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MUSE: Bassist Chris Wolstenholme | Progressive Rock Update With Brad Houser
Meet Brad Houser –
MUSE. The biggest band that many Americans have never heard of. England and Europe certainly know these gents quite well. Just check out their tour schedule… including nine stadium dates here in the US in the fall of 09.
MUSE is a riotous mix of many, many influences, thoroughly postmodern and completely up to date. U2 meets Radiohead. Living Colour hanging out with Beethoven. Bach meets Metallica with Yes mediating…………. etc.
For this column I went to Waterloo Records in Austin and bought MUSE’s “HAARP” live CD and DVD set. The video and audio is from two shows at Wembley Arena, London, June 16-17 2007.Packed. Sold out. The entire crowd knows all the lyrics to all the songs. This band is well-loved and then some.
MUSE, comprised of Chris Wolstenholme on bass, Dominic Howard on drums, and Matthew Bellamy on vox, guitar, and piano, formed in 1994 in Teignmouth, Devon, UK. They have four studio albums to date, with a fifth, “The Resistance” due Sept. 14, 09.
Interestingly, Celine Dion had to back down when she planned to name her Las Vegas show “Muse”, because the band owns worldwide performing rights to the name. She offered $50,000 for the rights, but the band refused, with singer Bellamy stating that “we don’t want to turn up there with people thinking we were Celine Dion’s backing band.”
MUSE could certainly play well in Vegas. Their stage setup is epic in proportion, and totally sci-fi. There are four large satellite dishes flanking the stage, with other square antenna arrays spread across the actual stage. This undoubtedly references “HAARP”, the antenna array in Alaska, sponsored by the US Air Force, Navy, and the University of Alaska. HAARP, or “High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program”, has generated much controversy worldwide…….. Much! I leave it to the reader to do further research. HAARP is like science fiction brought to life………… Further enhancing the MUSE stage set is a giant LED video screen across the entire back of the stage, and a small city’s worth of stage lighting. All this is used to great dramatic effect throughout the show.
On the video, the camera work is crystal clear, although the editing is a little too quick cut/ ADD for my tastes, but, whatever. The audio is well mixed and the band performance is spot-on. These men play extremely well together.
On bass, Chris Wolstenholme is solid and inventive. Frequently rocking on an array of jazz basses, with a Rickenbacker for good measure, Wolstenholme often uses distortion, effectively thickening the group sound. At other times he employs an SVT type steely grind, yet at other times using a very brown, warm tone. This man knows how to serve the song. His chameleonic sound and style serve as a solid backbone for MUSE, and he intelligently employs his substantial bass chops when necessary. Part Steve Harris, part Flea, part Chris Squire, with a little Muzz Skillings and Geezer Butler thrown in for good measure. I doubt that Wolstenholme is thinking of any of this while playing. His work on the intro to “Newborn” is an excellent Bach-type workout, sounding like the left hand of a two-part invention. Well done.
Soaring above Wolstenholme’s solidity is the star of the show, Matthew Bellamy. Sounding often like a Bono/ Thom Yorke hybrid, Bellamy delivers an impassioned performance with complete abandon. This gentleman loses himself in the music 100%.
As a guitarist, he has it all, with Tom Morello, Van Halen, and Jimi Hendrix coming to mind. He also is an accomplished classical pianist, using a grand piano outfitted with a clear lid to great effect. Bravo! Also of interest is his Korg KAOSS pad equipped guitar. Bellamy uses it for the occasional ray gun blast during solos……….I want one! Genius.
Drummer Dominic Howard keeps things simple and solid on his end. Show your Gospel Chops -obsessed drummer friend some footage of Mr. Howard for a quick lesson in minimalism and How To Serve The Song. Perfect.
The sci-fi theme/ mad mix of elements continues throughout the show. Track 2, “Knights of Cydonia” sounds like Iron Maiden playing the theme from Star Trek. It seems as if MUSE is at the lighter end of a continuum that has The Mars Volta at the darker end.
Both bands have that interesting combination of science fiction and……. outrage. Much of MUSE’s subject matter is non-specifically political…………”empowerment rock”, as I like to think of it. I am reminded of U2, also. MUSE has a similar feeling of triumph in their music and performance.
On YouTube there are a few excerpts of these over-the-top Wembley shows. Check these gents out, and witness the power of the Epic.
Thank you for supporting Bass Musician Magazine and this column… BH
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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