Q&A with Chris Wolstenholme

Muse bassist shares insight

By Laura Wilkinson, Features Editor

Published: Friday, October 22, 2010

Technician was given the opportunity to chat with Chris Wolstenholme, the bassist and back-up vocalist for the English band Muse. To kick off their fall North American tour, the alternative rockers will play at the RBC Center next Tuesday night, their first appearance in the capital city since they played with U2 at Carter-Finley Stadium in 2009.

Technician: How did Muse get started?

Wolstenholme: I think when we got to about 15 years old, a lot of people were getting to the age where they were coming up to finishing school and thinking about careers and what they wanted to do, and a lot of people lost interest [in being part of a band]. I guess me and Matt [lead vocals] and Dom [drummer] were a few of the last people that wanted to carry on making music and being in a band and feel like we were a part of something. It was just by coincidence really. Matt and Dom's band fell apart and my band was on the verge of falling apart and Matt and Dom started to some stuff on their own and they asked me to play with them. I was a drummer at the time and they wanted someone to play bass and do back-up vocals so they asked me if I go. I had never picked up a bass in my life at that point. I had a few rehearsals with them and it kind of went from there and that was in 1994.

It took a long time to get going though. The first five years were really tough. I think particularly the part of the country we lived in there was no real music scene going on at that point. It wasn't like London or Manchester that have these big huge music scenes going on, we were in a rural part of the country and there were very few places to play. We spent more time rehearsing than we did gigging.

Once we got signed to Maverick and different labels in different countries it was all about touring. We just hit the road and never looked back. I think it's been a good way to break the band. For us, it was always about going out and playing live. I think we're in a really good position now because the record sales industry is in such a bad place now. We're in a good position because we know we can go out and play live pretty much anywhere in the world.

Technician: What inspires your music?

Wolstenholme: I think the one thing we've always tried to do with our music is keep it varied. I think music tours are like an education. We've always been keen to explore many different areas of music and many different approaches to making music. There are some influences – particularly in recent albums – that are not necessarily music that we listen to that much. They're definitely approaches to music we find appealing. I think on the last couple of albums there have been some electronic influences. I don't listen to an awful lot of electronic music but I'm definitely interested in the way electronic music is produced because it's very, very different to the way guitar music is produced. For us, guitar music has always been what we are and I think what this band always will be. I feel that between the three of us, there is only so much you can do with guitars. If you really want to expand your repertoire you need to be influenced by other things. Matt's been very heavily influenced by a lot of classical music, so the classical music combined with the rock element combined with certain electronic influences has created this whole new sound that we've made.

Technician: What's your favorite part of touring?

Wolstenholme: Obviously the show. Every day, you wake up and the one thing you look forward to is getting onstage. That's what it's all about. Aside from the show, it's an opportunity to experience the world. There are many places that we've been to with the band that are places I wouldn't have thought in a million years of going to. It's great to experience as much of the world as you can; I think it makes you more open-minded as a person, experiencing the different cultures and different people. Obviously the travel is very difficult sometimes – you spend a lot of time jet-lagged, you spend a lot of time hanging around in airports, cars, vans and tour buses. But that's something that just becomes a way of life. Initially it's very exciting because you're travelling around all the time and then after a while it becomes tiring and once you get past that it becomes a way of life. For us, hopping on a plane is like most people jumping on a bus.

Technician: Do you have any stories about crazy fans?

Wolstenholme: You get stalked a little bit sometimes but it depends where you on. When you go to Asia and Japan and places like that, where a lot of bands from Europe and a lot of bands from America don't go there that much, I think they get very over-whelmed by the whole situation when a band turns up.

It's funny, you turn up to the airport and there will be hundreds of people there to greet you off the plane. I find it quite hilarious when you fly to New York or when you fly to Heathrow or some major city like that, no one gives a shit. Then you turn up in Indonesia or Tokyo or somewhere like that and there are hundreds of people at the airport wanting to get things signed.

When you turn up at a hotel, there's people hiding behind curtains and walking around the lobby pretending they're hotel guests and then the next thing you know you're getting swarmed by about 30 people at once. Places like that, the fans are really interesting because they come from a different culture and they get very excited when bands from Europe and America go over there.

I don't think we've had anything too crazy. If that's the kind of thing that irritates you then you probably shouldn't be in a band. I think the reason most people are in bands is because they want to be loved and they're insecure – that's why you get into a band; you just turn into a show-off.

Technician: Is there anything new in the works or are you just focused on promoting The Resistance right now?

Wolstenholme: We're just concentrating on touring at the moment. We're coming to the end of the touring cycle right now. Next year won't really be a touring year. Toward the end of next year, we'll get together as a band and start working on some new material. I'm sure Matt has already got lots of new ideas for new songs. We certainly don't feel like there's a rush to get a new album out. It's more important for us to take a little bit of time off after this album because we've not really had that much time off in the last 12 years. I guess we all kind of feel that this is the right time to – not disappear completely – but take some time off for a little bit. We've done so much; we've released an album every two –and-a-half years to three years for the last 12 years and I think we should make people wait a little bit. Keep them hungry.

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