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Dom From Muse Discusses New Music And What To Expect On The Band's Next Tour

May 28, 2018

Before their headlining set at day 1 of Bottlerock Napa, Muse drummer Dom Howard joined Dallas to talk about the band's upcoming album, tour plans, and more.

Q: You've been posting a lot of pictures from the studio recently. I saw you were playing some tribal drums a few days ago.

Dom: Oh, yeah, in the last few days we just recorded another new song. It's going to be on our album, which is coming out at some point. We've been working on tracks this past year. Like chipping away at new songs & ideas between these summer shows. Last week we made a new one that sounded great. It's kind of this tribal, well, different types of percussion - some really cool African percussion, some Japanese percussion, a big tyco drum & we're going to build up this big, tribal influence, or groove of some kind. It's almost a bit like hip-hoppy, as well. It sounds awesome. It's got a big guitar riff on it & we just got to finish that as of last night.

Q: Thank you for coming out here out of the studio so quick. Obviously with "Thought Contagion" & lots of your songs there's political undertones. Will there be any sort of political theme to the upcoming record?

Dom: We're still figuring that out, I mean, a little bit. There's definitely some themes of simulated universes, like what's really real? Is this universe real? Are there multiple universes? Like, what's actually real in our lives & playing with some of those ideas, but we're still working on the themes. We don't really want to go into that too much yet.

Q: There's plenty to be uncovered still, I'm sure. With your live shows there's always something new & dramatic & big - for those who didn't get to see the 'Drones' tour it was huge & it's coming to theaters.

Dom: That's true. It took a while to get that finished. We're excited about it. For those that didn't see it - it was an epic tour that we did & you know from a production point of view it was something that we'd never done before. We were in the middle of the arena with people all around us & drones flying around the arena as well. It was really epic, but quite challenging to put on. So, this summer you can now see it in theaters.

Q: Matt recently mentioned that for the next Muse tour you're hoping to 'reinvent the wheel' of what a live concert is. Where do you look for inspiration when it comes to what you're going to do live?

Dom: Well, I don't really want to tell you much about the ideas yet, much like the album. Cause it's still a work in progress. We never really want to open about what's all going on until it's finished. We get quite protective of the little baby we're nurturing & we'll release it once it's ready. For the live thing we get inspired by great shows. Not just go on stage and play the music. We've always had this kind of need & want to put on a big show, something's that a spectacle. Yeah, we've got some ideas for the new tour that we're going to do next year. Things that no one's ever done before. Not on this scale. Hopefully we'll announce it soon. At the same time we're going to work with technology that's untested and it's brand new & we're still working out if it's actually going to work. It's going to be great & epic. That's vague & ambiguous what I just said.

Video of MUSE - Thought Contagion [Official Music Video>

Q: Things that no one's ever seen before.

Dom: Yeah, we're not just going to go out and put some visuals on a screen. We're going to do something different unlike what's been seen before.

Q: Keep us guessing when it comes to the live show & we can't wait for the album.

Dom: We've got quite a bit of it together. It's almost finished. The album's almost finished. That's a fact. We've got a couple of bits to do, but we're getting close.