Drunken Lightsaber Battles & “Trouser Wafting” Sub-Bass

Surfing the net while preparing to interview Dominic Howard, this scribe stumbled upon some footage of the Muse drummer engaging in some kind of rooftop lightsaber battle. Is he able to please explain? Dominic laughs, sounding a tad embarrassed, and falters, "Yeah, oh, l, we were just - I guess we had just played in New York and then we went out for a party, and we ended up in someone's apartment, you know, in this block in New York City with, like, this great view looking out over the city and someone had some lightsabers there [laughs] - some professional lightsabers. So we were just kind of a bit drunk at the party and swingin' 'em around, you know, and, as you do, everyone got their phones out and started Instagramming.

"I mean, I was actually surprisingly shit," he enlightens. "I think I thought I was gonna be some kind of awesome swordsman - I thought I was just gonna, like, literally channel the force, but I actually didn't know what the fuck I was doing, haha. So I probably need a bit more practice with the old saber." When it's suggested to Howard that perhaps the force isn't available to use when you're shitfaced, Howard opines, "Pretty sure Luke Skywalker was sober as a judge". We take it Howard is a Star Wars fan, then. "I am a Star Wars fan, yeah, absolutely; a BIG Star Wars fan," he confirms. "I like the movies, for sure, and I was a fan when I was a kid and still am now… absolutely." 

When Howard "first started getting into music and actually started playing the drums", he recalls Stewart Copeland from The Police and Roger Taylor from Queen were his favourite drummers. Then when he moved onto listening to "heavier music", Howard found Matt Cameron from Soundgarden "an inspiration" ("he's an amazing drummer - obviously plays with Pearl Jam as well") together with Brad Wilk from Rage Against The Machine ("loved his playing"). "Buddy Rich is probably my favourite drummer," Howard eventually decides. "He's the best jazz drummer of all time, but when he was alive and playing it was just ridiculous what he did, you know: he did all these drum battles and stuff with other people and just kind of cleaned the floor with 'em. And he did the whole thing wearing, like, a massive, woollen, polo neck jumper and a suit jacket at the same time [laughs]. Dripping with sweat, but still just being the best, yeah! It was very impressive."

Although Howard is a left-handed drummer, he first started playing drums on a right-handed kit. "I was playing a bit kind of backwards, you know, open handed… it's all a bit weird," he admits of bashing a right-handed kit. "I mean, you can certainly do it, but it was a bit odd. And then I had, like, drum lessons for about a week or something - when I was at school - and the guy was like, 'No, you've gotta change it all around'." But having to customise right-handed kits to accommodate his needs did work to Howard's advantage in some situations, he tells. "What it was good for was when we were first startin' out in the band, we'd do all these shows in small clubs and stuff like that, and you always had to, like, share a drum kit with whoever the headline band was. And that person never wanted you to touch their kit, 'cause they were so proud and precious of their lovely drum kit and don't want you messin' around with it," he laughs. And I'm like, 'Well I'm left-handed, mate, so I've gotta, like, completely take it to bits and rebuild it the other way 'round,' and they're like, 'Oh, no way! You can just use your own drum kit'. So it was a good way of actually being able to use my own drum kit for those early gigs." 

Howard is in Chicago at the time of our chat, preparing for Muse's headline set at Lollapalooza the following evening, and illuminates, "The show that you're gonna see in Australia - most likely it's gonna be what we're doing right now around America… It's always kind of huge, like, monolithic. You know, projection screens that are constantly moving around the stage; it's always, like, morphing and changing shape - pretty much every song and within the song - so it's, yeah! It looks pretty awesome."   

Given that Halloween isn't far off, we're hoping Howard can fill us in on what Muse plan to do to mark the occasion this year after they all dressed up in black leather gear to cover New Kind Of Kick by The Cramps last year (definitely worth Googling). "I wonder what we're gonna do for Halloween," the drummer muses, "'cause we did that for a special last year, so we need to see whether we can pull it together to do another one this year… We haven't done a gig on Halloween for a while and I'm a fan of, you know, dressin' up for a gig, for sure. So, yeah! I dunno. We should probably try and book one in or we'll do another song or we'll do something."      

Muse dropped a new single, Dig Down, back in May and one can only imagine just how much this song's warped-synth bassline vibrates up through the venue's floorboards/seats when performed live. "There's a lot of sub when we play it live," Howard attests. "So there's a lot of kind of, you know, trouser wafting going on [laughs]."

On whether Muse have written any more new songs since Dig Down, Howard reveals, "We're workin' on ideas at the moment, actually, and we haven't recorded anything else yet. But we're gonna hopefully start recording soon and certainly towards the end of this year before we come to Australia, for sure, so, yeah! There's a few other kinda early ideas at the moment, so we just need to kind of get together and flesh out the ideas and see what they are, but, you know, the ball's rolling as far as, like, getting more tracks together and releasing an album and, yeah! Whether we release another single - I'm sure we actually will, I dunno exactly when it's gonna be yet; it just needs to feel right, it needs to feel like the right song and the right time, I s'pose, as to when we do it. But I imagine something'll come out - whether it's this year or next year, I'm not totally sure yet. But the plan is we're working towards building an album together and I s'pose, you know, we were initially thinking about kind of releasing some songs - like, as and when they're done - to almost kind of like show the process of the album coming together. 'Cause it's nice when you finish a song - if you're really pleased with it - to kind of let it out and let people hear it, you know. 'Cause sitting on finished recordings for a long time is painful, 'cause you just wanna show people, I s'pose. So we'll see, if we get more songs finished I reckon we might put a few out, but eventually there's gonna be an album, definitely."

We discuss how what fans consider new material may not necessarily feel new to the band if they've been working on a song for months (or even years), and Howard admits, "That's happened before; that's kind of why we made the decision - many years ago - to kind of not really create or record much music while we're touring. Because we used to play new songs on the road, but by the time we ended up coming around to the album, that new song felt like an old song even though it's, you know, unreleased and new [to fans]. And I think, in the past, there's been a few songs that didn't make albums, because even though they were actually, like, probably pretty good - and could've been better if we'd spent more time on [them] - they get shunned away because they're a bit too old. So, yeah! There's something quite refreshing - to be able to record a song, finish it and then release it very, very quickly after it's done. So that's what we did with Dig Down, anyway, and it was cool to do that so I imagine that we'll do that again in the future."  

When asked whether Muse have performed in any countries for the first time on this tour, Howard shares, "Well, for the first time we actually went to China, last year, and Thailand, actually… on this last tour, which is great! Because it's amazing to kind of - we've been around to many places around the world, so it's always real nice to go to a country you've never been to and, like, play to some people that you're pretty sure have never seen you before. So, yeah, we did a coupla gigs in China and that was great, really cool, and, yeah! First time playing in Thailand as well, strangely - also amazing so, yeah! It's great. I mean, there's still plenty of places we haven't been to." We're curious to find out whether the band had to submit their setlists for pre-approval in accordance with China's censorship laws. "Um, I mean," Howard hesitates. "Yeah, it's a different place," he laughs uncomfortably. So did they have to make any changes? "No, it's fine, yeah." It's fine? "That's right."