BackTalk: Dominic Monaghan Page 4

You guys covered that ground a lot in the Season 2 episode "Fire + Water" [Episode 12], where you get the piano as a kid, and you're clearly the musically inclined one and are always writing, while Liam's off doing other things. Yeah, that's true, that's true.

So when's that Drive Shaft album coming out? You know, we were talking for a while with ABC about having Drive Shaft tour. They'd go off to different cities and do a couple of songs. We don't have enough of a back catalog yet, but it could happen. It'd be a big thing to organize, but, I mean, I'm a frustrated rock star; I love getting up onstage and having fun. The great thing about Charlie is he's not the greatest musician; he thinks he's much better than he is. He's a naff songwriter, but he's not the greatest singer in the world, he's not the greatest piano player in the world, and he's not got the best stage presence - his brother's got way more stage presence than him. I like that there's the illusion behind Charlie that he probably thinks he's closer to the Beatles than Oasis, but he's just not that good, you know.

Speaking of the Beatles, have you heard about or checked out the show called Love that Cirque de Soleil is doing in Las Vegas? Yeah. A few friends and I were gonna go see it this summer, but I ran out of time. I'm interested to see it. Anything associated with the Beatles always tickles my fancy, so I'm definitely going to check it out at some point. The magic of Cirque de Soleil combined with the sheer magic and genius of the Beatles would be a great thing to see. I'm kind of agnostic in my religious beliefs, but these kinds of things make me believe in more of a divine power, and the Beatles is one of them. I can't understand, I can't fathom how something so incredible continually made good music for such a long period of time. It was astounding to me that with each album, I'd say, "They did it again! They did it again! They did it again!"

And they never had a chance to screw it up. They closed the chapter and broke up at the right time. Yes they did, just as it was getting sour. As I'm sure you know, a lot of art is born out of frustration. It was a great band and, truly, to me, much more than a band - they're the band for me and probably always will be. I can't think of anything taking over for them.

George Martin and his son [Giles] did the Beatles music for Love in surround sound. What do you think about that - Beatles music presented in a new form? It goes to complement the Beatles. They were always so far ahead of their time, the period when they were recording. But for even now, the music of the Beatles is contemporary, so to add surround sound and all that stuff to it only goes to further complement the Beatles music.

ARTICLE CONTENTS

X