Matthew Bellamy life and biography

Matthew Bellamy is an English musician, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and main songwriter of the alternative rock band Muse.

Bellamy's father, George, was rhythm guitarist in the 1960s pop group The Tornados, who were the first British band to have a United States number one song, with "Telstar". "Knights of Cydonia", a single from Muse's fourth album Black Holes and Revelations, is often cited as a tribute to that song, with its space rock sound and accompanying video depicting a cowboy's quest through a human landscape. Bellamy's mother, Marilyn, was born in Belfast, and moved to England in the 1970s. On her first day in England she met George, who was at the time working as a taxi driver in London. They later moved to Cambridge, where Matthew's older brother Paul was born, followed a couple of years later by Matthew himself. Bellamy started playing the piano at age 6 and guitar when he was 14.

In the mid-1980s, the family moved to Teignmouth, Devon. After the divorce of Bellamy's parents, he moved in with his grandmother, who pushed him towards learning to play the guitar at the age of fourteen.

Bellamy's distinctive piano style has been inspired by the works of Romantic pianists, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff. Bellamy cites some of his guitar playing influences as Jimi Hendrix and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, the latter being particularly evident in the more riff-based songs on Muse's second album, Origin of Symmetry, and in Bellamy's extensive use of pitch-shifting effects in his solos.

Matt uses Hugh Manson custom guitars made in Exeter, Devon, UK. Matt currently has six Mansons, known as his "Mattocasters" (Matt + telecaster). The first and most famous is his silver Manson. Matt came up with the basic concept for this guitar and Hugh Manson helped him realise it. It has a built-in Z-Vex Fuzz Factory which gives Matt his distinctive sound and the ability to use controlled feed back, it also has a MXR Phase 90 phaser and uses Rio Grand pickups. All his other Mansons follow this same basic design (apart for Matt's 7 string which was not actually built for him) with some just having different finshes, as with his mirrored Manson, and some taking the idea even further. Matt's black Manson has a midi strip that controls a Digitech Whammy pedal, when it is connected, a Zvex Wah Probe and a number of other built in effects. Matt uses Diezel amp heads which are hand made in Germany, along with Marshall Mode Four cabinets, Soldano Cabinets and Line 6 amps. Most of Matt's rack effects are made with Line 6 modules.

Bellamy was recently #29 in Total Guitar magazine's top 100 guitar players in the world - above The Edge (U2), Pete Townshend and Chuck Berry and his riff Plug in Baby came 13th in in Total Guitar's pole of the top 20 riffs.

In April 2005, Kerrang magazine ranked him at #28 in their 50 sexiest people in rock, as well as their in-house number one guitarist.

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