After making millions of potential new fans thanks to the inclusion of their songs on all three "Twilight" soundtrack albums, Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme may be risking the bloodthirsty wrath of the Twi-Hard Nation with some comments he recently made about the vampire sensation.
"I'm not sure how cool it is to be on those kind of things, but sometimes you've just got to get your music out there in different ways," he told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat column.
Even with the films' box-office success and the massive exposure for the band, which is stadium-rocking huge in Europe but has not yet broken through in the same way in the U.S., Wolstenholme said he's not sure the trade-off has been worth it. "It's very difficult in America, because you don't have anything like Radio 1, nothing is national," he said. "You have to take every opportunity you get over there, and sometimes you have to sell your soul."
The group's "Supermassive Black Hole" was the lead track on the original "Twilight" soundtrack — and it played a pivotal role in the key baseball scene in the film — while "I Belong to You (New Moon Remix)" appeared on the "New Moon" disc, and "Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)" is on the "Eclipse" album.
"Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer is an avowed fan of the drama-loving band and has said that their music inspired her writing, but Wolstenholme appeared ambivalent about how the music has been used in the films. He said he watched the original movie and "quite enjoyed it," even if it wasn't his "cup of tea," but he has not seen the two sequels.
When it came time to place "Neutron Star Collision" in "Eclipse," there appears to have been some confusion over where it would fit in that added to his uneasiness about participating in the project.
"When we were in the studio writing it, one minute they said they wanted to use it in the end credits, then they said they wanted to use it in another scene," he said. "Then it was another scene, and in the end, we were like, 'Do what you want with it, we don't care any more.' "
The comments were a bit of a turnabout from ones drummer Dominic Howard made in October, when he said the band was flattered to be the only group to appear on the first two "Twilight" soundtracks.
"It might be something to do with Stephenie Meyer and that she loves us," Howard told MTV News. "We met her quite awhile ago in Phoenix — it was before 'Twilight' came out. She's a very nice lady and talked about how she listens to our music as she writes her books. This is all way before it turned into this huge success that it is, before everyone went vampire nuts."
At the time, Howard said that inclusion in the "Twilight" franchise had helped Muse reach out to "whole loads of new people that haven't heard us before. ... It's a nice side project to be involved in."
After pushing back, rearranging and canceling a pair of North American dates due to the impending birth of Wolstenholme's fifth child, Muse are slated to be back on the road in the U.S. for a September 22 show in San Diego. And the bassist said things are finally breaking through for them stateside.
"It's going great over there," he said. "Early this year, we started playing in arenas, so it was great to finally take over the full production that we toured with in Europe. ... For a long time, America fell by the wayside and nothing was really happening at all, and we were having problems with our record company over there."
But with a full slate of dates through the end of the year, don't expect a follow-up to last year's Resistance any time soon. "The touring schedules are so crazy that just the thought of another album is just not even there at the moment," he said. "I'm sure [singer] Matt [Bellamy] has plenty of ideas, but physically trying to get together and work on stuff is just not possible on tour. ... The few days off we do have, we like to go home or go somewhere and chill out. We prefer to keep the two things separate and not try and think too much about recording when we're touring."
SOURCE:
MTV
