Music binds people and it also conveys a message. It can bring in nostalgia for all and even work as a moment to recall something from the history books. A piece of nostalgia can be a guitar, a book, a violin, or anything else of that sort.
Everyone knows who Muse’s Matt Bellamy is and what are his contributions to the world of music. He still prefers Kurt Cobain over Yngwie Malmsteen. He is one of those that love memorabilia, and he recently picked Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ Telecaster.
Every old music instrument will have some strings lose or the music will not be as appealing as it normally should, so there seems to be a possibility that he would get the Telecaster fixed. While that’s a part of the story later, here’s what he had to say about Yngwie Malmsteen’s influence on his music style that has changed over the years, in an interview with Guitar World:
Oh, brilliant! I haven’t listened to him in a while, but Yngwie was one of those people I got into in the early ’90s when I first started playing. Clearly back then, I thought there was a chance! After a while, I realized I simply couldn’t get to where he was and sort of veered off towards more classical and flamenco guitar styles.
Then I started listening to players like Hendrix and Cobain and felt, ‘You know what? I can do chaos. I can’t do this unbelievable technical precision but what I can do is create a mess!’ So I went down the road of noise, chaos, and carnage… and little elements of the other things stayed with me. And I think you’re probably right, some of the fast-moving harmonic minor ideas will have come from players like that.
While he is doing great, he is always collecting things and the recent one happens to be late musician’s iconic 1983 blonde USA Fender Telecaster, which Buckley used to record the classic album “Grace”. Speaking about acquiring it, Bellamy said:
It’s amazing. What’s interesting about it is that there is a slightly strange issue with the pickups that’s never been corrected. It’s very slightly out of phase in the middle position with both pickups blended, which is odd because it sounds great. It has this glassy kind of tone, a bit like when you play the highest notes on a piano where there’s that natural sustain.
It’s that very plinky sound. It also has this very unusual clarity between each note, this total separation. I didn’t want to touch anything or change anything, but I took it to Manson so we could look at the electronics and analyze what was going on there. It’d be nice to replicate those pickups at some point so people could have their own version.
I’d say it’s probably the best clean-sounding guitar I’ve played if you’re going for a very clean sound like on ‘Hallelujah’. Just plug into a Fender amp and it sounds exactly like that. It’s one of those things that will make your hairs stand up as you’re playing those parts. It’s a very unique guitar, I’ve never known anything else that sounds like it.
What do you think of these comments? Also, Muse’s latest album “The Will of the People” is out now, and available on all the usual platforms. You can check out the single “Kill Or Be Killed” below:
