Song to drive down to Reading "Jackson Cannery" - Ben Folds Five

'It's a good vibey song and they'd be a good band to see at a festival. It's the kind of song where you can imagine a group of you in some vehicle, driving, singing it all in the same time.' Matt

Song to play at dusk "Come To Daddy" - Aphex Twin

'Dusk is when it gets dark and Aphex Twin is dark, moody and scary and gets you in the mood for a night of weirdness.'

Song to talk someone down to "Lilac Wine" - Jeff Buckley

'Because it's really mellow. It's got lyrics that say things like, "I drink much more than I ought to drink / I I do things I never should do", something along those lines. You've hit the booze, for the wrong reasons. You've been wasted and realised why you're wasted and it wasn't a good thing and coming away from that.'

Song that reminds you of your first festival "Cut Your Hair" - Pavement

'I think it was '95 or '94. It's really summery and the actual festival was summery as well. It was my first experience of being in a massive crowd of people right at the front. It's a brilliantsong. I had long hair, too. I had long hair for years, actually. There was a gang of us and we were the only people in the vicinity who looked like that and we used to get beaten up.'

Song to psyche yourself up to go onstage "Calm Like A Bomb" - Rage Against The Machine

'Anything by Rage. I just love that band. I've picked that song because of the guitar sound. He's got some sort of weird pitch-shifter on it that pushes it down an octave, so it sounds really sick and heavy. It just makes you feel like you're building up to something'

Campfire Song "MTV unplugged in New York" - Nirvana

'The whole album. I don't think that album was even released then, but I remember people sitting around campfires doing Nirvana acoustically - they sounded great. Anyone can play their songs. Everywhere youwent around Reading one year, every campfire you went to, someone was sat round with a guitar playing a Nirvana song.'

Song to stop the rain "El Scorcho" - Weezer

'A really good-vibe record. All the band, you can tell that they all recorded it around one microphone together. You can imagine their arms around each other, pissed, having a laugh.'

Song for the summer "Instant Street" - dEUS

'The guy who produced it is gonna be producing our album. But also it's got the coolest guitar solo I've ever heard. It really gets you in a good mood.'

Homesick Song "Sound of Silence" - Simon and Garfunkel

'I was listening to it a couple of days ago. We were in Japan and our tour manager had a baby, so he disappeared, then our manager went off and our crew and it was just me, Dom and Chris alone and we just felt really...exposed. It was my first sensation of wanting to go home. I'd never ever had that in my entire life - I've always had the opposite ! And 'Hello darkness, my old friend' - I haven't had that sensation of darkness for a couple of years now, because we've been so busy. It was the first time I went, 'Ooh, dearie me; when you stop, there's nothing there.' '

Song to greet the dawn "Feeling Good" - Nina Simone

'We're actually doing a cover of that song at the moment. It's got the twee-est lyrics, but the melody and chords, they're definitely not twee, they're a little bit moody and I love that combination. It's about a new episode in your life. There's a whole section of your life that you've had enough of and you're starting a new thing.'

Song to drive off to "Crossroads" - Robert Johnson

'I don't know why. I've hitched back from Glastonbury a couple of times and I've ended up in vehicles playing weird world music, real hippy types driving, and I just associate getting back with listening to old, roosty stuff. And that song; it's all "Where am I going ? Where have I been ? " .'

Best festival show Rage Against The Machine, Heineken Jammin Festival, Italy 2000

'It was pretty damn impressive. They face away from the audience in between songs and I could see how into each other they were and how good the vibe was. At the end, though, the bass player launched himself off the stage onto a couple of security guards and beat them up. They'd been bullying the people who'd been crowd-surfing throughout the gig. Everyone that was on the stage went right to the front and I was stood next to Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha watching what was going down.'

Ideal Reading band Red Hot Chili Peppers

'Out of all the bands I've seen, they're the ones I remember enjoying the most. Maybe it's because I was young - 15, 16. I remember looking at them, going 'great band !' and then we ended up touring with them. I remember specifically looking at them, going, 'I'd love to be doing that'. For us to headline Reading would be the ultimate.'

Back to top

NME - Matthew Bellamy Interview - 08/26/2000
< Back