Muse and their record label Warner Music Group are being sued for $3.5 million by a guy who claims that they ripped off the concept of their 15-minute space rock opera, Exogenesis.
Entertainment Law Digest reports that songwriter Charles Bollfrass has filed a complaint in a Manhattan court, saying he originally wrote a “cinematic science-fiction rock opera” titled Exogenesis back in 2005, with a similar storyline to the three-part piece that appeared on Muse’s 2009 album The Resistance.
Bollfrass said the opera “tells the story of humanity’s impending doom as the planet breaks down, and the exploration of space to spread human life to new planets. The protagonists of the story slowly realize that “their actions are merely part of a larger cycle they have been predestined to undertake.”
On top of this, Bollfrass says he contacted Muse and two other unnamed bands back in 2005 to compose the score for Exogenesis. The following year, Muse told him they were not interested in pursuing the project.
As we now know, frontman Matt Belamy went on to compose three sequential songs titled Exogenesis I, Exogenesis II and Exogenesis III, which appeared on The Resistance when it was released in 2009.
The liner notes of the record state that Exogenesis is “a story of humanity coming to an end and everyone pinning their hopes on a group of astronauts who go out to explore space and spread humanity to another planet”.
Bollfrass is also claiming that the cover of The Resistance has an image that the band stole from the storyboards of his rock opera.
Here’s the piece in question:
