A trio consisting of three high school friends named Matthew Bellamy (born on June 9, 1978 in Cambridge, England), Dominic James Howard (born on December 7, 1977 in Stockport, England), and Christopher Tony Wolstenholme (born on December 2, 1978 in Rotherham, Yorkshire, England), Muse actually resulted from the idea to overcome the boredom of their life in the sleepy town of Teignmouth, South Devon, England. The band's incarnation originally was materialized in the form of a duo called Gothic Plague established by Dom and Matt in January 1994, but it was later changed to Fixed Penalty when Chris joined in, then to Rocket Baby Dolls under which they enrolled in a local Battle of The Bands competition. Initially pessimistic of the chance of winning due to their different sounds with other contestants, the troupe surprisingly were named the winner, fueling the personnel to continue their pact in professional way.
With Dom on drum, Chris handling the bass, and Matt taking the lead vocal, guitar, also keyboard, the threesome began to look for a better stage name and finally settled to call themselves Muse after their art teacher told of the muses from Greek mythology. They confidently commenced their journey through ...
a number of performances at the local venue for some time. The band gradually were able to draw quite large audience, which led them to come into the attention of Dennis Smith, the owner of Sawmills studio and Dangerous Records label. Not only offering them a chance to record their materials, the man also willingly set up a few showcases in the U.S. to ultimately get them signed under Maverick Records in 1998, much to the group's delight. Other deals soon followed with Motors in Germany, Naive in France, and notably, Mushroom Records in England through which they happily saw their full-length debut album, "Showbiz", touching the U.K. market in 1999 after the releases of their two EPs entitled "Muse EP" and "Muscle Museum EP."
Produced by John Leckie, who previously had been involved in the making of Radiohead's "The Bends", the LP had a more-than-satisfying outcome as it managed to enter the top 30 of U.K. albums chart while generating some modest hits like "Sunburn", "Unintended", "Cave", and "Uno". On the other hand, comparisons inevitably were drawn to Radiohead thereafter, leading to an accusation that Muse were mere copycat. Going unaffected, the band kept moving on their path to hold tour around the world which ran successfully for one and half year before coming up with their sophomore effort, "Origin of Symmetry", in 2001. More expanded and experimental than its predecessor, the album received wonderful response, so positive that the album really did not encounter much difficulty to break worldwide sale above 1.3 million copies, thanks to its tracks like "Plug in Baby", "New Born", "Bliss", and "Hyper Music".
Though already gaining considerable popularity in Europe, Muse were still unable to make a sound in the States, and realizing this fact, they joined forces with U.S. producer Rich Costey to work on their next album, "Absolution". The decision was delightfully proven right for the record, released by March 2004 in the country. The album amazingly made its way to the first rank of Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart besides spawning two top 10 Modern Rock Tracks hits namely "Hysteria (I Want It Now)" and "Time Is Running Out". In the meantime, greater accomplishment was scored in U.K when it topped the number one spot on the country's album chart to then direct the band to obtain a BRIT Award for Best Live Act category in the following year. Amidst the ...
superb attainment, the trio decidedly preferred to focus more on their live performances instead, and opted not to bring up new compositions until 2006 through singles "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Knights of Cydonia", which later were included in their next album launched by July 3 in U.K., "Black Holes & Revelations". In 2007, the band were named the Best British Band at the ShockWaves NME Awards and Best British Live Act at the BRIT Awards.
With the title of amusing live act, Muse continued touring around the world, hitting big stadiums and festivals such as Wembley and V. In September 2008, Matt, Dom and Chris all received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Plymouth for their contributions to music. At the same time, the work of their fifth studio album was underway. "The Resistance" was released in September 2009 with singles such as "Uprising" and "Undisclosed Desires". Upon its release, "The Resistance" topped the album charts in 19 countries, becoming the band's third number one album in U.K. and reaching number three on the Billboard 200. Muse were later nominated for three awards at the 53rd Grammy Awards in February 2011 and won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album for "The Resistance". With the confidence, Muse headlined a lot of festivals like Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds as well as Lollapalooza.
In 2011, they began recording their sixth album in London with the help of composer David Campbell, which would make the album "radically different" from the rest. First single "Survival" was released in June 2012 and became the official song of the London 2012 Summer Olympics. It was quickly followed by "Madness" and "Panic Station". Armed with new materials, the band toured around Europe while the album, titled "The 2nd Law", was awaiting its release on October 2, 2012 in the U.S.
The 2nd Law was released worldwide on 1 October, and on 2 October 2012 in the United States; the album subsequently reached number one in the UK Albums Chart, and number two on the US Billboard200.The song "Madness" earned a nomination in the Best Rock Song category and the album itself was nominated for the Best Rock Album at the 55th Grammy Awards, 2013. The band performed the album's opening song, "Supremacy", with a full orchestra, at the 2013 BRIT Awards on 20 February 2013. The instrumental versions of two songs from the album, The 2nd Law: Isolated System and Follow Me, were also featured as background music in several instances in the 2013 film World War Z. Leading star and producer Brad Pittexplained in an interview that he was in search of a song that could be associated with the film like Mike Oldfield's iconic Tubular Bells is connected to The Exorcist. Pitt thought the songs were "exactly what we were looking for for the film".
The band has released their third live album: Live at Rome Olympic Stadium, from 29 November 2013 in the CD/DVD and CD/Blu-ray formats. On 5 November 2013, the film will also get theatrical screenings in 20 cities worldwide, in the U.S. and Canada on 6 November 2013, in Europe, UK, Australia and Japan on 7 November 2013, on 12 November 2013 in Austria, Germany, Italy and Spain, on 19 November 2013 in Poland, and 22-24 November 2013 in Indonesia. This is the first concert filmed in 4K format. The album contains the band's performance at Rome's Stadio Olimpico on 6 July 2013, in front of a crowd of 60,963 people. The concert was a part of The Unsustainable Tour, which is a moniker for the band's summer 2013 European leg of The 2nd Law World Tour.
2014–: Seventh studio album
During a gig in Helsinki, the band performed two songs from their 1990's B-Side library that had not been played in recent years: "Agitated" and "Yes Please". Both songs were not on the original set-list for the gig. Following the gig, Bellamy said: "We haven't played those songs in like 6 years... Something like that. That was a rehearsal. That's what the next album sounds like, okay?" He also stated how the band plans to return to the studio in 2014 after a short break.
On November 25, 2013, Bellamy said he expected Muse's seventh album to be released in early 2015, saying: "The last two albums, we sort of veered away from our instruments a little bit. We sort of focused on things like synthesisers, drum machines and various electronics and stuff. I kind of feel like on this next album, we’re going to veer back towards musicianship again and focusing on our own instruments: guitar, bass and drums. It’s probably going to be a bit of a rawer album, and definitely a bit more rock, I’d say." Bellamy also mentioned the possibility of a concept album and a non-conventional release.