Matt: I played piano first when I was nearly about 9 or 10. My dad used to get me to listen to blues & boogy woogy stuff but I used to listen to Ray Charles and I would sit there and try & work out the loose stuff.

I never really learnt to read music, I always had a bit of difficulty with being taught stuff. I always preffered to do it on my own.

I remember, I had like one lesson and I gave up after one lesson cause the teacher told me I had to work on my right ring finger for about a year and I was like "naa" I just wanna play some blues, I don't wanna like just do that for a year.

That was actually my first sort of performance I ever did actually was like a blues piano thing in school it was like a talent contest or something like that (Age 12 - Teignmouth Community Collage, June 1991) and I won. Up until then I was really shy and embarrased about playing infront of people and I think that changed me from then on when I sort of realised I liked actually playing on stage a bit and sort of got into it.

Dom: I think I was in like one of the first bands in school, like in our age group anyway and eventually we wern't happy with out guitarist so we got Matt in to play the guitar cause we knew he could play the guitar, we'd seen him around school, didn't really know him too well, ya know.

He had like a flat top and a shell suit but he could play the guitar pretty well and we had like long hair and weird t-shirts on.

Chris: We became Muse in April '94. We had this gig booked, there's a roller disco in Dorlish, Warren which is near to Teignmouth and moments before we went on stage there's all these people just skating round in this circle, not interested in the band at all and the guy came on and he said "What are you called?" and about 3 seconds before we went on it was Muse. "All right, here's Muse."

We started playing. There were all these people skating round and there's a massive gap infront of the stage where no one was standing and everyone was just skating it was a really wierd moment.

Matt: There's nothing to do, d'ya know what I mean? In the town we were from, when ya 16 you can't get into the pubs, you can't drink, there's not really a place to go so everyone just ends up hanging around the sea front getting into fights and doing drugs and getting beaten up by old guys who own the Caprie's, ya know what I mean?

I think someone said they were suprised that all these bands were happening cause there was actually quite a lot of bands and there's all this other creative stuff going on aswell that seemed to be quite possotive and it's like almost cause there's nothing else to do that all this was coming out of it and someone said "oh, it's like a misused muse's" it was like hangin around.

I think at that time in my life I was all like into all this mystery stuff, ya know? I was doing ouiji boards every day and trying to contact dead people and I was trying to get with this girl who was like a witch and she was like really hot and she had a couple of mates who were witches and they sorta like did stuff together and I sorta thought it was all a little bit cool. So as I said, at the time I was quite influenced by that and I was thinking and I thought the word muses would have worked as a name.

Chris: It started happening seriously when Denis from 'Sawmill' got involved and he gave us some free studio time and, ya know, basicly said "Go in, do some demos and we'll see what happens." That was the first time we'd been in a studio, ya know, a proper studio and been given a chance to record some of the songs properly.

Matt: Sort of like had this idea to sort of print a limited edition EP and start playing it around gigs and selling it at gigs and for the first one sort of sold a little bit, it did quite well and sold quite fast there's nearly 1000 copies of each.

The second one we put into some independent record shops and it all sold really quick and it got in the independent charts. It gradually built like that and we also got a little play on the evening session from that EP.

Dom: It was around that time where we started building up a bit more fan base locally and then ya know then we actually got a chance to go on tour around the rest of the country and then get into Europe aswell.

A few American labels sort of got a little bit interested. A few different labels were getting interested and they start treating you well and, ya know, giving you limo's and first class flights and that sort of thing, ya know, so they treat you really well and sorta treat you like famous or something.

Matt: At the time I had a job, I was painting and decorating. I was doing all these crappy jobs like painting and decorating and cleaning shit up out of caravans and that sort of stuff and suddenly I'm on a plane, first class, going to New York in a limo, jumping out and like doing this gig in New York then going down to L.A. hanging out at the Oscars ceremony party and going "Hi Gwineth" ya know, and all this crap. It was like, no going back and painting houses and cleaning shit and that was quite a good experience.

Dom: Yeah we just did a few little showcases down in L.A. in Santa Monica & Hollywood. The one we did for Maveric was quite funny cause this guy just turned up in this tiny little rehersal room called Guy with the guitarist from the Sex Pistols and a couple of lawers and it's just like us in this room, we played like two songs and he went "Ok, that's it. I wanna sign you now." We're like "What? What's going on?"

Matt: And then what happened was all these quiet cool like independent labels started getting interested. That's what I like about labels like 'Mushroom' and 'Nieve' from France and 'Motor' from Germany they were all pretty independent companys that we've ended up sort of attaching ourselves to in a weird way.

Dom: When we first started thinking about the first album we had like a whole load of songs that we'd done obviously in the past before we got signed but the rest of the songs they were like, a few of them were done in the studio like 'Unintended' & 'Sunburn' and they sort of happened in the studio at that time.

Matt: I wasn't really too worried about what people would think about it I was more just trying to make something that I knew that I'd like myself or something that I knew I'd want to listen to so I just put all my effort into putting something down that I'd like, and I'd like get into cause then at least I'd know that if it did get liked by loads of people it's something in me or something from me so I always wanted to make music as personal as possible and I was always putting a lot of personal input into it and trying to put of emotion into it and all that.

Dom: One of the main things we wanted to do on the second album was try and make it sound a bit more like we do on stage and seeing as we did so much of that after the first album was released it's obviously a good time to go in and try and do it.

Matt: 'Cause people always came to gigs and say "Oh, what you do on stage is so much beter than the album, it's always much more full on and more exiting, full stuff." So I think on the second album we tried to get a bit more of that and I think we're still working on that now, trying to capture what we do on stage, trying to get that in the studio.

I think we're very nervous at first in the studio that's why it came out a bit soft sounding compared to what it was when we were on stage, we were a bit more relaxed.

Chris: I think most of the first sort of year and a half we spent supporting bands. We did a tour with 'Skunk Anancy' and a tour with 'Feeder' in the UK and then we did the 'Chili Peppers' in the States, that was really good. I think that was the first time we'd like gone out and done arenas.

Matt: We did a tour with like the 'Chili Peppers' and the 'Foo Fighters' which became a turning point in our approach to what we do on stage and how we thought about playing live generaly. We sort of had it in us when we first started up.

When we first started up we were playing with our mates, when we were 16 like it was really cool. It's like, we'll get into doing that. For like a big period, for 18, 19, 20, no one really came to our gigs and we all became very introverted on stage and very sort of shy and everything and then when we went out with the 'Chili Peppers' we were playing like these big arenas like maybe 15,000, 20,000 some of them were 25,000 capacity venues and the croud were just like mental, ya know, they just like rock and the more riffs we played and the more heavy we played the more they got into it.

Chris: It's like every gig, just playing was good enough and then coming off stage and watching the 'Foo Fighters' and 'Chili Peppers' aswell everynight was just absolutly incredible.

Matt: It was the first time in my life I was playing on a big stage with a lot of space to run around cause up until then it'd been really cramped, playing in these little pubs and stuff and suddenly your out on this massive open space with this massive expance of people everywhere.

Chris: There's only 3 of us and you sort of have to move around more and you have to fill the space a little bit more and then watching the way the 'Chili Peppers' were on stage they seemed to enjoy it so much and I think that was a big influence on the way the live show is now.

Matt: I think it changed our confidence on stage at least. We sort of became more "Who gives a fuck, I mean, let's just go for it, let's just go for it, let's just give everything we've got whilst we're here." You get a sensation of a short period of time that our life lasts for and like playing infront 20,000 people you think "You know, what am I gonna do. Am I gonna sit up here and winge about it or am I just gonna just fucking like go for it and like go mental and give everything to it." and I just thought yeah that's what I'm gonna do.

Dom: We've always tried to have a laugh on the road and have some fun and party as much as we can. We generally, like, we do the gigs which are always pretty energetic and full on and the crowd always seems to get into it and love it and then afterwards we like to try and meet people and have partys and mess about and get loads of people in our dressing room and turn the stereo up full and turn the lights off and see what happens.

Matt: When we sort of have a party or gathering with people that were in the gig whatever, it helps you sort of understand who you're playing for and it doesn't make you think you're too seperate or whatever like that.

When we're touring around in a country there's groups of people who follow us around and come to all the gigs and sometime we'll have big partys, sometime's we don't, sometimes we have a gathering on the bus or whatever.

There's like groups people that sort of hang around, it's like this sort of wierd gipseyish sort of existence that we have and we have these parties in random locations. I think it's alright, I like it a lot.