By Andrew Trendell NME Oct 5, 2017
"He was a friend, a mentor and a raconteur"
Placebo have spoken out about the impact of losing ‘friend and mentor’ David Bowie, and how it has shaped progress on their new album – which they say will be a dramatic departure for the band.
The band, who are currently auctioning off ‘iconic items‘ ahead of the UK leg of their 20th anniversary tour, spoke to NME about the impact of their recent greatest hits album and the experience of re-introducing older songs into their setlist.
“This is very much the most commercial tour that we’ve ever done in terms of what songs we’re playing,” frontman Brian Molko told NME. “Our last single ‘Jesus Son’ and the Talk Talk cover ‘Life Is What You Make It’ are possibly two of the most commercial tracks that we’ve ever done. What we have a tendency to do it react allergically against what we’ve just done, so it’s highly likely that the next thing we do will be something akin to career suicide.”
Molko continued: “I’ve started writing it already. The only thing that I really can say about any new material is that I’d really like to write something that reflects all the pain and frustration and tragedy that we as a species are experiencing today. That’s in the back of mind, very much so for the next album.”
While their eighth studio album was still taking shape, Molko revealed that the most aspect of the record was completely changing his creative process. This time, he’ll be using the ‘cut-up’ technique, as made famous by the late, great David Bowie.
“Basically, what I’ve done is thrown all the methods that I’ve used in the past out of the window,” Molko told NME. “I’m trying all new techniques when it comes to songwriting. For example, I’m writing a song on post-its at the moment which is very cut and paste and in the style of Bowie and William Burroughs. Another technique I’m using for some of the songs is to start with the title first and work backwards, I’ve never done that before. I’m just trying to keep myself interested and stimulated by changing the process. People often ask me what my inspiration is and the answer is actually quite boring: it’s the process, it’s discipline, it’s writing regularly.“I’m deconstructing my songwriting process and reconstructing it in a totally different way for the next record. There could be some serious surprises.”
Bowie once described Placebo as ‘the future’. As well as inviting them on tour, the band also recorded the seminal title track from 1998’s ‘Without You I’m Nothing’ together and performed a duet at the BRIT Awards.
Asked if his death had influenced him lyrically on the new record, Molko told NME: “I don’t know if it’s inspired the material directly, but certainly I’ve had a lot of time to meditate on a lot of what David said to me during the five or six years that we toured with him and I was in his orbit. He was my friend and my mentor. He gave me a lot of advice. I’m meditating more on how he was quite a sage and quite a raconteur as well.
