Photo: WENN
If you’re a Muse fan – or even if you’re just a human being living in the world in 2016 – you’ll already know a fair bit about the band’s lead singer, Matt Bellamy. You’ll know of his signature operatic falsetto, his bombastic musical style, and probably his fondness for a good old conspiracy theory.
But there are plenty of things you might not know – even, perhaps, if you consider yourself a fan. There are many weird and wonderful things to know about Bellamy – from the name of his pets to his weird party trick to the Guiness World Record he holds. Here’s a few of them.
His cats are called Kim and Kanye
It’s not that Bellamy is a particularly big fan of the rapper – in fact, he once said of Kanye’s music, “It's very full on, in your face, it's very 'me, me, me'” – it’s just that Kanye came backstage at one of the band’s shows, and only wanted to talk about t-shirts. Bellamy found it so funny he decided to name his cats after Kanye and his famous wife.
He once gave advice on how to conduct the perfect orgy
Speaking to NME, Bellamy explained, "It's very easy. Novelty items. It's so easy. All you need is masks or hats. Soon as people put on silly hats, they loosen up a little bit. Then you need a couple of friends who are very close to each other. Then people start bundling to each other and it just goes from there. It's as simple as that. Just bundling, tickling and novelty items."
His music is sort of inspired by Monty Python
Muse are very well aware that the operatic grandiose of their music can be a little, er, unsubtle. But that’s exactly what they’re going for. "Essentially,” Bellamy once explained, “we approach music the same way Monty Python did comedy."
He’s got a Guinness World Record
Bellamy currently holds the record for most guitars smashed on a single tour. During the group’s Absolution tour back in 2004, he smashed 140 guitars. Those poor guitars.
He owns a jet pack
Granted, he’s only ever used it once, but Bellamy is still the proud owner of a genuine jetpack (*cough* paramotor *cough*). It set him back a pretty mind-boggling £10,000, so hopefully he’ll start using it for his commutes or something soon.
He has an Irish stalker
If you’re an a huge band, obsessive fans tend to come with the territory – but Bellamy’s Irish stalker is attentive in a very particular way. He used to travel from Ireland to Bellamy’s Italy home and leave bags full of stuff, “like loads of bottles with messages witten on them.” As if that wasn’t enough, “He's got loads of poetry that he has written, which is all about the end of the world. He's trying to create little bits of clues and puzzles that are supposed to lead me to some kind of journey somewhere."
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He can say the alphabet backwards
Just watch...
He owns over 100 sheep
Yep, one of the most successful musicians on the planet is also a sheep farmer in his spare time. He explained to Radio 1 last year that he owned about 160, and was just getting ready to fleece them. Of course he was.
He wants to play a show on another planet
Given Bellamy’s penchant for far-fetched theories and far-flung topics, it’s not exactly surprising he’s got ambitions bigger than this planet. “Somewhere in the star constellation Pleiades there's rumoured to be a planet that's supposed to be like ours,” he once told an interviewer, explaining where he’d most like to play a gig. “People did research into the way they're laid out and a lot of them seem to have star maps that suggest Pleiades is definitely an important location.”
