The mood now is grim

Matthew bellamy
From his furious solos and heavy riffs to his exhilarating stage performances and super guitars, 10 reasons why the Muse frontman is the epitome of this decade of guitar music.

10. Thanks to him, the classics became cool again.

Get Zach Wilde together with a chamber orchestra, and he'll most likely eat the conductor for breakfast and pick his teeth with his stick. Matt Bellamy is another matter: he takes inspiration from this musty world of starched wigs and harpsichords and integrates his coolest ideas into his pattern-breaking guitar solos and riffs. While you're chopping to the wild intro to Plug in Baby, you're actually listening to a modified Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Bach'n'roll, baby ...

9. His performances on stage are complete insanity.

Of course, all of Muse's decorating artists should be given credit, but even all the satellite dishes and acrobats in the world can't compare to one little Devon guy losing himself in music. Bellamy will give you no yelling or friendly jokes; instead, he manipulates with extravagant virtuosity, rapes his Manson in every possible way, wriggles like an electric eel, using all his neurasthenic energies to create the greatest show on Earth (or any other planet).

8. He saved us from new metal.

Dumb-headed rap to lame-sounding panting was the sound of the new millennium until Matt Bellamy came along with Showbiz, lighting the uneducated rock scene with searing jet solos and reminding a generation that life shouldn't end with a seventh chord. If it weren't for the killer guitar parts in early songs like Sunburn and the Muscle Museum, this magazine would have had to write about mindless dumbheads mumbling about how to "play to song." Nobody needs it.

7. He has a "super guitar".

In fact, Matt has several super guitars, all made by British master Hugo Manson, and all special in that they contain a lot more built-in hardware than the technology it took to send the first man to the moon. Matt's guitars, including his famous "retired" Delorean or Silver Manson, are packed with a variety of pickups, amplifiers and X-Y controlled KAOSS tablets. Thanks to this, he can control all the effects with his fingertips. This is genius.

6. He created the most eccentric debut album in history.

Muse released their first album in 1999, the same year as Britney Spears' debut single Baby One More Time and tons of other stuff. The guitar music was insipid, so Bellamy sounded like a breath of fresh air to sound like Bellamy pounding guitar strings. Regardless of claims that Muse are just Radiohead plagiarists, Matt performed heroically with songs like the Muscle Museum, and in the end, proved that something special had emerged in the world of music.

5. He destroys stereotypes.

At least on paper, the combination of progressive rock, classical, electronica and pop shouldn't work ... it should have been something like Genesis played in the horrible style of classic-obsessed 80s albums. Matt made it work properly. Not many musicians can switch so easily from a beautiful Denny Elfman-style piano playing to downright devilishly heavy guitar riffs, as Bellamy does. Listen to New Born to be convinced of the existence of a human genius.

4. His solos are works of art.

Matt's solos are built as beautifully as his guitars. His tensely quivering passages, ragged strings and always inventive overlay effects - all this is a masterclass of expressive guitar technique. He has an amazing vibrato that makes all of his solos incredibly spontaneous, even if they are carefully thought out. Check out Knights of Cydonia: Live at Wembley Stadium 2007 to see it with your own eyes.

3. He has unmatched creativity.

Matt Bellamy has a number of serious abilities. In addition to his unique style of playing the guitar, the boy chops the piano and has a vocal range of three octaves (as evidenced by the amazing performance of Plug in Baby and other colossal Muse songs). If this isn't enough for you, then you might be interested to know that Matt is the lyricist and composer of all Muse songs, including classics such as Supermassive Black Hole, Stockholm Syndrome and Knights of Cydonia. Yes, we are jealous too.

2. He wrote the best riff of the decade.

Looking at the bare numbers offered by music shows and shops, the riff from Plug in Baby is our generation's Sweet Child O'Mine or Stairway to Heaven. Like its famous predecessors, Plug in Baby confuses guitarists and makes them powerless in the face of their exceptional skill. This is one of those few riffs that always sound new and unique, and absolutely everyone wants to learn how to play the guitar.

1. He is the Hendrix of our generation.

You always run the risk of getting screwed up when you compare someone to Jimi Hendrix, but we assure you, you can be completely calm when it comes to Matt Bellamy.
Matt uses effects and feedback like musical instruments, interspersing solos with outlandish pop sound and harsh squeals. Just like Jimmy.
In Matt's hands, the guitar is more than just an instrument, it becomes an extension of his body and his voice. Just like Jimmy's.
He is also a rare combination of a guitar virtuoso and a talented composer, capable of writing great songs that will stand the test of time.
Again, just like Jimmy.

Person

His father was directly related to music (the only parent of all three members of Muse) - George Bellamy played guitar with several groups, one of them being the very successful The Tornados. Matt's mom was weird, and often coming home from school, he heard her talking to the dead, and without using any kind of spiritualistic devices. He has an older half-sister (father's daughter from a previous marriage) and a brother.
In 1990, the family of musician Chris Wolstenholme, Matthew Bellamy and Dominic Howard moved to the seaside town of Tainmouth, Devon, UK. Exhausting heat in summer, fierce cold in winter - something that all residents had difficulty getting used to. “If you are between 13 and 18, this place seems like a living hell. All we did was smoke and listen to music. We had nothing else to do there, "recalls Matthew. The family was wealthy, and Matt had everything he wanted. But after a few years, his parents divorce, and everything changes in his life. Now he lives with his grandmother, and it was at this time that he seriously began to study music. This becomes a necessity for him.
To get into Dominic Howard's popular local band Gothic Plague, Matthew begins to learn to play the guitar. When Gothic Plague frees up a guitarist position, Matthew never misses the chance to take advantage of it. Over the next couple of years, the composition of the group changes all the time, some leave, others come. Matt will then say with a laugh: "Everyone else fled, unable to bear my company ..."
It was at that time that Matthew began to seriously write his own songs, which so far were not needed by anyone, and so far did not delight the listeners at all, which did not frighten the authors. As bassist of Muse, Chris later recalls: “On the contrary, we became more and more inclined to keep writing and playing our own songs. At first we played in empty clubs, but we promised ourselves that we would never play cover versions again. and we kept our word. "
After leaving school, Matt goes on a trip to Europe. He visits Italy, as well as Spain, where he meets a Spanish guitarist, from whom he manages to learn how to play the Spanish guitar in the flamenco style, and indeed wisdom in general. He also spends some time in Greece. During the trip, he said, very serious things happen to him: love stories, for example. And it is in Greece that that very song is born, called "Muscle Museum", a strange combination of words found by Matt in a pocket dictionary next to the name of his band.
At the beginning of the year, Matt works as an artist and graphic designer. He still plays in his spare time with the guys who also found something to do: Chris is an assistant in a guitar shop, and Dominic is content with casual extras. At one of the most ordinary concerts in the summer of 1997, a representative of the label Dangerous Records met with the group and invited them to record in the studio. This marked the beginning of Muse's fame as a band and Bellamy himself as one of the world's greatest living performers.

Concert performances

Bellamy is known for concert performances. He accompanies the performance of most of his songs with active stage improvisations. For example, when playing Plug In Baby, he sometimes jumps and turns on stage, playing out the most difficult riffs. His performances often include this hopping whirling and pushing the guitar between his legs. Songs such as Knights of Cydonia and Stockholm Syndrome are known as his favorite live performances. Bellamy is often hailed, including by the NME, as one of the greatest live performers to date (source?). Muse's most famous live performances include the Reading Festival in 2002 and 2006, the 2002 Paris concert "Live at la Zenith", which formed the basis for Hullabaloo's first DVD, the Glastonbury Festival in 2004, which featured the band as headliner. and performances on 16 and 17 June 2007 at the opening of Wembley Stadium in London.

Musical equipment

Bellamy uses custom guitars made by Hugh Manson in Exeter, Devon. Matt currently owns 11 Mansons, as well as many guitars from other manufacturers: Fender Aloha Stratocaster (one of Matt's most beloved and expensive guitars), Gibson Les Paul DC Lite, Gibson SG, Jackson Randy Rhoads (custom) a Parker Fly, Peavey EVH Wolfgang and Yamaha Pacifica.
The Yamaha Pacifica 120 SC has long been Matt's primary tool. An almost irreplaceable guitar of the early period. Bellamy equipped it with two DiMarzio humbuckers and equipped with a Roland GK-2a sound pickup system, specifically for use with the Roland VG-8 guitar processor. Peavey Wolfgang EVH and a strange orange guitar - EMEX Londaxe, known from the Uno video, were often used at concerts of that time.
The Gibson Les Paul DC Lite is the main guitar of the 2000 tours. Like most stage guitars, it was used with the Roland VG-8 processor. Matt broke it at the Dublin Olympia on Marshall 4 x 12 cabinet.
Matt:

The Fender Aloha Stratocaster belongs to a limited edition of 153 Fender guitars. Guitar Matt 74th. It was released in 1995, the deck is covered with aluminum. This guitar model is dedicated to Freddy Tavares (1913-1990). He is a Ukulele guitarist who was instrumental in the design of the Fender Stratocaster.
The shape of the famous Manson guitar can be considered a hybrid of Yamaha Pacifica, Fender Telecaster, Schecter and Godin Triumph. This form was called "Mattocaster": the same as the serial Fender guitars are called.
The first and most famous is the silver Manson. Bellamy figured out how to improve her basic characteristics, and Hugh Manson helped him implement it. The soundboard is made of poplar and covered with aluminum, the neck is maple, the fingerboard is rosewood. The guitar has a built-in Z.Vex Fuzz Factory, which gives Bellamy a unique sound and the ability to use controlled feedback. It also has an MXR Phase 90 phaser, a Roland GK-2a midi pickup (polyphonic) and Seymour Duncan and Kent Armstrong pickups. All of his other "Mansons" are kept in a similar design (except for the seven-string guitar, originally not provided for Matt), with only slight differences in pickups and gadgets. Only the built-in Z.Vex Fuzz Factory and MXR Phase 90 remain permanent.
Matt's black "Manson" has a MIDI strip (touch pad) that controls an external Digitech Whammy WH4 pedal via a hardware MIDI interface. The neck is equipped with blue spectrum LEDs from Sims Custom L.E.Ds. The main feature of the Black Manson is the built-in Z.Vex Wah Probe pedal. This is a standard Wah effect controlled by a shiny copper plate screwed onto the front of the guitar. The principle of operation is the same as that of the theremin. This plate acts as an antenna around which a ball of radio frequency energy is formed. The closer your hand gets to the plate, the brighter the Wah effect becomes. The guitar is equipped with three pickups: bridge - Kent Armstrong Motherbucker, neck - Seymour Duncan Hot P90, as well as a Fernandes Sustainer pickup system on the guitar near the neck. It is powered by a switch, which in turn is connected to the Kent Armstrong Motherbucker's bridge humbucker. Above the MIDI touch pad is a switch lever that is soldered to the pickups according to the ON / OFF / ON circuit. This circuit is called the Toggle Kill Switch (in the middle position of the toggle switch, the signal from the working pickup is cut off). Such schemes have long become the unofficial brand of Tom Morello. The switch is found on most Mansons. Matt occasionally uses this switch during Plug In Baby live performances.

Berlin, Admiralspalast. 09/07/09

The Manson Bomber had to be produced on a tight schedule. Initially, the guitar was supposed to be mirrored. Hugh Manson did not have the wood chrome plating technology and turned to Martin Sims. The guitar had to be done very quickly to be on time for the Muse tour. In a hurry, the chrome plating was unsuccessful. Some places on the guitar turned out to be not mirrored, but matte, moreover, there were small spots on the top of the soundboard. Hugh solved the problem by purchasing a box of aluminum rivets from a WWII aircraft from a local scrap yard. The box bore "1945" written on it. Perhaps it was a Spitfire fighter or something like that. Hugh then drilled holes in the deck and inserted rivets into them to make it look like it was made of a sheet of metal. With a spray brush, in the right places, Hugh applied a purplish blue tint to the guitar. Hugh Manson:

It should be noted that this guitar has no built-in effects, there is only control over the external Digitech Whammy WH4 pedal like the Black "Manson" and the whammy presets controller (on the rear panel). Two pickups from Rio Grande: a CrunchBox bridge model, a JazzBar neck model, as well as a Floyd Rose double locking tremolo system and a Toggle kill switch.
For the new album Black Holes and Revelations, he has acquired a new guitar, "Black Kaoss Manson". The guitar features two Hot P-90s on the bridge, a Fernandes Sustainer System on the neck and a Kaoss Pad. Matt also bought an M1D1 Manson, which is similar to the Black Kaoss Manson, but uses a Bare Knuckle Nail Bomb humbucker on the stand and a Fernandes Sustainer System on the neck (FSK-101, which is a variation of the latter). It is also known that he uses a Jackson Randy Rhodes model on stage, and before that he played at Ibanez. Bellamy uses Diezel VH4 amplifiers, which are handcrafted in Germany, along with Marshall Mode Four cabinets, Soldano Cabinets and Line 6 Digital Effects.
Matt:

Most of Bellamy's rack effects are created by Line 6 modules. The effect modules are massive enough to be housed in a rack of one of Diezel's amps. All effects are daisy-chained via a MIDI interface using the Midi Solutions T8 Thru Box and the Rocktron All Access Midi Controller. The latter is also on stage at Bellamy alongside Ernie Ball Vlume / Expression Pedal, Korg Rack Tuner and A / B box selector. His studio effects chain also includes the Nord Modular.
The latest album, Undisclosed Desires, featured a keyboard, also produced by Manson.

Achievements

In 2002, Matthew Bellamy was ranked # 29 on Total Guitar magazine's 100 Best Guitarists in the World, and his Plug In Baby riff was polled at # 14 on the Top 100 Riffs. The same riff was voted among the best riffs ever played by Q-magazine's Rock and Pop anthology. In addition, the riff from Stockholm Syndrome was voted the greatest riff of all time in the Top 100 Riffs of All Time by Australian radio station Triple J, overtaking Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and other equally legendary songs. Plug In Baby also made it to the Top 20.

In April 2005, the magazine "Kerrang!" according to a poll, he ranked Matt 28th in the list of "50 Sexiest People in the World of Rock Music", including as his homegrown guitarist number 1. Fashionable Cosmopolitan also did not stand aside, awarding Matt the title of Sexiest Rocker 2003 and 2004 years. NME magazine has put him on the 14th step of the greatest rock and roll heroes of all time, elevating him above Lennon, Dylan and many other musical idols.

08.07.2018

Matthew James Bellamy
Matthew james bellamy

British musician

Frontman of the group "Muse"

Matthew James Bellamy was born on June 9, 1978 in Cambridge, UK. His father, George Bellamy, was a musician and guitarist for The Tornados. The mother was engaged in housekeeping and possessed spiritual abilities - she communicated with the spirits of the dead without any aids. In 1990, the Bellamy family moved to Teignmouth. Here the young man became interested in music. He began to learn to play the guitar, dreaming of getting into one of the local teenage groups.

After Matthew's parents divorced and he began living with his grandmother, music became his only outlet. After a while, he met his future friends - Matthew began performing in the group of Dominic Howard. At first the musical group was called "Gothic Plague", but later it changed several times, as well as the composition of the group. Then bassist Chris Wolstenholme appeared in the school group, with whom Matthew and Dominic formed the backbone of the whole team.

After graduating from school, Matt left the team for a while and went to travel around Europe. He visited Spain, Italy, Greece. In the last place he wrote the famous composition "Muscle Museum", which later became a real hit. Returning home, Bellamy began to play again with the former team, and in parallel with this he got a job as an artist and designer, but did not stay in the new place for long. A few months later, representatives of the Dangerous Records label drew attention to the young musicians, who were very interested in the work of the Muse group and offered them their first contract.

For several years the group has achieved excellent success. From 1999 to 2012, Muse released six albums and toured the world. In the personal collection of the members of the legendary band, there are two Brit Awards, four MTV Europe Music Awards statuettes, as well as more than thirty different music awards and more than a hundred nominations. Moreover, for their contribution to the development of cultural heritage, all members of the Muse group received honorary doctorates of arts from the University of Plymouth.

Now Matthew Bellamy is a vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist and composer of the band "Muse". For many years, since 1994, he has been the ideological inspirer, leader and frontman of the group. Over the years, magazines called him the sexiest rocker of our time. In addition, in 2009 he ranked among the greatest guitarists in the history of the music industry. In the NME magazine list, Matt was ranked fourteenth in the ranking of the best frontmen of the present and the past.

Matthew has been married since 2011. His wife is actress Kate Hudson. In July of the same year, the couple had a son.

• Matthew James Bellamy was born in 1978 in Cambridge, England.
• His father, George Bellamy, was a former member of The Tornados, which were the first Englishmen to conquer the US Telstar charts; this song later inspired Matt himself to create the composition Knights of Cydonia.
• On the initiative of his father, Matthew learned to play the piano from an early age, and at the age of 14 he took up the guitar. In the 1980s, Bellamy's parents divorced, and he moved in with his grandmother, who helped the aspiring musician a lot with the purchase of equipment and instruments.
• In 1994, in the city of Tainmouth, Devon, Matt together with his comrades formed their first group, calling it Rocket Baby Dolls; soon the guys won the school competition among the groups and decided to take up music professionally. This is how the group was born, later called Muse.
• The biggest problem among the band members was the choice of a style of music that would suit everyone, but the guys could not find such a thing and decided not to limit themselves to the strict framework of one style and play what they just liked. This is how a sound appeared that was evident on all studio albums and that no other band could recreate.
• The Manson Bellamy guitar was specially made for the musician Hugh Manson, and its feature was the built-in Roland VG-8 processor and the Z.Vex Fuzz Factory gadget, which gave the instrument an overdriven sound even on a clean sound.
• Matt Bellamy has won numerous awards for his excellent guitar playing; So, he was awarded 19th place on the list of "50 best guitarists of all time", 29th place in the "100 best guitarists", and the guitar riff from the song Plug In Baby was ranked 13th in the ranking of "100 best riffs of all time". In April 2005, Kerrang! awarded the young rocker 28th place in the list of "50 Sexiest People in Rock Music".
• Matthew Bellamy was engaged for a long time to Italian Gaia Polloni, but a few months before the wedding, scheduled for 2009, the couple made a joint decision to end the relationship. The singer got engaged to Kate Hudson, on July 9, 2011 they had a son.

Matthew Bellamy: quotes

• By the way, I've never done guitar solos. There is something not cool about them.
• The whole drive comes from the monstrous hassle before you go on stage. I'm terribly nervous. It seems to me that when you arrive at a place half an hour before a concert, your nerves turn into adrenaline. I'm nervous all day. And this translates into pure excitement, not self-reproach.
• My biggest fear is being fertilized by an alien and giving birth. It would be terrible to give birth to a freak, so you would have to hide him from everyone and everything, but still raise him as your own.
• Most bands release live albums when they are old and fat. We wanted to excel.
• Don't waste your time, otherwise it will waste you too.
• Paris Hilton was at our concert in Los Angeles. But she left during the song Knights of Cydonia - and this was the first song at the concert. If we pissed off Paris Hilton, then we are doing something worthwhile.
• If you take out the bass, guitar, drums and microphone and just put me on my own singing in an empty room, then I’m like a lonely screaming maniac. You will probably even laugh at me.

Matthew james bellamy
June 9, 1978
Cambridge, England, UK
Twins
1.70 m
blue
ranged from fiery red to white; at the moment - a burning brunette

1) Matthew was ranked 29th in the list of the 100 best guitarists in the world according to the magazine "Total Guitar";
2) the riff from Plug In Baby reached 94th position in the Top 100 Riffs;
3) the same riff was voted among the best riffs ever played by the almanac "Rock and Pop" by "Q-magazine";
4) the riff from Stockholm Syndrome was voted the greatest riff of all time according to Australia's Top 100 Riffs of All Time, overtaking Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and other legends;
5) in 2005 the magazine "Kerrang!" named Matt 28th on the list of "50 Sexiest People in the World of Rock Music";
6) Cosmopolitan named Matt Sexiest Rocker of 2003 and 2004.
7) According to NME magazine, Bellamy ranks 14th as the greatest rock and roll hero of all time, above Lennon, Dylan and many other musical idols.

Passion, hysteria, pain, screaming ... It seems that the work of Matthew Bellamy (leader, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter) is burning him from the inside. His songs are filled with sizzling passion and romantic madness. They can evoke all kinds of feelings, but not indifference. “Time flies, time rushes by, you cannot kill him, you cannot make him not scream” ...

It is not surprising that the leader himself is an eccentric nature with a mobile psyche. He admitted that at one time he even suffered from hallucinations: the musician fancied that the blades were piercing his head. Also, Bellamy used to destroy the equipment during his performances because he didn't like the way she brought her music to the audience. And once, at a concert in America, he managed to break his lip on a guitar. Matt gushed out blood and was immediately rushed to the hospital where several stitches were applied.

But after all, only one who is not afraid to destroy stereotypes and spits on the opinion of the average person can be a real creative person. Only such a person will be able to create something new, talented and beautiful.

Matt's piercing vocals are integral to the sound. This falsetto is one of the main distinguishing features of the group. In an interview, Bellamy's partner, drummer Dominic Howard, mentioned that Matt has unusually small vocal cords, which determines his ability to sing in a high range.

His singing style has been compared to Freddie Mercury from Radiohead, Thom Yorke from Radiohead, Axl Rose from Guns N 'Roses, Jimmy Gnecco from Ours, Emilé Wordsworth, Bono, and mainly Jeff Buckley, who, according to Bellamy himself, had the greatest influence on his work.

Bellamy's piano style is inspired by the works of romantic pianists such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, resulting in the fusion of classical romanticism and rock music that characterizes many of Muse's songs. In particular, the compositions "Space Dementia", "Megalomania", "Ruled by Secrecy" contain elements of the first section of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, and "Butterflies and Hurricanes" - the cadence of the third section.

Bellamy often uses long romantic piano solos in his live performances. It is worth remembering his Prelude in C sharp minor, which opens Screenager on the live part of the Hullabaloo collection.

The album Black Holes And Revelations refers us to the Russian romantic composer P.I.Tchaikovsky. In the song Hoodoo, towards the end, you can hear the opening chords of his Piano Concerto No. 1, played in minor key, before the other parts enter.

Some of the peculiarities of his guitar playing Bellamy explains the influence of Jimi Hendrix and Tom Morello from. Obvious borrowing from the latter is present on the second album Origin of Symmetry in most of Muse's riff-based songs, and is reflected in Bellamy's extensive use of pitch-shifting effects in his solo, such as in the case of Invincible with album Black Holes And Revelations. Bellamy also shares Morello's love of unusual and exclusive guitar tweaks.