Virgin Radio 2008-04-15 – Most Wanted with Ben Jones
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An interview by Ben Jones recorded before the Royal Albert Hall 2008 gig, broadcast over Virgin Radio on Most Wanted with Ben Jones, 2008-04-15 between 9:30 and 22:00. This transcription may be inaccurate. The programme was originally to air soundboard recordings of the Royal Albert Hall, but Virgin Radio were refused broadcast rights by either Muse management or Warner.
[...]
Ben Jones: ...from that interview a li'le later, all the Muse fans all over the world who are e-mailing us; 'Muse Muse Muse Muse Muse' – after nine. You're driving us crazy. Here's the Wonderstuff. Nice to hear from you though.
[...]
J: Uh, asking us to play Muse from the Royal Albert Hall. Uh, bizarrely, for some unknown reason, we're not allowed to play stuff from the Royal Albert Hall performance. I don't know why, I don't know whether they're gonna release it as an album or some'in' like that or, or maybe it's sort of embargoed for some reason. God knows why. Uh, but you will hear live music from their, their recent performance at Wembley; the H.A.A.R.P. DVD, uh, plus we'll hear from the band, before Jeff at ten o'clock, on Virgin Radio.
[...]
J: You will get some uh, some chat on from the guys an' also some live music but as I say, I can't play anything from the Royal Albert Hall. God knows why. Uh, but people subjecting me to some serious e-mail abuse, uh Ellie Watts, Alice Muse, binarysonnets, cavell, liam[?]9, all on Muselive.com. Just uh, real... [laughs] really giving us some jip this evening. I will do whatever I can, to get some of the Royal Albert Hall live music on the, on the Saturday Night show that we do, which is a little bit more sort of uh, a little bit more left of centre, we can do pretty much what we like, so bear with me, I'll see what I can get on a little later, but you'll hear from your band Muse, after nine.
[...]
[Time Is Running Out from H.A.A.R.P. DVD played]
J: Britain's best live band. [...] Muse, from the H.A.A.R.P. CD and DVD which is [?], if you didn't see them at Wembley. Go, get the DVD, see why they are Britain's best live band, why Roger Daltrey thinks they are the best live band in the world. We were hoping to have some the uh, the live recordings from the Royal Albert Hall but for some reason and I presume there is some kind of release coming up. I don't know, so uh, don't you know, jump down my throat but, I presume there's something coming up, the reason why they wouldn't allow us to have the uh, the performance from the Royal Albert Hall, but we'll make do with some of the stuff from the uh, the H.A.A.R.P. CD uh, I might even play you something from the last time they played V, very soon. Anyway, we caught up with the guys backstage, spoke to Matt and Dom, always nice to see 'em, always nice to speak to 'em an' I asked them about the Royal Albert Hall;
J: It's a great venue to play isn't it.
Matthew Bellamy: Uh, immense yeah. It's actually, weirdly en... everyone said it's smaller than you think but actually, it's bigger than I expected so, so I'm quite surprised, 'cause everyone was telling me it was smaller than you'd think, but I got in an' to me it's like, it's quite overwhelmingly large an' uh... and uh yeah, it's got a lovely history, it's got a massive church organ at the back and I think I might have to uh, give that a little razz during the gig at some point.
J: [laughs]
Dominic Howard: Yeah, it's beautiful, it's uh, my first time here, I've never bee... actually been in the venue before, I've seen it, but it's amazing, I just walked on stage a minute ago an' it's, it's really really high, but so ornate, it's got lovely little gold pillars all over the place, it's beautiful.
J: When I walked in, I think I might've heard you sound-checking. How, how does Muse sound in the Royal Albert Hall?
B: Oh, we, we haven't actually played a full song together yet, so we've just been checking out the different instruments and stuff but uh, [stutters] it's uh, you know, it won't be until everything actually goes at once that we'll know whether [laughs] whether the acoustics are gonna work. We've heard that it's quite difficult because it's obviously set up for acoustic music, um, so it's kind of there designed to make quiet things very loud you know, whereas in a rock venue on the opposite, you want it to make very loud things a bit quieter, so you don't hurt people so, it's kinda like the opposite of a venue should be, but hopefully we'll try... we've got uh, you know we've got a good crew out there, hopefully they'll make it work.
J: An' is playing the Royal Albert Hall, is that part of Muse's new way, of doing things?
B: Um' well it's certainly a place that we'd love to play. My, my dad was in a band, he played here three times an' he's, he's always said it was his favourite place and uh, so uh, I've, I've always meant to play here an' I think uh, yeah we kind of, I suppose we, we played almost all the other, sort of, well known venues in London,...
J: Mm.
B: ...so it's kind of like, you know, it's a pretty important place for us to say that we have played. Whether or not we come back here and do it again, I mean, uh we were talking at one point, we've always talking about doing something with a, a sort of orchestra or something like that and I suppose that, here would be the kind of place you'd do that so, it's nice [?] we're not going to be doing that today, but we'll, we'll get a taste for it an' if, I suppose if it goes really well it'll certainly be the place where, if we were to do work with an orchestra we'd come back and do it here, you know?
J: If you were to do the full H.A.A.R.P. show you'd blow the bloody roof off this place.
B: [laughs]
J: But um, this is your first year involved with the Teenage Cancer Trust um, most people from what I can tell having done this over the last few years, they get this kinda strange call, from Roger Daltrey. Now he is the kinda guy you don't say no...
B: [laughs]
J: ...to. So how did you get involved with Roger? Did he ring, did he call, what, what was the deal?
H: Um, we'd actually met him uh, a few years back, at a festival, we actually played with The Who somewhere in Belgium or somewhere like that an' uh, we met him an' he's a cool guy an' he asked us to do it, but unfortunately uh, we couldn't do it 'cause we were off somewhere else around the... in the world, so it was uh, it was a shame we couldn't do it but he uh, this time we worked it out so it's uh, he asked us again and we coul... we were around to do it, so he said yes an' it's, I think it's an honour to support this kind of trust an' play in this venue so it's uh, it's, it's good, we're looking forward it, pleased to be a part of it.
J: An' obviously, the only other UK show they're doing this Summer, is the V festival, why V?
B: Yeah, an' I think, I think it's really nice, um, we've, we've uh, played there I think twice before, um and uh, the last time we played there actually, Chris broke his wrist and we had to get Morgan, who's now playing keyboards with us, to step in on the bass, so the last gig was quite, it was actually quite a stressful affair for us, because we had a, a guy on the bass who didn't know the parts, so,...
J: [laughs]
B: ...so we, we actually kinda, we said to ourselves that we'd like to come back an' sort of uh, you know do like a, sort of a gig, with Chris playing the bass basically, that's what we, would sort of make up for that one I think an' uh, no apart from that, it's a very lovely festival, it's nice 'cause it goes to the North and the South you know um, that's nice 'cause we've all got a lot of family up North as well...
J: Mm.
B: ...and uh, so it's nice to have the two, two different venues and it's uh, it's always a nice layout and I think, I, I think it's got the best backstage any, of any festival I've been to in Europe probably, so, so that's a, that's another reason.
J: So in between uh, the last couple of shows and the festivals, has there been the writing and recording of, of new material, are we gonna get any new songs at, well tonight for starters and secondly maybe at V?
H: Um, we'll see, I don't think we're gonna play anything too new tonight. We're gonna play a few older ones that we haven't played for a long time, so they're gonna feel new, but um, but we're, yeah right now we're definitely working on new material an' hopefully we might get something out for V, but over the course of the summer and the next few months, we're thinking about new material, a new album, that kind of thing and uh, which is really exciting.
J: And we also talked about the fans. The loyal fans and I asked them, do have more involvement than other bands with your fans?
H: Well, yeah. I mean we keep the uh, the website is, has a pretty strong community around it, you know. I think within the message boards an' uh, you know we keep on top of that an' keep it all um, kind of alive and healthy I think an' uh, but I fin... our fans are so loyal yeah, it's amazing really. They're very kind of, some of them are really hardcore and follow us around all over the world an', you know it's great, it's amazing that you know.
J: I wonder where they get their money from, because some of them I know, having you know, they e-mail the show and play tunes, some of them will come to like you know, three four five gigs all across the country. I mean, that, that's quite some expense.
B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, when we do a tour across England, it's all just the same people, every gig you know.
J: [laughs]
B: We just, they all just come to five gigs when we do five concerts, it looks like we're actually a big, a big band but it's actually all the same people.
[Hysteria from V Festival 2004 played]
J: How do three blokes make that much noise? Like Muse, that's Hysteria live, that was the performance from the V festival. They're back, this Summer at V, if you want to win your tickets, obviously it's sold out, you can win your tickets on your official, V Festival station, we are Virgin Radio. [...]