Matthew Bellamy is the kind of gargantuan rock star who always has a groaning inbox of fanciful requests. But one message proved irresistible. “It was about 1984, one of my favourite books in terms of its influence on me over the years,” he says enthusiastically from his home in Los Angeles. “But it was also for” – he pauses for comic effect – “an audiobook. It was those two things together that properly stimulated my imagination.”
If you were creating the ideal dramatic score and soundscape for a new immersive adaptation of 1984 with an A-list cast, the frontman of Muse would likely be topping your wishlist. Bellamy has been inspired by it before: on the thundering rock of the Muse track Citizen Erased, from the band’s 2001 album Origin of Symmetry, and several tracks shuddering with synthesisers and dread-driven guitar solos on 2009’s The Resistance.
