"𝗠𝗘𝗗𝗦" 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗘𝗥 𝗗𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗥𝗜 𝗧𝗜𝗞𝗢𝗩𝗢𝗜 𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗡𝗦 𝟰𝟴 𝗧𝗢𝗗𝗔𝗬

Dimitri Tikovoi is a French artist, DJ and record producer. He is a personal friend of Brian and exactly the same age as him, so he turns 48 years old today.

𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐃𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈 𝐓𝐈𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐎𝐈!

Photo credit: dimitritikovoi.rocks

Dimitri Tikovoi was 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 10𝘵𝘩 1972 𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴, France. His parents were both luminaries in the French theatre scene. He hated it because being born around theatre people meant he “simply had too much of it”, as he stated in an interview with Soundfreakcom in 2006. Dimitri: “I suppose music was my way of rebelling.”

He started 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘴 when he was seven years old. Later he went to 𝘥𝘳𝘶𝘮 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 at the Conservatory of Classical Music, and also Jazz at CIM, the Institute of Contemporary Music in Paris. He even used to tour as a drummer back then.

Dimitri 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 by playing with bands and recording them in his little studio at home on a four-track recorder. “Then little by little things fell into place… “
He 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘒 because of the music. “Here in England there are lots of pubs and clubs where you can play and learn to be good but in France there’s nothing in between someone playing accordion in the town hall and big venues for bands that are already established. There aren’t enough venues for live music so there aren’t many touring rock bands… if you’re a young band in France it’s really hard”.

Brian Molko and Dimitri Tikovoi, London, June 2008. Photo credit unknown

Dimitri got to know Placebo through Rob Ellis because they had the same manager at the time and Rob was asked to do a string arrangement on one track. He was struggling a bit with it so Dimitri offered to let him come to his home studio and demo the strings. “Placebo really liked it so instead of getting some string players, they asked me to come to the studio with some samples and used what I had done.” Brian and Dimitri quickly became friends then.

Over the years he did several remixes for the band, produced some of their early singles and the album “Meds”. He also worked on “Kings of medicine” from “Battle for the sun”. In 2002 there was a collaboration between Brian and Dimitri's music project “Trash Palace”. Three songs with Brian on vocals were released on the album “Positions”.
Asked if it is a good thing to work with friends or if it can cause problems Dimitri answered: “It could go both ways, but if you’re going to spend 6 months in the studio with someone, you will either become friends or you will hate each other! I don’t think it’s changed much with Placebo because we respect each other.”

Brian Molko and Dimitri Tikovoi, London, June 2008. Photo credit unknown

 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗗𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗥𝗜 𝗧𝗜𝗞𝗢𝗩𝗢𝗜
 "The collaboration was just for fun! Dimitri Tikovoï is my buddy. We have the same sense of humour, porn makes us laugh. What is strange is that people, the media, everybody took us very seriously."
(Les Inrockuptibles, 2002)

To come back to Dimitri, isn’t it hard to work with a friend as a producer?
“Yes, it is! We had an argument the first week, the kind of «Why do you treat me this way? I’m your friend!» But after the first week, it became very easy. Since the clash was ended, we take the roles established between producer and artists, then it become really easy because no one is afraid of hurt the ego of the other.“
(Rock Magazine, December 2005)

”There wasn’t a generational gap or a cultural gap between us. In fact, we were born on the same day of the same year so we were very good friends before we started working on this record [“Meds”]. He realized that we’d found a comfort zone which was Vince’s synthesizers. He wanted to pull us out of that comfort zone and make us stare at ourselves in the mirror to make us realize that in essence we are a rock band.”
(Suicide Girls, May 14th 2006)

Post by Silke