50 Fun Facts About Muse (Band)

Which singer did Muse threaten to sue in 2002 over the planned name of her Las Vegas show?

Celine Dion offered $50,000 for the right to call her residency 'Muse', and the band turned it down, fearing Americans would take them for her backing band.

Which Muse single plays over the vampire family's baseball game in the 2008 film Twilight?

Supermassive Black Hole was a deliberate swerve into dance-rock, inspired by Belgian bands such as dEUS and Soulwax, and it climbed to number four on the UK singles chart.

Which Muse single was the official song of the London 2012 Olympics?

Survival was written after organisers asked Matt Bellamy for a song, and it was played as athletes entered the stadium and before medal ceremonies.

Which Almost Famous star had a son with Muse frontman Matt Bellamy in 2011?

Kate Hudson and Bellamy got engaged in April 2011, three months before the birth, and announced the end of the engagement in December 2014.

Kyle Lambert, who drew Muse's Simulation Theory cover, made posters for which Netflix show?

Stranger Things fitted the brief: the album's sleeve and videos pay homage to 1980s pop culture, including Teen Wolf and Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Muse were the first act to sell out which rebuilt London venue, over two nights in 2007?

Wembley Stadium was dressed up as HAARP, a US government research station in Alaska, and the two nights became a live album of the same name.

Which charity got Muse's winnings after the band sued Nestlé over a coffee advert?

Oxfam was handed the money after a Nescafé advert used the band's recording without permission, a case Muse won in 2003.

Which actor and former NFL player zaps gremlin-like creatures in the video for Muse's 'Pressure'?

Terry Crews plays a chaperone armed with a Ghostbusters-style proton pack, while the band perform at a school dance modelled on Back to the Future.

Muse frontman Matt Bellamy entered Guinness World Records for doing what 140 times on a single tour?

Smashing a guitar was close to a nightly ritual on the tour behind Muse's third album, and the feat was listed in the 2010 edition of the record book.

Which pop superstar ran Maverick, the American record label that signed Muse on Christmas Eve 1998?

Madonna's label later asked Muse to re-record a single because it found Bellamy's falsetto not radio-friendly; the band refused and walked away.

In which Devon seaside town did the three members of Muse meet at school?

Teignmouth got its homecoming in September 2009, when Muse opened a world tour there with shows billed as A Seaside Rendezvous.

What did Muse, then called Rocket Baby Dolls, win in 1994 with a set meant as a protest?

A battle of the bands was the last thing the goth-glam trio expected to win, and Bellamy said the shock made them start taking the group seriously.

Which band, also produced by John Leckie, were the young Muse constantly compared with?

Radiohead comparisons were waved away by Leckie, who said any passionate British guitar band of the late 1990s got the same treatment.

At which festival were Muse the first act to have headlined the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights?

Glastonbury completed the set in 2016, when Muse topped the bill for a third time after headlining in 2004 and 2010.

Which guitarist joined Muse on stage in 2010 after his own band's headline slot was cancelled?

The Edge stepped in after Bono's back injury forced U2 to pull out, and played 'Where the Streets Have No Name' with the trio.

Which Muse album, inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, won the band's first Grammy?

The Resistance took Best Rock Album in 2011, and was the first record the trio produced themselves, working in their own studio in Italy.

Which band's debut beat Muse's Black Holes and Revelations to the 2006 Mercury Prize?

Arctic Monkeys won with Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, which had become the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history.

Storm Thorgerson, designer of two Muse album covers, is best known for sleeves for which band?

Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon sleeve is his most celebrated design; for Muse, his team photographed hardboard cut-outs in a chalk pit rather than use Photoshop.

The title of Muse's 2012 album The 2nd Law refers to a law from which branch of physics?

Thermodynamics is quoted directly on the track 'Unsustainable', where a voice argues that an economy based on endless growth cannot last.

Which electronic genre in the 2012 trailer for Muse's album The 2nd Law divided the band's fans?

Dubstep producer Skrillex was the influence Bellamy named for the track 'Unsustainable', and the trailer drew mixed reactions before the album was even out.

Which Muse single, influenced by Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', was their first UK top-ten hit?

Time Is Running Out reached number eight, and its video, partly based on the film Dr Strangelove, has the band playing on a table ringed by military officials.

Which Muse single, named after a region of Mars, has a video styled as a spaghetti western?

Knights of Cydonia won Australian station Triple J's Hottest 100 poll for 2007, edging out Silverchair by just 13 votes.

In the video for which Muse single do the band perform on the deck of a cargo ship?

Starlight was filmed aboard a bulk carrier, the MS Ocean Chie, with the trio carrying flares in the hope of a rescue that never comes.

Which Muse single became the band's first number one on the US alternative chart, in 2009?

Uprising stayed on top for 17 weeks, and its video features a giant teddy bear destroying buildings.

Which Muse single has an opening riff that Total Guitar readers voted the best of the 2000s?

Plug In Baby opens with a run that has been likened to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor and to Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Which Muse song was the lead single from the soundtrack of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse?

Neutron Star Collision was the first lead single the band made for a film, and the news broke on Twilight author Stephenie Meyer's own website.

Which song recorded by Nina Simone in 1965 did Muse cover on their second album?

Feeling Good was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for a stage musical, and Muse's version has been voted among the greatest covers of all time.

Which Muse single has a bassline voted among the greatest of all time by MusicRadar readers?

Hysteria grew out of a soundcheck jam in Doncaster, and one of its two videos has the actor Justin Theroux destroying a hotel room.

Which Muse single took a Billboard alternative chart record from Foo Fighters' 'The Pretender'?

Madness spent 19 weeks at number one, a week longer than the Foo Fighters hit, and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song.

Muse's funk-rock single 'Panic Station' features musicians who played on which Stevie Wonder hit?

Superstition veterans joined the session for the band's funkiest single, whose video was shot on the streets of Shibuya in Tokyo.

Which producer of AC/DC's Back in Black did Muse hire for their 2015 album Drones?

Mutt Lange was brought in so the trio could focus on performing after producing two albums themselves, and the result topped the US Billboard 200.

Muse's Origin of Symmetry takes its title from the book Hyperspace by which theoretical physicist?

Michio Kaku proposed the phrase as a title for a future book about supersymmetry, a nod to Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Which 2003 Muse album, full of songs about the end of the world, was their first UK number one?

Absolution began a long run of UK number-one albums, and its sleeve shows the shadows of figures either leaving Earth or descending to it.

Which composer's nocturne is woven into the closing section of Muse's 'United States of Eurasia'?

Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2, supplies the piano coda, which carries its own title, 'Collateral Damage'.

Muse's song 'MK Ultra' is named after a secret mind-control programme run by which agency?

The CIA ran MKUltra to find drugs and methods for altering behaviour, often giving LSD to people without their consent.

The father of Muse's Matt Bellamy played guitar in which 1960s group, famous for 'Telstar'?

The Tornados took the instrumental to number one in both Britain and the United States in 1962, with George Bellamy on rhythm guitar.

In which English university city was Muse frontman Matt Bellamy born in 1978?

Cambridge was only a first stop: the family moved to Devon, where Bellamy met his future bandmates at school.

Which instrument did Chris Wolstenholme play in his previous band before joining Muse as bassist?

Drums were his job in a post-punk band called Fixed Penalty; he agreed to switch and took lessons on his new instrument.

What did the University of Plymouth award all three members of Muse in September 2008?

Honorary doctorates of arts went to Bellamy, Howard and Wolstenholme for their contribution to music, in the county where the band formed.

Muse played the emerging artists' stage at which American festival notorious for riots and arson?

Woodstock '99 is remembered for rioting, looting and arson; the trio played the stage set aside for new acts, in the year of their debut album.

Which American band did Muse support in 1999, a tour Matt Bellamy says made them up their game?

Red Hot Chili Peppers were touring Californication, and Bellamy said watching them inspired the trio to become less reserved on stage.

Muse's 2013 concert film, the first shot in 4K, was recorded at which city's Olympic stadium?

Rome's Stadio Olimpico held more than 60,000 fans for the show, and the film was screened in cinemas in 20 cities worldwide.

Which 2013 zombie film used Muse's instrumental 'Isolated System' on its soundtrack?

World War Z already owed the band a debt: Bellamy was reading the novel while making the album, and it shaped several of the songs.

Which pitch-shifting guitarist does Muse's Matt Bellamy cite as an influence alongside Jimi Hendrix?

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine can be heard in the riff-based songs on the trio's second album, as well as in Bellamy's choice of pedals.

Whose guitar from the album Grace did Muse's Matt Bellamy buy in 2020?

Jeff Buckley's 1994 album was the record that convinced the young Bellamy a high-pitched voice could work in rock music.

Matt Bellamy of Muse co-founded the Jaded Hearts Club in 2017 to play covers of which band?

The Beatles tribute began at a friend's 40th birthday party, under a name that plays on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Which instrument did Muse leave Real World Studios to record in Bath for the song 'Megalomania'?

A church organ in the city gave the 2001 track its gothic weight; the same album also used a Mellotron and percussion made from animal bones.

Muse's Will of the People was the first album whose sales in which form counted for the UK chart?

An NFT edition limited to 1,000 copies worldwide went on sale for £20, and the album went on to top the UK chart.

In which Devon instrument maker did Muse's Matt Bellamy buy a majority stake in 2019?

Manson Guitar Works had supplied his instruments since 2001, building effects units and touch-controlled MIDI pads into the guitar bodies.

Muse won Brit Awards in 2005 and 2007, both in which category?

British Live Act suited them: Queen's Roger Taylor later called the trio probably the greatest live act in the world.