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| Photo credits: Alan Rennie Photography |
Interview with Brian Molko: ‘We embraced the rock n' roll lifestyle with enormous enthusiasm’
by Remfry Dedman @remfrydedman for www.independent.co.uk
Brian Molko reflects on the alternative rock band’s career as they wrap up a retrospective 20 Years of Placebo tour
It’s fair to say that Brian Molko, lead singer and songwriter for Placebo, the band he’s fronted now for 23 years, is well aware of their reputation for garnering praise and scorn in almost equal measure. As is made obvious from the quote above, he is perfectly at ease with such a perception, even historically going so far as to positively encourage disdain from those who he himself holds in contempt.
It’s exactly this desire to goad, challenge and confront that has made Placebo one of the most interesting and remarkable bands of the past 30 years, even if the majority of the British music press were initially too busy trying to work out the sexuality of individual band members to notice. After all, what band ever achieved anything worthwhile by straddling the middle of the road? “We had the capability to deal with the press at the time; it was a bit like pouring petrol on a fire” he says, before adding with a cheeky grin which implies that he might not be entirely serious “we’re far more sensitive these days.”
Given Placebo’s history with the press, one might think that Molko would be at best wary, at worst down-right hostile towards journalists. When I meet up with him prior to a rehearsal for the last leg of the band’s current retrospective tour however, any fears of a frosty reception are allayed almost immediately. Instead this afternoon, he proves to be warm, friendly, engaging and never too far away from erupting into fits of laughter. He speaks slowly in that familial, nasal tone that gives Placebo one of the distinct characteristics that people either adore or abhor and provides, considerate, well-thought out answers to all my questions, even being so gracious as to extend our interview not just once, but twice.
“We got thrust into the limelight very quickly and we embraced our early success with a lot of glee’ he says between drags on a cigarette and with a glint in his eye. ‘We had this feeling of utter disbelief, as if we were naughty schoolchildren that had fooled everyone and were about to be found out any minute. So we embraced the rock n' roll lifestyle with enormous enthusiasm, as I think every young band should, you know? It's a rite of passage and it comes with the territory. We were surprised by how well the first album did, particularly when ‘Nancy Boy’ got to number 4 in the charts and we had to perform it on Top of the Pops; that really had never been a part of the plan! Our motivation was simply to never get a job in an office; we expected to hopefully be able to pay the rent and put food on the table and we would have been very satisfied with that but the universe had different plans for us. We stuck out like a sore thumb in a music scene where Britpop was king; the timing was accidental but it also proved to be rather fortuitous for us.”
Bolstered by this unexpected serendipity, Placebo pranced cocksure and panda-eyed into a musical landscape awash with macho posturing and male bravado. Their heroes, Lou Reed, Marc Bolan and David Bowie among them, had all pushed the boundaries of androgyny and sexuality in the 70s but Placebo found themselves thrust unwillingly into a musical landscape that, broadly speaking, had little time to confront the prudish attitudes of the bourgeois.
“I wanted to challenge the homophobia that I was witnessing in the music scene” says Molko. “I wanted anybody who was slightly homophobic to show up at our gigs and think 'Oh, I really fancy the singer. She's hot!' only to find out later that the singer was called Brian, which would hopefully lead them to go home and ask themselves a few questions. Of course the cross-dressing was an aesthetic choice but for us, it was also a political act; that was a very big part of what we were trying to achieve at that time.”
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| Photo credits: Jaro Novac |
