🎈🎉𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘: 𝐃𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈 𝐓𝐈𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐎𝐈🎉🎈

Dimitri Tikovoi is is a DJ and record producer. He is a friend of Brian and worked on several records with Placebo. The French artist will turn 49 years old tomorrow.

🎈🎉 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐃𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈! 🎉🎈

Photo credit: Claudia Schmölders, Dimitri Tikovoi IG (4) / edit by Silke

Dimitri Tikovoi was was 𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙨, 𝙁𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚, on December 10th 1972 – on the exact same date as Brian. 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 only 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 𝘒 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”.

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 of Brian and Dimitri's music project “Trash Palace”. Two 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.”

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

📌 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗗𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗥𝗜 𝗧𝗜𝗞𝗢𝗩𝗢𝗜 📌
📝 https://bit.ly/3lQHV8H

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗗𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗥𝗜 𝗧𝗜𝗞𝗢𝗩𝗢𝗜 📌
📢 ”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)

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)

 📢 “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)

Post by Silke