Muse

A trio consisting of three high school friends named Matthew Bellamy (born on June 9, 1978 in Cambridge, England), Dominic James Howard (born on December 7, 1977 in Stockport, England), and Christopher Tony Wolstenholme (born on December 2, 1978 in Rotherham, Yorkshire, England), Muse actually resulted from the idea to overcome the boredom of their life in the sleepy town of Teignmouth, South Devon, England. The band's incarnation originally was materialized in the form of a duo called Gothic Plague established by Dom and Matt in January 1994, but it was later changed to Fixed Penalty when Chris joined in, then to Rocket Baby Dolls under which they enrolled in a local Battle of The Bands competition. Initially pessimistic of the chance of winning due to their different sounds with other contestants, the troupe surprisingly were named the winner, fueling the personnel to continue their pact in professional way.

With Dom on drum, Chris handling the bass, and Matt taking the lead vocal, guitar, also keyboard, the threesome began to look for a better stage name and finally settled to call themselves Muse after their art teacher told of the muses from Greek mythology. They confidently commenced their journey through a number of performances at the local venue for some time. The band gradually were able to draw quite large audience, which led them to come into the attention of Dennis Smith, the owner of Sawmills studio and Dangerous Records label. Not only offering them a chance to record their materials, the man also willingly set up a few showcases in the U.S. to ultimately get them signed under Maverick Records in 1998, much to the group's delight. Other deals soon followed with Motors in Germany, Naive in France, and notably, Mushroom Records in England through which they happily saw their full-length debut album, "Showbiz", touching the U.K. market in 1999 after the releases of their two EPs entitled "Muse EP" and "Muscle Museum EP."

Produced by John Leckie, who previously had been involved in the making of Radiohead's "The Bends", the LP had a more-than-satisfying outcome as it managed to enter the top 30 of U.K. albums chart while generating some modest hits like "Sunburn", "Unintended", "Cave", and "Uno". On the other hand, comparisons inevitably were drawn to Radiohead thereafter, leading to an accusation that Muse were mere copycat. Going unaffected, the band kept moving on their path to hold tour around the world which ran successfully for one and half year before coming up with their sophomore effort, "Origin of Symmetry", in 2001. More expanded and experimental than its predecessor, the album received wonderful response, so positive that the album really did not encounter much difficulty to break worldwide sale above 1.3 million copies, thanks to its tracks like "Plug in Baby", "New Born", "Bliss", and "Hyper Music".

Though already gaining considerable popularity in Europe, Muse were still unable to make a sound in the States, and realizing this fact, they joined forces with U.S. producer Rich Costey to work on their next album, "Absolution". The decision was delightfully proven right for the record, released by March 2004 in the country. The album amazingly made its way to the first rank of Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart besides spawning two top 10 Modern Rock Tracks hits namely "Hysteria (I Want It Now)" and "Time Is Running Out". In the meantime, greater accomplishment was scored in U.K when it topped the number one spot on the country's album chart to then direct the band to obtain a BRIT Award for Best Live Act category in the following year. Amidst the superb attainment, the trio decidedly preferred to focus more on their live performances instead, and opted not to bring up new compositions until 2006 through singles "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Knights of Cydonia", which later were included in their next album launched by July 3 in U.K., "Black Holes & Revelations". In 2007, the band were named the Best British Band at the ShockWaves NME Awards and Best British Live Act at the BRIT Awards.

With the title of amusing live act, Muse continued touring around the world, hitting big stadiums and festivals such as Wembley and V. In September 2008, Matt, Dom and Chris all received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Plymouth for their contributions to music. At the same time, the work of their fifth studio album was underway. "The Resistance" was released in September 2009 with singles such as "Uprising" and "Undisclosed Desires". Upon its release, "The Resistance" topped the album charts in 19 countries, becoming the band's third number one album in U.K. and reaching number three on the Billboard 200. Muse were later nominated for three awards at the 53rd Grammy Awards in February 2011 and won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album for "The Resistance". With the confidence, Muse headlined a lot of festivals like Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds as well as Lollapalooza.

In 2011, they began recording their sixth album in London with the help of composer David Campbell, which would make the album "radically different" from the rest. First single "Survival" was released in June 2012 and became the official song of the London 2012 Summer Olympics. It was quickly followed by "Madness" and "Panic Station". Armed with new materials, the band toured around Europe while the album, titled "The 2nd Law", was awaiting its release on October 2, 2012 in the U.S.

In April 2014, Howard revealed that Muse was planning to begin working on their seventh studio album. Later in September, Bellamy answered several fans' queries about the new album on Twitter, claiming that the themes of the album included "deep ecology, the empathy gap and world war 3." He also went on to suggest that a fan favorite, "Citizen Erased", would be getting a "sequel" on the next album.

A few months later in February 2015, the band released two images on their Instagram account with the hashtag "#MuseDrones", leading people to believe that their seventh studio album would be titled "Drones". Although the band did not directly confirm this, American artist Matt Mahurin later mentioned on his blog that the album would indeed be titled "Drones" and that he would be creating the album artwork.

On March 11, Muse announced on their website that "Drones" would be released on June 8. "Dead Inside" was released as the official lead single in late March. Earlier in the month, the band released a buzz single "Psycho" along with its lyric video on their YouTube channel.