NEW MUSE ORDER
Following seven years of near-solid touring, buzzing with nervous anticipation, their escalation from being the biggest band in Teignmouth to one of the biggest bands in Europe by 2004 had been a rocket ride.
The Herald Express has been proud to follow their success over the last 15 years — perhaps the ultimate 'local boys done good' story in the paper's 84 years of reporting.
Their formation, not quite a Supernova, began simply as friends hanging out on The Den. It's where Dominic Howard poached Matt Bellamy for his band.
Even the highest of dreams couldn't have envisaged taking over their home town, turning the Den into the hottest concert, a massive machine attracting media focus from around the world.
Back then they asked Chris Wolstenholme to join them, completing the line-up.
While studying at Teignmouth Community College, they won a battle of the bands gig under the name Rocket Baby Dolls before settling on the name Muse.
They were 'discovered' in 1998 by Totnes-based agent and recording studio boss Dennis Smith, who owns the famous Sawmills studio in Cornwall, and by February 1999 had signed to Madonna's Maverick label, home to the likes of Alanis Morrisette.
That same year they released their debut album Showbiz, which shifted 500,000 copies.
The Herald Express reported the 'Birth of a Supergroup' in a special feature.
But on a national scale they flew over a major hurdle on the international music scene when closing Glastonbury.
It was a classic Michael Eavis gamble, and with a weary, mud-drenched crowd facing a long Sunday night welly-trudge home even Muse themselves doubted they could pull it off.
"We got offered the headline slot which scared us to start with because we didn't think we were big enough to do it," said bassist Chris.
"The day was muddy and miserable, and as it was the end of the festival we thought people would be kind of jaded, but it was completely the opposite."
So did they pull it off? They pulled it off, tied it down, strapped it to a space shuttle launch engine and blew it clear out of the galaxy.
Glastonbury 2004 saw Muse storm troop on to the high table of classic festival headline acts and prove themselves a formidable force in British rock. It was only with that triumph fresh in their throats, they claim, that they realised they'd 'made it'.
So the band who walked on to the Pyramid Stage that night were a phenomenon hitting its peak.
A band who, at the age of 19, were swept out of decorating jobs into private jets and limos, and who spectacularly broke every rule of 'proper rock' from releasing an Egyptian/funk crossover debut single Muscle Museum to writing elaborate riffs like Plug In Baby to rocking up Nina Simone with Feeling Good.
A band that have more than doubled their audience with each new album released (1999's Showbiz shifted 500,000, Origin Of Symmetry hit the million mark in 2001 and 2003's masterpiece of epic malevolence Absolution sold twice that) and establishing themselves as the most thrilling operatic sci-fi carnival on the European arena circuit inside five years.
"I'm sure we go through cycles," says Matt, "like having a great time then getting jaded where the vibes are just a bit dark.
"But with the second coming of that cycle, we were like, 'oh god, we're going downhill again, we need to go home and not book a tour for a long time'.
But, Absolution was becoming a cult hit in America so with the highs of Glastonbury behind them and with two sold out dates at Earls Court that Christmas to bolster their standing back home, Muse hit the mid West circuit, re-discovering the broiling, accident-prone three-piece beneath.
"We went from playing these massive arenas in Europe to playing to 200 people in some pokey hole again," Matt said.
"That's the price of getting too comfortable on large stages. But it was good to be treated like a new band over there and get that feeling of being discovered again."
Invigorated, Muse took a month off to work out where 'home' was. Matt relocated to a town just outside Milan, Chris and his ever-growing family remained in Teignmouth and Dom stuck about in London's 'trendy' Highbury, before reconvening in summer 2005 in the bat-infested Chateau Miraval studio in a Knights Templar town in Southern France.
"It reminded me, if anything, of Devon," Matt said.
"Most of the writing process started out there, being a quieter place and truly cut off from the lifestyle we had."
Their previous albums, they figured, were borne of necessity; hurried in the face of impending tour dates and hobbled by the need to ensure they could be played live.
This time, they took a 'no limits approach' — no tour was booked, no studio tomfoolery was out of bounds; they were to explore the technological possibilities of the 'studio band'.
However, the equipment at Chateau Miraval disappointed the band so they decamped to New York to complete the bulk of recording in the Electric Lady and Avatar studios and to soak the record with much-needed dance floor flavas.
"Hendrix's ghost was hanging around," said Matt.
"And Bowie came in for a day and said hello. That was good; to get the nod of approval from the old boy.
"If we'd stayed in France for the whole album it probably would've ended up real prog. Songs like 'Knights Of Cydonia' would've been 20 minutes long. Going to New York for some reason tightened everything up and it got more groove orientated.
"Songs like Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole and Hoodoo, they all had grooves which radically changed when we went to New York, I don't know if that was the vibe of the city or what."
If Muse sound like a new band on Black Holes and Revelations it is because, after Glastonbury, they are: expanded of mind, settled of spirit and anything but sedentary of sound.
The idea that identity cards are the first sign of the onset of the end of the world? That'll be Take A Bow.
Matt explained: "There's definitely a connection to Revelations with that.
"It talks about a time when people will not be able to purchase anything without a number or exist without a number.
"Instead of going for a job interview they'll just swipe you.
"They'll get your medical history, your financial history, the lot.
"The theory that the earth is actually an expanding sphere, being sucked towards the gigantic black hole at the centre of the universe (as emotional metaphor)? Supermassive Black Hole, mate."
And for the fear of our civilisation going the way of the Roman Empire? Check out surf-prog album closer Knights Of Cydonia.
The loss of hope in the face of unjustifiable wars? It's all there in the central duo of Soldier's' Poem and Invincible.
And as for tune Exo-Politics "That's about the possibility of an orchestrated alien invasion created by the New World Order," Matt argues.
"There are some people who think in the next 10 years there'll be an orchestrated alien invasion. Not an invasion but aliens will appear. Not appear but there'll be discussions about it. There are definitely some funny things going on.
"A whole load of things, which, if you add them all together, add up to the feeling that something big is going to happen in the next 10 years.
"You can look at it all and get overwhelmed with fear or you can look at it all and say it's all being orchestrated as a way to keep people down."
Well, quite.
But whereas Absolution gazed on helplessly at the subjugation of humanity by corrupt world leaders, on the album's pivotal track Assassin Bellamy appears to be calling for nothing short of a global revolution: 'Shoot your leaders down and join forces underground... Destroy demonocracy'.
"I think we're approaching that time," Matt says.
"If you look at those protests in France, the size and level of protest doesn't really relate to what they're protesting about.
"I think there's something underneath that people are feeling, particularly the younger generation.
"We feel like we've been born into some pre-created situation where we don't actually have any control over anything.
"We've got an aging population as well and that control factor grates a little bit. I feel, through this album, that I'm feeling pessimistic and frustrated about it all but at the same time I'm not against revolutionary moves and I wouldn't be ashamed to have incited a small riot, if it's for a good cause."
The time has come. The New Muse Order is on the rise. And first to fall — Teignmouth tonight.
Comment on this story