the jostlers test

Having been in separate bands at the school they attended in the early 1990s, the three members founded their new band originally under such lugubrious names as Gothic Plague and Fixed Penalty (Muse have given out confusing and contradictory information regarding the band's previous monikers in various interviews and, consequently, the chronology of these is unclear). In 1996, under the name Rocket Baby Dolls, they took part in a local Battle Of The Bands, playing with such emotion and violence (going as far as to break everything on stage — a trait which has remained to the present day, though perhaps something of a rock ‘n’ roll clichй) that they stood out from the competition and won. It was this identification with the emotion in their musical style and a feeling of being different to the rest of the local music scene in Teignmouth that saw the band choose not to go to university and seriously pursue being a band.