🍾🥧🎉 STEFAN OLSDAL TURNS 48 TODAY! 🎉🥧🍾

⭐“𝒀𝒐𝒖’𝒗𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆. 𝑺𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒗𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒕. ⭐
(𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙵𝙰𝙽 𝙾𝙻𝚂𝙳𝙰𝙻, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚛 𝙾𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟸0𝟷𝟽)


Not only an excellent musician and music theorist, but also a faithful friend and above all a beloved husband and father.
⭐𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐧 𝐎𝐥𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐥, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝟒𝟖𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲.⭐
Let's get ahead of our time tonight and dedicate this post to someone who deserves it so much.

Photo credit: Dave Clark IG

Stefan always seemed to me like a very modest, quiet man who doesn't need to impress people. In Brian's words, he's a man who can make music with anything that happens to be in his hands. Stefan's talent on music is simply extraordinary.
But it is also important that Stefan used his music career to raise awareness among people about the burning issues of society.


Let's take a look at what topics make up Stefan's world.

🔸𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝟏# 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓🔸
📌💬 „I think he (Brian) writes good lyrics. And he also has a vision and unusual ideas. I'm more of a technically based type. I can play many instruments and I am able to come up with instrumental ideas.“
(𝑆𝑡𝑒𝑓𝑎𝑛 𝑂𝑙𝑠𝑑𝑎𝑙, „𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠“, 𝑃𝑟𝑎́𝑣𝑜 2016)


📌💬 "Mine and Brian's styles differ a lot, he is much more gutsy, I'm more theoretically minded. That has always been an interesting combination of styles.
It's always a search for new combinations of guitars, amps and pedals. It doesn't matter how many distortion pedals you've got, there's always a cooler one out there."


𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭, 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫, 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐤𝐞𝐲𝐬?
"I started off playing drums! Then more out of vanity I was thinking if I was going to be in a band, I wanted to be in front of the drum kit!
"Then I picked up bass and taught myself the theory of music, and from there I went to piano because I wanted to explore the harmonies of music, and why certain notes work better with some rather than others.
"I then got into rock music and wanted to get my head around guitar. When I first joined Placebo I was on bass with us as a three piece, and gradually it started to move around."


𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭, 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭, 𝐩𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭, 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫 - 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐩 𝐣𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬?
"I never wanted to become a virtuoso on any instruments, I just wanted more tools to create music and write songs. Looking at someone like John Paul Jones, I admire him immensely for his playing and he is a string arranger and keyboard player. Some people want to get really good at one thing and that is also cool."
(𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑎𝑟 "𝑆𝑡𝑒𝑓𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑠, 𝑑𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜", 𝐴𝑢𝑔'13)

🔸𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝟐# 𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐆𝐁𝐓 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄🔸
📌💬 .../***/ He’s recently collaborated with Gizelle Renee to create a fingerless leather rainbow glove – based on Gilbert Baker’s world-famous design – celebrating their ‘mutual commitment to acceptance, respect, equality and human rights’.
The idea, he says, “started with Russia”.
He tracks back a few years to “a lengthy tour of Siberia – three weeks in cities we hadn’t even heard of”. With him being openly gay, Placebo’s lyrics, and Russia’s “draconian” attitude to sexuality,
“We were like, ‘We’re crazy doing this. Are we going to get out of there alive? I don’t know.’”
But he didn’t want to go there and not make some sort of statement:
“I painted my bass in the rainbow flag colours, and managed to get away with it without being hunted down or beaten up.”
It was a risk in Russia – waving the rainbow flag, so to speak, to an audience comprising minors, “but I managed to get away unscathed”.
He even posed for a photo “in the Red Square with my rainbow bass – a symbolic f*ck you”.
Then he felt he wanted to carry on with the message, but with
“something a bit more portable and powerful in a different sense”.
Inspired by the rainbow fist symbol, he teamed up with Gizelle Renee in creating “a really good quality glove” for him to wear onstage.
“Then we said, ‘Why not share this, why not make something more out of this?’”
Now others can purchase a pair of rainbow gloves, with proceeds being split between the Peter Tatchell Foundation and the LGBT Foundation.
“The message still needs to be heard. We’re in a world of bigots, still, they’re everywhere. There’s countries where we are still persecuted and some countries even carry the death penalty for sodomy. So it still feels relevant to stand up behind the rainbow – we’re pushing it out there.”
(𝑆𝑇𝐸𝐹𝐴𝑁 𝑂𝐿𝑆𝐷𝐴𝐿 "𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝑅𝑈𝑆𝑆𝐼𝐴 𝑇𝑂 𝑅𝐴𝐼𝑁𝐵𝑂𝑊𝑆", 𝐹𝑦𝑛𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠, 2018)


🔸𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝟑# 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓🔸
.../***/ I then ask him about his own son, and what steps he takes to instil into him the values of acceptance and equality.
“He’s got an issue with gender,” he informs me.
“He can’t differentiate between male and female. He basically refers to people as people, and I’m like, ‘Ok, he’s helping me get my head out of boxes.’”
Sometimes, he says, his child will return home from school where he’s been told by somebody that a man should marry a woman.
“Well, no son,” he says back, “that’s not right – that’s simply not true. Matter of fact.” For him, “Equality and justice for all is such a matter-of-fact thing.”
This is the way he’s trying to teach his son said values –
“the way I believe it should be”.
If I were to have a child I’d so want them to learn the aforementioned principles and would feel real pressure to make sure they did, and would be frightened of failing them in that respect.
“As a parent all your insecurities are brought to the front,” he says,
“because you’re constantly trying to direct a person’s life in terms of what you know. And sometimes I realise I know nothing.”
His kid will ask questions, he resumes, and he has no idea of the answers.
“You try to make it up, but you don’t get away with it with kids because they see straight through you. You’ve just got to pull from your resources, you’ve got to grow up a bit, you’ve got to be consistent in what you teach them, and just go with what’s right to you. We all have our own realities and it’s just about trying to instil what I believe is fair and just – but at the same time I cannot force him to be or think exactly like me.”
(𝐹𝑦𝑛𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠, 2018)

Photo credit unknown

🔸𝐓𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝟒# 𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇🔸
.../***/ “Mental health is being talked about more these days,” Olsdal says, “and I welcome that dearly. I am openly in recovery as well,” he continues,
“so I am going to talk about my experiences with addiction. That’s what’s happening on the fringes of my existence – I’m just trying to share my experience as an addict in recovery, and bring mental health issues to the forefront. I’m trying to encourage conversation and discussion and just let people know that help is out there.”
He highlights the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), which ‘is leading a movement against male suicide, the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK’.
“I’ve been to very, very dark places,” he states, “and I know people who have committed suicide. It’s horrible, and I just want people to know there are other options.”
Who was there for him when he needed help? It was the Samaritans, who in a 20-minute phone call lifted “a huge burden” off him. “Samaritans is a great helpline.”
CALM also provide a helpline, he tells me.
“So as a first step, if there’s no one else you can turn to, these charities are there. It’s incredible just to talk to someone who will listen and can empathise. It can do you the world of good if you’re in a dark place.”
He says there’s a way out of loneliness, which he cites as something depression and anxiety stems from.
“Humans aren’t made to be alone; that’s what causes anxiety, because we have to get back to our pack, our tribe – we’re pack animals, we’re not made to be by ourselves. A lot of anxiety and depression is about lost connections with people, or a lost connection with yourself or your values.”
Loneliness, he says, like addiction, does not discriminate.
“It happens to the whole spectrum of people.”
In sharing his own journey he hopes to make the world a better place. It might only be a drop in the ocean, he points out, but that's more than no drops at all.
(𝐹𝑦𝑛𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠, 2018)


Finally, Stefan's quote, which is so useful for today:
📌💬 /***/ "...you can't change the world in which we live. Even in a democracy you can't do anything, there will be shit around you, time goes on and you can't do anything, nothing can stop it. So it's about finding a glimmer of hope in all this mess, finding the bright side of things.“
(𝐸𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑦, 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ/𝐽𝑢𝑛𝑒 2009)


Dear soulmates,
the shared video is an example of Stefan's musical talent.
This is a Placebo version of the song Post Blue, which was specially rearranged for one of the most beautiful shows - MTV Unplugged 2015.
I hope you enjoyed today's post and would love to read your comments.


💝𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐅𝐀𝐍!!!
🎉🥧🍾✨🥂🎊🌺🎁💥

Post by Marti