Klein/Ally Show: The Podcast - Matt Bellamy from MUSE in Studio

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

New episode of Klein Alley Show is about to begin, but before that can happen, Alley, let's tell the people what they need to know. You mean about San Bernardino International Airport? Of course I'm talking about the San Bernardino International Airport. Easy, close, and not LAX. And parking is always just five bucks a day, which means it is El Cheapo approved. Fly nonstop to Provo, Utah for all the skiing, snowboarding, or wives you can handle. And of course you can fly into my hometown of San Francisco, San Bernardino International Airport, when airports smell great. it's an absolute pleasure to welcome back one of the greats to the k-rock world famous studios uh matt bellamy not only vocalist guitarist pianist sheep farmer one of the finest muses

that ever was never will be with a brand new album please welcome back to k-rock the great matt bellamy good morning hey great to be back yeah thanks for having me thank you for being here and as we celebrate the release of the 10th muse album before we even can talk about the new and we'll listen to some of the music off of it. Do you remember the night before, the day before you were releasing Muse No. 1, the first of your albums? Wow, it was in 99.

I think we actually came out here to L.A. for the first time. I was working as a painter and decorator and doing demolition work, yeah, and then got flown out here by Maverick Records to do a show in the Viper Room, I think, and I remember that. Yeah, we played the Viper Room, then we did the Roxy, I think, a few weeks later.

It was like showcases and stuff. Those are shockingly both still open. They're not Chipoles yet. I was actually at Roxy the other day, actually. I took my son to see some rap show, I can't remember who it was but it was something cool, but anyway do I remember? Yeah, I remember being really nervous and being like oh my god, this is like, my life is on the line here

you know, so I don't feel like that now, thankfully At that point you've got one album we've just got to get this thing out there, hopefully people like it hopefully it sells, and then the concept that maybe all these years later you'd be dropping your 10th album, it's got to be crazy It's wild, yeah, I didn't think it'd be going this long back then I thought, oh this is great, I'll take a break from my day job

and go and pretend to be a rock star for a year and ended up doing it for the rest of my life so yeah, it's been an amazing journey really Do you still get those tingles, though, the night before an album release? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Well, I get it more from our hardcore fan base, because they're very like, they know what they love, they know what they like, so I'm always a bit nervous about what they're going to say, you know what I mean?

But this one, the few songs we've put out so far, they've been amazingly positive, and it's been lovely, so I feel good about this album. Even the whole concept behind the wow signal, which officially drops on June 26th, is fascinating, because this all started with the concept of mysterious, weird radio waves from space, It's a weird radio transmission, which is how our show is described regularly. Probably K-Rock.

K-Rock from another universe. And that inspired you so much that this entire album has this kind of space vibe theme to it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was. I mean, I've always been fascinated by space and sci-fi and all that stuff. It's always been part of what Muse is about. And yeah, so this this wow signal was it was about a year before all of us were born. All the band was born.

And it's this amazing mystery to this day. It's the one signal from the setting of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. is the one signal that to this day is like probably most likely to have been intelligence of some kind you know and i think we're living in this age now especially this year actually with films like disclosure day coming out and that amazing documentary that was out earlier this year and with ai upon us which is a obviously is a alien intelligence which is about to emerge around all of us in the next year or two uh i felt like the right time to revisit some of those early concepts that um that kind of formed news and uh and also that that wow signal was one of my

influence one of my favorite films of all time which is contact oh my god i love it yeah i love and i watched it again i watched it actually before making this album and i was like oh my god i forgot how good this really is it's such a classic i forgot how much it influenced me growing up because i saw it when i was a kid you know so the album is kind of a little bit influenced by the whole concept of that film as well you know this is a actual this is the wow signal for those of you that are not familiar take a listen this is the actual signal that was i guess transmitted through space mysteriously so much so that they made notes about it because of how this is what it this is not a muse song i want to point that out right now this is the

natural signal from space. This is the inspiration for the album. From 77. It's funny you say it's not a new song because we did actually use this in a new song. The last song on the album, Space Debris, opens with the wow signal. Wow, so did you have to get clearance for that? Do you have to pay NASA? How do you end up, are you able to use a public

domain? We took it off YouTube and we're probably going to get sued by someone. Oh, okay, great. That'll be fun down the road. But there's all these theories as to what that may have meant, right? Because at the time, there is something that still, the mystery still lives on today. And I'm sure you've probably researched it more than most people what is the best indication you have that that was alien light for reaching out to us i don't

know i think i think that would be how we would communicate i think you know because everything from our planet now uh all the radio signals that go back 100 or so years are now starting to reach star systems you know because at the speed of light you know obviously it takes years and years and years to get there but what everything that we've done is now starting to hit lots of interesting places you know and you sent out your first single off the new album too you literally said we're sending you back a signal and you sent them the first song into space yeah exactly so We're hoping that we get some alien fans on this album. Yeah, in like 23 years, someone in another solar system is going to be like,

whoa, this song's awesome. Muse has already released their 29th album on Earth, and they're just getting the 10th album to space. If ever Blue Origin or SpaceX or anybody approached you about going to space, everyone's talking about space tourism now and how we're all going to be able to go to space at some point. Does that idea excite you, or does it feel kind of hokey? That's a good question.

If you asked me 10, 20 years ago, I'd be like, yeah, 100%. But now that Katy Perry's done it, it's kind of like... now she's done i'm like come on we can't go behind parents no but also like you know like with three kids now i'm like i don't know do i want to like take that kind of risk i mean like when you have kids you feel a little bit different about risk i didn't actually ever want to go to space until i had kids and now i must get to space as far away as possible a little bit of peace and quiet right and that bellamy responsible father goes you know i'm gonna stay here with my children it's interesting two different outlooks on uh being a dad the album of course is uh also going to be

followed by a tour which is coming up soon we have been lucky enough to have seen you guys live a a handful of times, and Ali and I were just talking about, before you walked in here, how blown away we are every single time because of just how elaborate these productions are. I mean... Well, I feel like Muse shows are always like 10 years ahead of the times. Like, I remember the

drone tour, and I was like... And that wasn't even when people were using drones on a regular basis. What kind of futuristic things can we expect for this tour? We're going to go all in on the lasers. I mean, lasers have been around for a while, but we're going to try and create geometric shapes with lasers, and we're going to try

and create like a hexagonal shape that I can go inside of and do stuff like that so we'll see but it's going to be fun because we're doing a lot of America actually it's the first time

we're releasing an album doing heavy American touring straight off the bat so we're doing two months around America July and August and then we're going to come back again

I think in February or March and do an arena tour as well so I live here now so I make everyone just go like I live in America it's convenient for you and by the way

the Hollywood Bowl show is the final at least of the first part of the tour that's the last one it's the August 31st show at the Hollywood Bowl so we should be getting

the best of Muse Absolutely, yeah. First time ever playing the Hollywood Bowl, so very excited. The only thing I'll say is the Hollywood Bowl is really hard to get the production in. The show that we have, we can't actually get it all in,

so it'll be... But it's the Hollywood Bowl. You bow down to the legacy of the building. Previous shows there, they travel with like 100 stormtroopers. I mean, if you think about some of these previous shows with Muse, Muse in the round,

and then every once in a while when they take it back, even just watching Muse play like a... Just focus, this is going to be a scaled-down Muse. Even scaled-down Muse is like any other show times a thousand.

Yeah, high production value. I'm actually getting that tonight. It's going to be hard for you to sit there and watch the show without kind of taking notes.

Where's the lasers, man? Come on. Yeah, I get it. Well, we are, as fans, obviously super excited. We're going to listen to one of the songs off the album now.

This is not the one that you had sent to Space originally, but can you tell us about Cryogen before we play it on K-Rock? Oh, yeah, yeah. This is actually

a real return to old school music. A lot of the fans have been banging on about it for the last few years like they want the old sound and we just said, like play like a creepy band

like no no synths and no extra effects or anything just like boom just keep it raw and I started playing like the old kind of like

sort of classical sound that Muse has on the guitar and we just went straight into this riff and yes here it is it's like us returning to our old sound

from the early 2000s it's K-Rock 106.7 world famous in our studio the great Matt Bellamy of Muse not just here to hang out

and talk to us although that would be great for our own ego we'd like to pretend that it's the truth but the reality is there is a new Muse album the 10th album

and when you say you'll come back anytime We're going to hold you to that. We'll see you again here next week. I live down the road, so anytime. Great. Now that you are living full-time in America, obviously the World Cup is here, and you're a big soccer fan.

I am not. I don't know, Klein, you're not a big soccer person either. Well, I gamble on it, but I bet a lot on ties. And the problem is there are ties a lot, but then I don't know what I'm doing. And so when a team wins 2-0 and everyone goes, they were obviously going to win. They were favored by a million.

I go, I think anyone can win any soccer game. And people that know soccer, they go, that's not true. There are teams that are just much better. Yeah, and I know people are excited about it, but do you think America will ever care about soccer the way that you grew up caring about it? We'll find out this summer, you know. It'll be interesting to see. I mean, I've already got tickets to the World Cup final in New York, and I'm like, fingers crossed that England will make it that far. It's unlikely, but, you know, I'm hoping.

Well, it hasn't been since the 60s. Crazy money on those tickets. Smart bet. In the hope that they make it there. But I don't know. Let's see. I think if the USA get, like, anywhere near, say, the quarterfinals, I think then it would be a big thing, you know. I think you're used to seeing winners.

You love winners, do you know what I mean? And you've already got your huge sports here. So I think until USA really gets in the runnings for the semifinal, even the final, that would be the thing that tips American fans over the edge, I think. Yeah, there is a time when things happen and then all the merch, they go, they just sold more soccer jerseys in the last two days than they have in the history of the sport, at least in America. Because they won?

Yeah, because they won a game. But that's sadly how we are. You also need a star player. I don't know what you have on the team, but you need a star player. Neither do we. neither do we we couldn't name one that's how it is

like a Beckham or something and then like a personality but I mean England hasn't won a World Cup in a long time and you guys are still all huge diehard fans yeah but we still remember

1966 I mean we just remember I mean we beat Germany for Christ's sake I mean come on the timing of that as well it was like a big thing that's like their miracle

on ice so that's what set us over the edge we've never come back from that high we've got listen new music of course

a new tour that we've been mentioning it'll be happening at the Hollywood Bowl that is with Block Party and Portugal the Man it's going to be August 31st

Of course, all the details and tickets at Ticketmaster.com. Before we get to your two epic questions, I want you to know that you are inspiring the next generation of talent. Yeah, I wanted to ask you, Matt, because my kid yesterday actually picked up a ukulele, and he's four, and he decided to start writing music. And I just wanted, you have kids too, and I know you obviously know what you're doing in the world of guitar. Does my kid have what it takes? Do you think he could be the next Matt Bellamy? And please be honest. Okay.

Is that the space signal, Allie? That is pretty amazing. One thing I can say, that is way better than I was on the ukulele H4. Really? Wow. Okay, so prodigy, potentially. Absolutely, yeah. I think you've got a good one there.

If you're wondering about the lyrics, he is saying when Spider-Man gets some bad guys, he has to web them up, but not yet. First, he has to chase them. He has to meet some different superheroes like Iron Man and Captain America. That's pretty deep. You tell me what's better, that or this? I think it's pretty clear. This is actually the Yooka-Laylee. This is also about Spider-Man if you listen closely.

We've got two epic questions to wrap things up with the great Matt Bellamy of views. Epic question number one. In addition to obviously being a world-class musician, people may or may not know that you also have experience around sheep. How many of your sheep can you name in 10 seconds and go? Lord, Fluffy 1, Fluffy 2, Fluffy 3, Lamb Chops 7, 6 and 4 and a lovely roast on Sunday. Time is up.

Lamb chops was clearly, that was the after name after the fact. It was a beautiful story. One more epic question for you. Since you have your Irish citizenship now, can you do a good Irish accent? I can't indeed. No, I can't. Hey, we for ****. I always go straight to

swear words. The answer is I can't do it because it always sounds Scottish, but the reason why is because my mum's from Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland is a little bit closer to Scotland, so I can't do it without swearing for some reason. Well, they do love swearing. That's the official, that's on the flag.

Well, listen, we are thrilled, obviously, when we knew you'd be coming by. We couldn't be more excited. Long history together. Congrats on the album, the 10th, and I think one of the finest in a long-ass time. It is called The Wow Signal. Get it, download it, listen to it, and see them when they're here at the Hollywood Bowl. It will be a show full of lasers. You will not be disappointed.

Surprises, as always. And thank you so much for joining us again on KROQ. Matt Bellamy. Thanks for having me.