Having authored the official song of the 2012 Olympic Games it was hardly a surprise to see Muse perform (along with a host of other big names) at last night's London 2012 closing ceremony. You've no doubt heard the song in question - 'Survival' - a few times over the last fortnight, but how did the song come together? 

"They asked us to come and maybe write some music for the Olympics a long time ago, like eight months ago, just before we started make the album", explains Muse sticksman Dominic Howard. "I think straight away we thought about this one song which Matt was playing on the piano and we jammed it a few times, the track just straight away for us seemed to potentially reflect the enormity of what the Olympics is."

"The lyrics of the song are kind of related to the struggle against losing energy and this desire to survive and determination", continued frontman Matt Bellamy. "When we actually finished the album, we got a call from the Olympics saying they wanted us to play at the ending ceremony and they asked us what we’d like to play and we said well this is the song that we kinda thought may have been suitable for the Olympics in the first place; maybe we should play this song. They came and listened to it and we started talking about how we were gonna play at the show and everything. They loved the song and at that point they said oh we think this will be a great song for the Olympics and it just seemed like a really unusual coincidence. It was kinda full circle really that came back to the beginning again."

As well as performing at the closing ceremony, Muse were among the few bands given the honour of carrying the Olympic torch on its journey through the United Kingdom. Over 7000 fans flocked to see the band carry the flame through their hometown of Devon.

"Carrying the Olympic torch I would say is the one thing my mum is most proud of that I've ever done in my life. She still can't get over it to this day", said Bellamy.

"We ran across Sholdon Bridge and there was like 8000 people on the bridge all cheering us along", Howard chipped in. "It was just insane, but I actually hadn't been down there for a very long time so it was a pretty weird moment."

Muse's new album The 2nd Law will hit the shelves on Friday 28th September.