muse2 music interviews Virgin Media
VM: Can you talk us through the new album (Black Holes And Revelations)? Maybe describe a few tracks?
Chris: Sure. The first track on the album is a song called Take A Bow, which I guess is probably the closest to anything we did on Absolution, which is kind of why we put that song at the start of the album. Sometimes it's important, instead of just going off on a new one straight away, to bridge the gap a little bit so people have that familiarity. That song was actually written around the time of Absolution but we never actually finished it. After that track you've got a track called Starlight which I guess is one of the poppiest tracks we've ever done - it's quite typical of us but it's more influenced by bands like The Strokes I guess, it has a very simple bassline, catchy drum beats and things like that. What's next? Er, Supermassive Black Hole - well, we've already talked about that one! Er, what's track four? I've forgotten the running order!
VM: Shame on you. Can we expect it to be a bit more upbeat than Absolution, though? That album seemed to paint a doomsday scenario, it was very apocalyptic.
Chris: I think musically it's definitely more upbeat, definitely more positive. I still think there's a fair few negative lyrics in there, but that's combined with positive music, so you can draw on the negativity of the lyrics if you like, or you can draw on the positivity of the music. So in that way it can create a completely different mood each time you listen, which I rather like - one minute a song can depress you, another it can make you really happy. I think that's something that a fair few songs on this album do.
VM: Are you going to be touring the UK after its release?
Chris: Yeah, we start festivals in about three weeks time, then we're going to America a couple of times, then I guess we're going to be touring - I think between October and Christmas we'll be doing a full European tour. I think the touring schedule is going to be pretty full-on for the next two years. At the moment I think we're booked up until March next year, but I'm sure it's going to continue after that.
VM: Your live shows are normally pretty spectacular - have you got anything special up your sleeves for the coming tour?
Chris: We're got a few ideas about what we want to do - we want to make it a little bit different from last time. Trying to make the live show different and all the production ideas different is sometimes quite difficult because there's only a certain amount of things you can actually do live. It's not just going to be the three of us on stage with no light show - there's going to be stuff going on!
