the official song of the London 2012 Olympics. The album was nominated for the Best Rock Album and the 2013 Grammy Awards. On the 29th of November 2013, Muse launched their fourth live album – Live at Rome Olympic Stadium on DVD and Blu-ray formats. The album is a presentation of the band’s performance at The Olympic Stadium of Rome on the 6th of July 2013 and it is the first concert filmed in 4K resolution.

Drones – 2015

The seventh album of Muse was Drones and it was released on the 8th of June 2015. They wanted to make it sound more like a simple rock, so the band asks Robert John “Mutt” Lange to produce it, so they can focus on the final result. The album was recorded in Vancouver in Warehouse Studio and it topped the album charts in the US, UK and Australia. In February 2016, the album Drones won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

Simulation Theory – 2018

Cover of the Simulation Theory Album

The eighth album of the band, Simulation Theory, was released on the 9th of November 2018. The first single of the album was “Dig Down” and the second one was “Thought Contagion”. They had a world tour named on the album and it started in Houston, US on the 3rd of February 2019 until the 15th of October and it ended in Lima. In August 2020, a film based on the album named Muse – Simulation Theory was released and it contained concert footage and narrative scenes.

Awards

From the beginning of Muse, the band have received 69 awards from 174 nominations:

  • In 2001 Muse won “Best British Band” and after that, they have been nominated five times for it.
  • In 2004 and 2006 they won “Best Alternative Act” award and again in 2004 and 2007 the award for “Best UK & Irish Act”.
  • They have eight nominations from the Q Awards for “Best Live Act”. They have won three times (2004, 2006, 2007).
  • In 2005 and 2007 they won “Best Live Act” and they a total of twelve nominations from the BRIT Awards.
  • Muse have won the award for “Best New Band” in 2000, three time “Best Live Band” (2005, 2008, 2009) and also three times the “Best British Band” (2007,2010,2011) from the NME Awards.
  • In 2011, they won the “Best Rock Album” with The Resistance. In 2013 they have been nominated for “Best Rock Album” (The 2nd) and for “Best Rock Song” (“Madness”).
  • In 2016 Muse won a Grammy award for “Best Rock Album” (Drones).
  • They also own the Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement.

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