Muse: There’s gonna be a big shift. We’re dealing with a disruptive transition – NME

Forget the Great Reset: thats just the babbling of the red-pilled Russian bots. No, according to rocks most prescient oracle of apocalypse, you need to be prepping for the Great Transition.

Transition thats the word Id use now. As the morning staff of The Ivy restaurant in central London scuttle around, wondering if their dress code includes sci-fi bomber jackets, Matt Bellamy, at a corner table, accelerates to verbal light speed as he rockets past climate disasters, energy crises, social disorder and economic collapse, and reaches the crux of humanitys existential dilemma.

End is coming, says Muses motormouth of truth, more philosophical at 43 than the yowling young doom-monger of the 00s. The end of what, though? Its not the end of humans. Its definitely not the end of the world. Its definitely not the end of evolution. In reality, if were honest about it, its not even the end of humanity, right? But its the end of something. Its the end of a certain cycle of civilisation

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Thoughts bubble and burble from the depths of the Muse mainframe; incisive and insightful ideas and observations on our fast-corroding planet. Over a mind-expanding hour, Matt delivers an advanced, updated take on the sci-fi meta-politics that the Devon-formed band have been making rock-like earthbound meteorites of since 1998. These are the sort of concerns that Matt largely put aside for 2018s 80s themed metaverse fantasy album Simulation Theory, but has returned to with a screeching tech-metal passion on forthcoming ninth album Will Of The People written and part-recorded remotely during the pandemic (until Matt, drummer Dom Howard and bassist Chris Wolstenholme could get together at Abbey Road to finish it) and saturated with its horrors.

Here rising populism, political manipulation, the Capitol insurrection, domestic violence, COVID, online thought control and climate disaster come across the Bellamy pulpit over 10 tracks, concluding with the unflinching assessment that We Are Fucking Fucked. Thematically we went into fantasy Metaverse fictional world a little bit on the last album, Matt says later, which I like, and I think well go back there again in the future and go even weirder, just become a bunch of avatars and download ourselves into the metaverse. But the idea was: the next one, lets make it a bit more about whats actually happening in the world right now. That was the end of 2019 [when] we made that decision. What I didnt know was what was about to happen.

The idea for this album was: Lets make it about whats actually happening in the world right now

Well come to all that. For now, Matts train of thought is still hurtling headlong towards the end of civilisations tracks.

If you look through history, its just cycles that come and go, he says, diving deep into a state-of-the-globe address with the merest provocation. Some people call them debt cycles; it relates to credit and money and how banking systems work. Cycles can last a few hundred years or they can last a few decades. Essentially its coming to a pinch point where theres going to be a disruption. Everyones doing everything they can to pretend thats not going to happen or to try and maintain the status quo [but] the longer they hold on to this, the worse its going to be when it happens. If we can just make the transition a little bit more gradual, it might happen a bit less violently.

But its gonna be a big, big shift. Youre talking about an economic collapse, shift and reinvention, total energy transition. Thats really what were dealing with here: a disruptive transition.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Matt already sees potential triggers for major upheaval everywhere. Referring to the storming of Washingtons Capitol Building last year, he says: You have the January 6 situation in the United States and everyone for a minute there was like, That could have been it. That could have been the trigger: civil war and boom! Were off. A tipping point. Then theres a little moment where Biden comes in and everyone goes, Ah, OK, lets all pretend its normal again, but its not is it? Then some psychopath comes along like Putin and authoritarianism starts to threaten everything that the West has stood for. Its starting to get prodded. The system that were used to is now getting openly, violently prodded in our face.

Theres a line in the new albums glam metal title track that sums up Matts mindset: We need a revolution so long as we stay free. In the video, too, a group of masked post-apocalyptic insurrectionists pull down the statues of the evil old world order (played by Muse), only to remove their masks and reveal themselves as identical to the regime theyve overthrown. Its a worrying time because there is a chance here, Matt argues. Theres a window for a lovely new kind of political model or socio-economic structure that could be really good. A good change is possible, but the problem is you have these authoritarians that are realising that they can capitalise on disruption.

No prizes for guessing who he means. [Trump] represents the worst of the worst. It felt like living in another reality when we saw that stuff play out there. How can one of the richest, blatantly greedy people somehow convince the poorest people in the country to vote for them? It just doesnt make sense.

Matt Bellamy of Muse on the cover of NME

And on a bigger level what he did was destroy the country by creating massive division. By any measure, a great leader is somebody who can unify their own people against external threats, and hes done the exact opposite of that. He made them all turn against each other, and thats what actually caused the whole of the West to become vulnerable enough where Putin can do what hes doing now Its his complete lack of knowledge about the forces that unify the West like NATO and liberal democracy that has caused this chaos.

Is Bellamy saying Putin was the shadowy puppet master pulling the strings all along? Id say its more a case of Putin [thinking], Lets encourage the chaos the division, he explains. And the more he could create this dismantling of the West, the more likely he was to be able to get away with what hes been wanting to do for a long time, which is reclaim the old Soviet states.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

As climate emergency hurtles on and our leaders hide their heads in the sand (or wherever all the fossil fuel backhanders are), Bellamy has been embedded in his rightful place at the frontline of catastrophe, the very edge of chaos Los Angeles relishing the scorch of societys ash on his cheek.

Passing National Guard military trucks en route to the birth of his second child Lovella, and watching Black Lives Matter protests throng the streets of LA from the hospital window, he did wonder what is this world shes coming into?. But with Muse on a pre-scheduled break for 2020 in the wake of the Simulation Theory tour (which featured an army of abseiling cyborg dancers and a giant inflatable alien called Murph, and grossed $102 million), nurturing his new daughter through lockdown helped him come to feel comfortable, finally, in his adopted home city. Even as the wildfires licked at his windows.

One of the strange things about living in California, he says of the regular calls he gets from authorities to evacuate his family each summer, is you are on the edge of natural disaster, so you get used to it. Twice weve fully believed [the house is] gone, but then come back and discovered that only the garden burned down and it stopped just before the house. Its always in the middle of night as well. I remember it going, Get out theres a fire nearby, you must evacuate its an automated message that just repeats itself. I open up the window and look out and its raining ash. I thought it was snowing.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Being in a risky place encourages people to take risks. California is full of dreamers and risk-takers and entrepreneurial people who are just willing to risk everything for some crazy idea. Everyone you meet is starting some Metaverse avatar company or some crazy energy solution. Theres something about that that really suits me.

Bellamy certainly isnt taking the collapse of society lying down; hes going out fighting, Blofeld style. Hes invested in a company planning to use technology under development by MIT scientists to solve the energy crisis (a major Muse concern since 2012 album The 2nd Law) by, um, firing lasers towards the centre of the earth.

It vaporises rock and it can go all the way through, Matt says, explaining the process: essentially shooting microwave millimetre beams 20km through the earths crust, followed by water, to create geothermal energy. Geothermal is basically free, non-dangerous energy. Its heat from the Earths core burning water into steam and turning turbines. Theres no carbon emissions or anything.

[Trump] represents the worst of the worst. It felt like living in another reality when we saw that stuff play out

When NME notes that weve seen this movie and the planet blows up, Bellamy laughs: Haha! You can essentially move this device and create geothermal energy anywhere you want. An existing coal factory or something, get rid of all the coal and just dig a hole directly down. Theyve already got the infrastructure in place to create the energy just from a different source. It would literally solve the worlds energy problem.

Climate change averted, we order more orange juice and set about revolutionising politics. Strap in.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

There now follows a party political broadcast by the Cydonian Meta-Centrist Uprising Party. We want a new type of revolution, Matt argues, lacking only a lectern to thump. I think everyone knows we want a revolution, but we definitely dont want a bunch of authoritarian lunatics from the right. Thats the last thing we want.

And also we dont want a total communist situation on the hard left either. I think what we want is something completely new. I dont think it exists out there at the moment, but I think theres a new type of politics that could emerge. I would call it Meta-Centrism. Its an oscillation between liberal, libertarian values for individuals your social life, the ability to be whatever gender you are, all that kind of stuff but then more socialist on things like land ownership, nature and energy distribution. Its oscillation between the two poles.

I think theres a way of doing that but theres no language that enables people to think that way. Youre either hard left or youre hard right Im not with any of these; I feel like theres a third way. Theres no existing side that describes what Im looking for yetIm fundamentally anti-authoritarian thats just my nature; I was born that way. So if I see certain things, on either side, that [make you think], Dont start telling me to do that or live like that, it doesnt matter where its coming from: I will probably resist it.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Its a topic tackled on new futuristic synthpop track Compliance, which confronts the modern with-us-or-against-us, thought-police mentality of any group that has built itself around a set of weird, irrational beliefs. He cites gang culture, the real authoritarianism of the US Republican Party and the hard left as examples. Both sides have gone so far away from each other now that theyre both coming up with their own weird, You cant think this, you cant say this, you cant do that and after a while that becomes exhausting for people.

Compliance is the sort of future-pop freedom fighting that Muse have been doing for decades, but by featuring lines like fall into line, you will do as youre told, no more defiance, just give us your compliance and fear is controlling you, it sometimes sounds alarmingly like something Ian Brown or one of his fellow anti-vaxx disinformation rockers might come up with today, featuring Laurence Fox, Toby Young and Piers Corbyn as the Fart In Your Trousers Choir. Its an unfortunate coincidence, says a fully-vaxxed, mask-friendly Bellamy. I could have written that song in 2008 or 2005.

Being in a risky place encourages people to take risks. California is full of dreamers and risk-takers

In fact, as a figure who famously went down many a conspiracist rabbit hole in the early days of the internet the first wave of online truthers, as he puts it but emerged 10 years later with a far more balanced view of the world and its media, Matt has found it unsettling watching conspiracist ideas become so widespread during the pandemic.

People [in the 80s and 90s] felt like the mainstream media was just a big business that was in cahoots with the establishment, he recalls, so when the internet started to emerge the thirst for people saying what maybe the truth is was really strong By the time we got to the early 2010s, I came full circle. The lack of accountability [online] became obvious to me. It made me realise, OK, this is just some people who can say whatever the fuck they want. This is bullshit. Its not freedom of speech; its freedom to manipulate. Its freedom to lie anonymously. The ridiculous irony is, all these people think theyre so anti- this, anti- that, but all youre doing is making [Mark] Zuckerberg rich.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

As a band built on rousing revolutionary rhetoric and the pulling back of dark political curtains, Muse find themselves in a minefield of their own making in 2022. Compliance isnt the only song on Will Of The People with the potential to be misread in the current climate. True: the title track is clear enough, its rallying talk of jailing judges, smashing institutions and throwing the democratic baby out with the Senate bathwater obviously mocking the intentions and consequences of the Capitol rioters. Or, as Matt sneers: With every second our anger increases / Were gonna smash a nation to pieces.

Its like a populist parody, almost the antithesis to [monolithic 2009 track] Uprising, Matt says. Whereas Uprising was almost populist but taking it seriously, Will Of The People is almost, Do we know that were stupid now? Do we know how silly this sounds and looks? Inside of me, theres always been this little bit of a conflict between the desire for direct democracy and a bit more actual power to the people, but then at the same time realising that sometimes the people can be mad Because theyve had no voice for so long, [populism] ends up becoming distorted and strange and spiting everything. People end up spiting things just because they dont have any fucking say.

Piano ballad-turned-Queen rocker Liberation, though, is rather thornier. Language such as you make us feel silenced / You stole the airwaves but the air belongs to us / And violence youll make us turn to violence We have plans to take you down / We intend to erase your place in history could easily fit into a song called Stop The Steal catering to disgruntled Trump supporters. Matts a little horrified at the suggestion.

All this arguing on Twitter in 50 years, people will go, What the hell were they talking about?

Its the complete opposite of that, he insists. If anything that was more leaning towards what I felt seeing the Black Lives Matter protests. Im not gonna try to claim to have any understanding of what that cultures been through or anything, but intend to erase your place in history was that feeling of anger that emotion that you feel in the moment of revolution, where you just want to tear it down and destroy this, even to the extent of changing history itself people pulling statues down. And you stole the airwaves but the air belongs to us if anything that was a reference to what we were living through, waking up to a mental tweet every day that hijack of public discourse by one person.

Elsewhere the album delves into the more human side of the pandemic experience, with the elegiac piano glower Ghosts (How Can I Move On) empathising with those who lost loved ones and the spooktronic You Make Me Feel Like Its Halloween with victims of lockdown domestic violence. But the record inevitably circles back round to the approaching cataclysm. Were at deaths door, another world war, wildfires and earthquakes I foresaw / A life in crisis, a deadly virus, tsunamis of hate are gonna drown us, Matt intones on his latest and most desperate anthem of the apocalypse, We Are Fucking Fucked. The song advises listeners to stockpile.

Were living in a time where its really important to be able to sustain yourself through things like lengthy power cuts, cyberattacks, food supply crises, energy crisis, he says. These things are going to start playing out now. But then at the same time, we dont want to lose sight of the things that hold us together, the social connections that we have.

He leans back, as if to give himself the broadest picture possible, or to catch a metaphorical ash-flake on his tongue. All this arguing on Twitter about who said what and how they said it Im certain that 50 years from now people will look back at this point in history and go, What the hell were they talking about? How come they couldnt see the bus that was about to hit them?.

Muses Will Of The People is due for release on August 26 via Warner Records and is available to pre-order now

CREDITS

Styling by Cristina Acevedo

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Muse: There's gonna be a big shift. We're dealing with a disruptive transition - NME