Writing A Concept Album About World-Destroying Clones And World War Three

Having signed a non-disclosure waiver, an advance copy of Muse’s seventh album, Drones, is pulled from a locked drawer and placed in a CD player. Phones off, pen and paper are allowed, and a strictly embargoed copy of the album’s lyrics is presented. It’s the type of secrecy that’s shrouded the release of the new Muse album, Drones, and, as bass player Chris Wolstenholme explains, it’s for good reason. 

“I think it’s always important that the first that people hear of an album is the real thing,” he begins. “With mobile phones you get people recording gigs and pirating copies of albums [before they’re released, so] quite often when a new album comes out the first thing that people hear of it is some shitty iPhone recording.”

The expansion of piracy networks and the willingness of consumers to illegally download music is well-documented, although it hasn’t stopped Wolstenholme and his bandmates — guitarist/singer Matt Bellamy and drummer Dom Howard — from achieving superstardom. The new record’s content, however, is another reason they’ve been keen to keep it from prying ears.

"When a new album comes out the first thing that people hear of it is some shitty iPhone recording."

Drones is a conceptual album, set in a not-too-distant future, the story of a human brainwashed by the establishment and trained to be just another killer in an army of world-destroying clones. Despite being stripped of nearly all emotion and human connectedness, he rebels and leads a rebellion. World War Three ensues and, well, let’s just say no one will be walking down the aisle to it. It’s a dark, epic, rock’n’roll album that asks for a significant emotional investment. 

“For me, growing up, music was all about the album,” Wolstenholme continues. “The anticipation that people felt when an album from a big band was coming out has died down in recent years and it’s something that I personally miss. 

“In saying that, we do seem to be an album band. The people who like our music, they buy the albums. We don’t get many casual fans. But I think for us Drones was about reintroducing the idea of an album being important, and by doing that we’ve given it a concept and presented it as a body of work rather than just something provided to people who just purchase the odd song here and there.

“Of course, if people want to do that then that’s completely their choice, but I do think that with this album it’ll be a more enjoyable experience if people listen to the album as a whole.”

It’s cathartic, listening to an entire album away from the distractions of everyday life, even if Drones’ subject matter is dark. There are some excellent stand-alone tracks, like lead single Dead Inside and the soldier’s lament of Aftermath, but there’s a wholesale consumption of the listener when listening to Drones in full. 

“There are probably two or three ways that you can interpret the record, and I don’t think there’s necessarily a right or wrong way,” Wolstenholme explains. 

"We go through life without having connections with other human beings."

“You can take the lyrics very literally, but there are some pretty strong metaphors in there too that talk about the human race and how we’ve become disconnected through the growing use of technology in our life, and how that has become such a part of our lives to the point we go through life without having connections with other human beings.”

Given Muse’s reputation as one of the world’s best live bands, and with an arena-filled northern hemisphere tour planned for the rest of 2015, it remains to be seen exactly how much of Drones will be incorporated into their live set.

“We’ve played about four [of the] songs live so far, and they’ve gone down really well. Because this album’s gone back to a bit more of a rock vibe, and it’s very much recorded as a three-piece band, the transition from studio to stage is a lot easier to do. 

“When we made The 2nd Law, as much as I still think it’s a great album, it was a total bitch to play live. There were months and months spent trying to work out how we were going to play certain songs [live] and I don’t think we really felt comfortable playing that album until we were two or three months in. 

“With this album, it’s just easy. It’s a three-piece vibe and we’re all fairly comfortable with that. The three-piece rock thing translates to stage better and the crowd get it straight away.” 

So, any prospect of playing the entire album, start to finish?

“It’s been talked about. On the upcoming tour there are going to be multiple nights that we’ll play the same venue so we’ve discussed playing one of those nights as a traditional set and on the other night we can go and play the album from start to finish. I don’t think it’s something we could do every night for two years though; that could get a little boring.”