Chris Wolstenholme grew up in the English town of Rotherham before moving to Teignmouth, Devon. There he played drums for a post-punk band. He met Matt Bellamy and Dominic Howard from another band, Gothic Plague, while both bands rehearsed in the same building. Bellamy and Howard convinced Wolstenholme to take up bass and start a new band with them, initially called Rocket Baby Dolls. The band was renamed Muse in 1994.
Muse
The members of Muse played in separate school bands during their stay at Teignmouth Community College in the early 1990s. Guitarist Matt Bellamy successfully auditioned for drummer Dominic Howard's band, Carnage Mayhem, becoming its singer and songwriter. They asked Wolstenholme, at that time the drummer for another band, to join as bassist; he agreed and took up bass lessons. Wolstenholme's basslines are a central motif of many Muse songs; the band combines bass guitar with effects and synthesisers to create overdriven fuzz bass tones. Both Bellamy and Wolstenholme use touch-screen controllers, often built into their instruments, to control synthesisers and effects including a Korg Kaoss pad or Digitech Whammy pedal.
Other work
Wolstenholme featured on bass for Moriaty's 2015 single "Bones". He contributed to Rick Parfitt's posthumous solo album Over and Out, which was due to be released in March 2018.
Personal life
Wolstenholme married his girlfriend, Kelly, on 23 December 2003. They have six children. In April 2010, Chris and Kelly moved to Foxrock, County Dublin, Ireland. In 2012, they moved to London while Muse recorded. After Wolstenholme and Kelly divorced, Wolstenholme married Caris Ball on 1 December 2018, the day before his 40th birthday. The couple have one child together, a daughter named Mabel Aurora Ball Wolstenholme, born in March 2020. Wolstenholme is a supporter of Rotherham United, his hometown football team. He holds an honorary doctorate of arts from the University of Plymouth. In 2010, Wolstenholme told The Times that he had been a "raging alcoholic". In an interview with Q, he said he would drink so much he would vomit blood, but did not grasp the severity of his situation. His bandmates had tried to broach the subject of his drinking several times without success. He eventually realised that drinking would kill him, as it had his father. Bandmates Bellamy and Howard explained that it took some time for them to notice how severe Wolstenholme's problem was because it did not affect his playing ability until the recording of Muse's fifth album The Resistance, at which point he went into rehab. Wolstenholme wrote two songs, "Liquid State" and "Save Me," about his experiences with alcoholism for Muse's sixth album The 2nd Law.
