You can listen to the 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 here:
👉 https://bit.ly/3zdP7zb
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| Photo credit: Mads Perch |
So, we can confirm that “Beautiful James” is a new single, Placebo's first single in five years. And maybe most excitingly, Steve Lamacq is going to have the world exclusive first play of the single today here on 6 Music, on his show after 4 pm today, brilliant exclusive to get from Steve! We're kind of assuming this is the opening sound from a new album but everything's kind of secret right now.
But yeah, so, to shine some light on this new music and also to talk about the process the band have engaged in to create the music, talk a bit about Beautiful James and also what he's been doing over the past year and a half, yesterday - just yesterday! - I spoke to man, Brian Molko himself, and here he is!
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘? 𝑩𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒂 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒆'𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝑰 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆…
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: It's got to be about three years, and one of the last ones I did was with you but I mean I'm sure I've done a handful, I did a handful after that but not very many. I'm nervous, I mean I think I've ever been nervous and now, after like this pause, um, I'm finding everything that I was used to being new and nerve-wracking to me. So it's… it's different, I don't know how I feel about it but it's different.
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝑰𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒍𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒄𝒐𝒐𝒏, 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒊𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕?
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: I wish I'd done what Stefan did, which was go to the gym three times a week during lockdown to keep himself sane. I just went ‘Oh well, there are about… there's got to be at least 25 series of Doctor Who, I really need to reacquaint myself with every single episode!’ So that's kind of what I did! I watched every every episode of Doctor Who available.
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒋𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒏, 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒕!
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: Yes! Yeah, you know, I can go on celebrity mastermind now, you know (laugh).
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝑺𝒐, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒌 - 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏, 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆? 𝑻𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅.
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: Well, in January-February 2020, we were basically ready to go on tour. The album was almost finished, and we spent 2019 in our home studio working on it, you know. We sort of decided already that Beautiful James would be the first single. So we had a lot of confidence and we had a lot of kind of ‘get up and go’. And then obviously, what happened, happened, and so everything's kind of delayed by about two years now.
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| Photo credit: Placeboworld |
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: It is, but it's better to… I felt like a penguin or something sitting on an egg, you know (laugh). I think it's better, it's better to have an egg to sit on, you know, than to not, you know. So, I think that maybe having that egg, you know, and knowing… However, frustrating it was, you know, like ‘oh another wait, oh another wait’ - as I know it was frustrating for the fans - but you know, it was equally – well, I don't know if equally but certainly very frustrating for us as well, kind of the interminable way to put out new music. But you know, at least it was there, so we knew we had it, yeah.
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒅, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆… 𝑾𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒈𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈? 𝑾𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉?
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: Well, we don't make it easy on ourselves, um, I mean I have a… what I would describe as a boredom problem. Stefan has often said that he's never met anybody with a lower boredom threshold than myself. And not really kind of it influences and informs the way that we work. This time I came to Stefan with images first, ‘I want to do everything backwards so let's choose an album cover before we write any music!’
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈!
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: ‘Here's a list of song titles which I've been writing over the past five years, let's start with these song titles instead of starting with the music, let's do everything backwards, let's do everything that we do last, first! Let's do this whole album without a drummer because there's been a drummer on every album so far. It's just me and you now in the studio - let's just do it me and you!’ In the end, we ended up using two drummers, you know, kind of thing (laugh). But… and of course, this kind of backwards way of working kind of floated away as the process started, but it very much informed this sort of break with the process and the way that you would normally approach everything. I just needed to do it backwards at the beginning just to kind of feel like I was doing something different.
𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭: 𝑶𝒌𝒂𝒚, 𝒍𝒆𝒕'𝒔 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 “𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝑱𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔” 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒘𝒆'𝒓𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒'𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘. 𝑻𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎? 𝑻𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏.
📢 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: Well, like I said it was earlier when I was talking about presenting song titles to songs that hadn't been written, you know. I had this list of song titles and that was one of them, and for some reason it just kind of jumped out of the page at me and, you know, and it made itself known. But it kind of started during a period of major insomnia for me in 2019. I was having this kind of… I mean I have issues with sleep, and I can sort of go through periods where I, for a couple of months, I don't really get more than two or three hours sleep at night. And this was a particularly bad couple of weeks, but in my kind of stupor I was getting kind of… I don't know where from, but melodies and phrases were coming into my head. I was kind of delirious, you know, from lack of sleep and therefore connected to something which I didn't really know what it was, but these things were just coming into my head. And I remember having to sort of get out of bed like five, six times a night even though I wasn't sleeping and just go over to the piano and record a melody onto my phone. And one of those melodies was called “Bad Piano” because I'd recorded it at like 5 in the morning, you know, just to get the notes down. And so, for a long time “Beautiful James” was called ‘Bad Piano” because the initial, the main hook melody was written by me at 5 o'clock in the morning in the middle of a major bout of insomnia. And then, Stefan had to take it and make some sense out of it, and it became the keyboard riff, the main riff of “Beautiful James”. I really want each person who cares enough to listen to the record to find their own story. So, Beautiful James… I fully expect people to ask me all the time ‘Who is Beautiful James? Who is Beautiful James?’ Well, I don't know! Who's your favourite James? James Corden or James Brown - which one do you prefer? Or like, you know, who is James to you? and is James even a man? These are questions I'm not going to answer, these are questions I want people to ask themselves.
Your Placebo Anyway Team 💖
