Matthew Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme, and Dominic Howard grew up in a small town called Teignmouth in Devon. They were bored there, so they started playing music together. When they were 13 years old, they made a band called Gothic Plague. The band was later called Fixed Penalty. After that, it was called Rocket Baby Dolls. In 1994, while they were called Rocket Baby Dolls, they won a Battle of the Bands competition. During this competition, they broke their instruments, but still won. In 1997, they chose the name Muse. Muse's members did not like Teignmouth. In an interview in 1999, Bellamy said that it was full of people who took drugs, and that it was like a "living hell".