Muse Call Glenn Beck a 'Crazy Right-Winger'

Just as Muse had never watched an episode of 'Saturday Night Live' before performing on it in December, the UK trio had never paid any mind to Glenn Beck until September. That was when the conservative talk show host sung the band's praises only to claim that their representatives asked him to retract the endorsement, causing a minor controversy. A few weeks later, he revealed that the entire situation was a joke.

According to drummer Dom Howard, the band was more confused than anything. "I think he genuinely liked the band, liked the music and was playing it on his show. In all honesty, none of us really knew too much about him other than him being a bit of a crazy right-winger," Howard tells Spinner. "He just made up this whole thing and turned it into a bit of a big deal saying we don't want him to play our music on his show but it wasn't really true. It's just entertainment, isn't it? It's just radio. He thought he'd stir something up for fun and I'm sure a few people listened to his show because of it. That's what happens in TV and radio."

Howard also reveals that the band doesn't take themselves as seriously as people might think. Sure, their latest album 'The Resistance' is heavily influenced by George Orwell's '1984' and the band certainly doesn't express much humor in their symphonic, complex music, but that doesn't mean they don't see the lighter side in it.

"We certainly had a lot of good times and had a lot of fun making the album. There were many parts of the album where musical elements certainly took us by surprise and made us laugh, particularly on 'United States of Eurasia,'" Howard says of the Queen-inspired track. "Things like 'Uprising,' lyrically it's very serious and very influenced by protests really and people getting together and fighting for what they believe in. Musically, it's quite a fun, glam-rock influenced act. Glam rock has always had associations with being pretty silly anyway, particularly in the past."

In fact, Howard credits the combination of lighthearted, fun music and heavy subject matter for Muse's success. "With our band, you can go either way," he says. "'Uprising' did really well on the radio, on alternative radio particularly. I think some people like it because they can dance around the room around a little bit and other people like it because they really like to get deep and involved with the lyrics. A lot of the songs have that contrast of being something you can get deep and involved with or, if you can't be bothered, you just dance."