🔻 𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙑𝙄𝙀𝙒 𝙒𝙄𝙏𝙃 𝘽𝙍𝙄𝘼𝙉 𝙈𝙊𝙇𝙆𝙊 𝘼𝙏 𝙁𝙍𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀 𝙄𝙉𝙁𝙊 (2022) 🔻

"𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧." ⁣ - 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘰𝘭𝘬𝘰

♦️ We've entered a part of the 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 that we didn't know before. Since the release of 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐞 𝐆𝐨, we've been showered with interviews, reviews, but that doesn't mean we're getting tired of it, does it ? 😄💚

♦️ Today, I share with you an interview with 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧, at 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒇𝒐, broadcasted on March 30th 2022. An interview in which he reveals his gratitude to the 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝑛𝑠. His touching admiration for 𝑫𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒅 𝑩𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒆 since he left for another world is so moving. And if you want to know if he thinks he's a good singer or not, or if he's realised his childhood dream, I advise you to read on 😉

♦️ 𝘐'𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘉𝘢𝘻 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘩 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘥 ! 😊
💖 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗞 𝗬𝗢𝗨 💋

Photo credit:  Mads Perch / Edit by Laetitia

◾ ⁣𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐.⁣
⭐ Hello.

◾ 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏-𝑺𝒄𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓, 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒚 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒐-𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒇𝒂𝒏 𝑶𝒍𝒔𝒅𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒃𝒐, 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 1996, 26 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒈𝒐. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒓 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓, 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒇𝒂𝒏 𝑶𝒍𝒔𝒅𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒅, 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒇𝒆𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒔, 𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎: 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝑴𝒆 𝑮𝒐. 𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 13 𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒅, 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒃𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆. 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎𝒔 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒕 ? 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌, 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 ?
⭐ The starting point was in 2016, when we made the decision to do this retrospective tour. We thought: "We have to be careful because we have quite a dysfunctional relationship with our old songs". So we decided to start writing stuff during the breaks of this tour to keep feeling like artists.

⭐ This process of renewal, of looking for something new, is imperative for me, I really don't want to be bored with Placebo. You have to really push yourself to find different methods, challenging situations, things to say that you find important, to basically do something that feeds you, because without that self-feeding, why would you do that ? I would ask myself that question all the time. What am I doing here ? If I don't believe in it, if I don't have something that I have a strong emotional connection with, a belief.

⭐ I write in moments of urgency. I have something consuming me from the inside. If I don't externalize it, it will continue to consume me. These are often emotions that are problematic, difficult, sad, angry, frustrated.

⭐ I'm lucky enough to be able to go through a fairly cathartic process, it's almost a form of therapy and the positive thing is that it touches people, emotionally. There is this human connection. We shouldn't be too at ease in everything we do, that was one of the mantras of my dear friend David Bowie, who is no longer with us: "If you're comfortable, then you're not doing it right". That's what he used to say to me all the time.

Photo credit:Florian Jaenicke

◾ ⁣𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝑫𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒅 𝑩𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒆 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 ? 𝑯𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒉𝒖𝒈𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒉, 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒕 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 ?
⭐ I would say he influenced me more as a human being than a musician. I learned a lot from touring with him at the beginning of my career, about what it is to be a rock star and how to do it and the methods he used. But it was more the way he was with people that I learned the most from. He treated everyone with the same dignity and kindness. I would say he taught me to be a better human being. But I was too young, too arrogant, too naive and too drunk to realise it when I was there with him. It was only when he left us that I really understood the effect he had on me as a human being. These days, it's a little bit like he's still with me. I feel like I still have a relationship with him. It gives me a lot of comfort.


◾ ⁣𝑫𝒊𝒅 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 ? 𝑩𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒍𝒆𝒕, 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔. 𝒀𝒐𝒖'𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒚𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒔 𝒕𝒐𝒐. 𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆, 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 ?
⭐ Not really. No. I'm in a constant state of evolution. I'm constantly losing myself, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.


◾ ⁣𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏 ?
⭐ It's the journey that counts because the journey is actually the destination.


◾ 𝑨 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆, 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏. 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒃𝒐, 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒖𝒕. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒕 ? 𝑫𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 ? 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒕 ? 𝑰𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 ? 𝑨𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆? 𝑶𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆 ?
⭐ I don't really consider myself a guitarist. I know how to write a song. I know how to find melodies that are catchy. I would say that with my voice, which fortunately is quite unique, there is a certain excellence. That's perhaps one of my ONLY certainties, I am a good singer.

Photo credit: David Willis

◾⁣ 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝑱𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎. 𝑰'𝒎 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝑵𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒚 𝑩𝒐𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆. 𝑫𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 ?
⭐ It wasn't really a choice, it was essential. We were given a context where we could discover ourselves and be ourselves. We decided to have the courage to present ourselves in the way that was imperative for us. We were given scenes to do this. It was a bit like a process of self-discovery. We realised very quickly that there were a lot of people like us who felt like outsiders and those outsiders became our audience.


◾  𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒋𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒚 ? 𝑶𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒋𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅. 𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓 13 𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒅. 𝑶𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒍𝒚, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒓𝒏 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔 ?
⭐ (𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘴) Oh dear... Your question confuses me a little bit because I'm thinking that if I'm a source of hope for other people, we might be totally screwed here. It's really not something I think about very much because I think I would become too self conscious. I have no control over how people see me. Why would I worry about that ? Isn't it holier to worry about things you can control ? There's a sentence in English that says: "what other people think of me is not of my business". I really like this idea.


◾ ⁣𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆, 𝒊𝒏 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕. 𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚, 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒚𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆.
⭐ I think I've never been as angry as I am now. You can hear it in the album. It's a very human anger that goes hand in hand with a sadness. I'm also very disappointed in humanity and I talk about that in the album.


◾ ⁣𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒕. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒕, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕. 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎.
⭐ The source of hope for me is my son's generation. Maybe they will really change things in the future, maybe not. Maybe we're damned. I don't know. To be totally honest with you, I have to keep things really, really simple for myself. I'm someone who is very lucky because I write the songs and people want to listen to them. I can express myself. I have a way to express myself and for that I'm incredibly grateful. But I try not to think about it more than that. I'm someone who writes songs and I'm lucky that there are a lot of people who want to listen to them. I have to keep it as simple as that in my head. Otherwise it becomes overwhelming.


◾ ⁣𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒆𝒕 𝑴𝒆 𝑮𝒐. 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚. 𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒛𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝑭𝒊𝒙 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒔: 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇, 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔.
⭐ That's it.

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

◾ ⁣𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆.
⭐ Absolutely. It seems to me that most people are out in the world, telling other people how to live without looking at themselves. If you can't help someone else without helping yourself, what the hell are you doing telling other people how to live their lives basically ? So yeah, fix yourself before you try to fix somebody else.


◾ ⁣𝑫𝒊𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒇𝒊𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒃𝒐 ?
⭐ Yes, because when I was 11 years old, I looked at my father and said: "You dress up like that every day and go to the same place every day to sit behind a desk ? Oh no, that's not possible. If I do that, I'll become incredibly depressed." So even at the age of 11, I thought: "I'll have to find something else to do because I don't understand the 'subway, work, sleep'. It's really not for me."

⭐ I went to drama school, but even that wasn't enough for me.


◾ ⁣𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒂 𝒕𝒐𝒐.
⭐ That's it. When I graduated, I said to myself: "This is not really what you want to do Brian. What you really want to do is form a band".


◾ ⁣𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒇𝒂𝒏 𝑶𝒍𝒔𝒅𝒂𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏. 𝑾𝒆 𝒐𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒅. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒆𝒕, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 26 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒇𝒂𝒏 !
⭐ Yes, it does. Together we can really create magic. It's not just a collaboration. It's not really the same thing. We are very lucky to have each other because we can do something together, which is bigger, more effective, more emotional than if we did it alone. We need each other to make magic.


◾ ⁣𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒆𝒕 𝑴𝒆 𝑮𝒐. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒏 𝑳𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆 𝒅'𝑬𝒍𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒇𝒐. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉.
⭐ Thank you very much.

✒️ Translation by Laetitia and Baz / transcription by Laetitia
♦️ You can listen to the interview here 📻 https://bit.ly/3E3HRdh 😉

Photo credit: Liam Duke

♦️ David Bowie had a major impact on Brian, and I guess on Stefan too. They've become better humans. I can say Placebo made (and still makes me) a better person. I am proud to be an outsider, and proud to be part of an outsiders community 💝

♦️ Dear Soulmates, what comes through for me in this interview is that nothing in life is easy. And that we gain greatness when we manage to overcome its difficulties, pitfalls, other obstacles and acknowledge our mistakes with time. Accepting differences with respect and honouring our world will be the salvation of us all.

♦️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, Brian tells us. The journey can be slowed down, we can stall ans stagnate, but the important thing is to move forward. 𝑨𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔.

♦️ As the song was mentioned, Fix Yourself is the perfect song to end this nice interview 💗

🎶 𝐅𝐢𝐱 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 🎥 https://bit.ly/3jmiD0f 🎶

Post by Laetitia

🔸𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘🔸

Photo credit: Mads Perch

“Of course there are people who judge me for having an opinion on climate change. But that's something I see as very important. Why I am interested in it more nowadays? Because I am by far not as anaesthesized anymore as I was ten or even twenty years ago. Not only do I have a clearer view now but also more compassion. My bravado was replaced by empathy, especially given the fact that I had the arrogance to breed and will leave a human being here who has to deal with all this shit. That's absolutely breaking my heart. I am very angry, but also sad that we have allowed all this to happen.”
(Orkus, March/April 2022)

𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘙 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘶𝘮 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘰. 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵? 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵?

Post by Silke

⭐𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐁𝐂 𝟔 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂 𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐎 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗 (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐)⭐

Here’s the second part of Brian's interview with Steve Lamacq from May 2009 (you may remember the first one I shared in my last Thursday post). Besides discussing then new 𝑩𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒖𝒏 album, Steve offered Brian kind of a game regarding some of the festivals Placebo used to perform. Again, the conversation turned to be deeply meaningful yet absolutely relaxed and funny at times.

Photo credit: Rock for People Festival, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, July 6, 2009

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Saturday night in Sheffield! Absolutely loved the new stuff, it sounded really vital. Thank you for a great night!
And Zoe from Liverpool says ‘I have a question for Brian, do you know the future setlist of the tour? Will you be playing the songs off the first album as well as this new album?’
It must be quite a challenge now - isn't it? – to try to fit all these pieces of the puzzle together into a coherent setlist?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: It is, it is, and we've always had a very kind of love-hate relationship with our back catalogue. It’s always been kind of a struggle to get a set together of the tunes of our own that we actually like enough to play on an evening. Now, there’s an album six, we’ve got enough material that we can kind of keep everybody happy, I suppose, ourselves and the audience too. But we will be playing the stuff from the first album.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: So, material from the new album… there’s a track on the album which is called The Never-Ending Why which is a really rallying cry! It’s like a rebel song, it’s like really big, almost old-fashioned new wave song in the song.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah, I mean…

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Is it in the list?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah, it’s definitely in the list! I mean it’s a song I guess about the questions that we all have that never get answered. ‘Why there’s so much pain, suffering, and tragedy in the world?’ I guess the message of that song is that ‘Well, you can spend an entire life looking for those answers and you may never get them… And then it’s gone… and isn’t that better just accept that and go on with your life?’

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Are you too analytical at times in yourself, about certain things? Is there a slight OCD [Obsessive-compulsive disorder]?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Absolutely, I am a complete mental masturbator, you know, I’m somebody who has too much to think. It kind of describes me very well. (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Because it’s another song, Devil In The Details, which makes me think about that.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yes, absolutely, that’s the voices in your head. I have a joke about, like some people have a little angel and a demon on a shoulder where I have two demons and there’s some shouting match going on.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Bickering demons!
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah, yeah!

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Would be nice to spend a week in your head. (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: You’ve just mentioned live gigs. This is very important point about the band, I mean the popularity of the group through various different countries all around, particularly all around Europe. You often do a myriad of festivals, again, to a lot of which I’ve been. So can I try out this?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Go for it!

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: I'm just going to give you a list, some of the names of the festivals you're doing.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Ok.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: What’s one sentence which describes these festivals? As I mentioned you’ve probably done some of these before. So, off the top of your head, what do you think of when I say ‘May 30th, Pinkpop’?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Pinkpop… it’s always a very eclectic bill at Pinkpop, it’s in Holland and it’s strange because it’s a mixture of bands that you'd never find anywhere else.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Okay, Rock am Ring?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Oh, big German behemoth of a festival! (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)

Photo credit: Ullstein Bild

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Nova Rock? What is, where’s Nova Rock?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Nova Rock is in Austria and that's a heavy rock festival. That’s like a festival that Metallica - I don’t know if Slipknot are playing this year – it’s that stuff kind of festival.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: How do you get those festivals right now?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Those festivals scare me, absolutely scare me. I always feel like the gay one in a class at a festival like that.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Do you have crew envy? Because I measured that Metallica come along with fourteen buses of people, do they?!
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, they do. They also come along with these sort of invisible barriers that nobody’s allowed to cross, that kind of thing! They have like a force field around them wherever they go, so you never get close enough to Metallica to sort of get envious. (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Rock Wave?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Rock Wave is in Athens.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Wow, sounds good!
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah, and that’s a fantastic festival. We always have a great time there, it’s really warm and the Greek audience is a very demonstrative.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: And so, one more I think. I like the way that most, nearly all, of these festivals apart from Reading which is used to be called Reading Rock over here, we don’t have ‘rock’ in a title of any our festivals. But anywhere else you go in Europe, ‘rock’ has to be a simplicity part of the title.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Absolutely!

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: So, Rock for People?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Ah I knew you’re going to choose that one! I think that one is in Czechoslovakia, isn’t it? I think that we haven't played that yet but, you know, much more has been heard with the relation to the title: ‘Rock for People? Like Rock for Cows or Rock for Pigs?’ (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)

Photo credit: Petrklappercom 

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Anyways, you’re playing soon Rock for People, you might be listening online, you might get to know the festival, do you drop us a line? [𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑑, 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑑 𝑅𝑜𝑐𝑘 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙]
Highlights of your own and highlights of this new album: because I prefer this record to Meds, this latest record maybe because it’s more…
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: That’s ok.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: …a coherent type of record. And also maybe just because there’s like a glimmer of sunshine.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Absolutely! We have a tendency not to take a lot of decisions before we go into the studio. But this time around, Stefan and I did have a discussion about the fact that we felt that Meds was perhaps, at least emotionally, one of our darkest records and it didn’t offer a great deal of hope and was perhaps misrepresenting us as people. We really thought that this time around we really wanted to do something that did offer a glimmer of hope, a little bit more upbeat and optimistic because of that.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: As soon as you’re saying this, it seems to be it poses some questions, it’s kind of reflective in places that you seem to come with some sort of conclusion ‘I don’t want to be over here, I don’t know where I want to be’ and it finishes with the track called Kings Of Medicine. But as a whole, if there’s one thing that ties it all together, it’s almost like an old saying ‘What doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger’. That’s what this record feels like.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yes, I feel very much like a bit of a survivor I guess, within the industry and also as a human being, having what I’ve been through the past 15 years which have been kind of crazy and quite aborted for the band. And I think that will to survive, that will to carry on, is what’s important and significant.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: It’s a great place to finish it! [...] Thank you so much Brian!
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Thank you Steve!
(𝐵𝐵𝐶 6 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑅𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑜, 𝑀𝑎𝑦 11𝑡ℎ, 2009)

Transcription by Olga
Post by Olga

⭐𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐁𝐂 𝟔 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂 𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐎 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗 (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏)⭐

Some time ago, I found an audio recording of a brilliant 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 that Brian did with 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒 on BBC 6 Music Radio back in 2009.

I’d really like to note that Brian’s interviews with Steve are always so perfectly effortless, friendly and witty. I’m sure the reason for that is that they know each other for many many years, actually from the very beginning of Placebo’s career!
So today, I’m bringing you the first part of this interview that I transcribed for you.
Started from Brian’s school memories, it goes to the times of recording of Battle For The Sun with lots of precious never-before-heard moments along their conversation…

Placebo at Reading 2009. Photo credit unknown

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Welcome at 6 Music for a Monday evening! David Bowie ‘Let’s Dance’. Well, everyone's favorite hero’s David Bowie. Brian Molko, favourite Bowie album?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: It’s got to be “Ziggy Stardust…’ Yeah, to me that was really the one that I sort of studied, got heavily into. It’s guitars I think…

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: When did you hear it, what sort of age did you hear that record?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, let me see… My basketball coach at school in Luxembourg gave me a cassette with “Ziggy Stardust…’ on it and a couple of tracks of ‘Aladdin Sane’, and I must’ve been about fourteen or something around that time.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: So now, in Molko town… where are you living now?.. What part of the world are you living in?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: I live in London, I live in East London.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Ok, in Molko town, East London, who wins in a fight, I don’t mean a physical fight, but who wins between Bowie and Sonic Youth?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Oooof, well, Sonic Youth I guess ‘cause they’ve got so many more guitars which they just can pummel Bowie with.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Alright then. Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, you know, you’re asking me to choose between my first love and other loves in my life, but Sonic Youth remain my first and ultimate love. So they will kind of always win, really.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: One of the reasons I ask that is because of the opening track of the new album. Kitty Litter is a little bit Sonic Youth-ie in my head.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: It’s interesting you mentioned this track because me and Stefan, we started writing it about 14-15 years ago…

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: No! Really?!
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: … and we were writing it… we were members of a guitar orchestra this guy called Rhys Chatham had who’s a contemporary of Glenn Branca’s. These are kind of alternative avant-garde composers who came out of no wave scene. The members of Sonic Youth have actually played with Glenn Branca. But his contemporary Rhys Chatham has written his symphony for one hundred and one guitars which required you to sort of restring your instrument and tune it in a certain way. And backstage, Stefan and I, we were just playing around with this tuning and we wrote this summery upbeat kind of tune and we never finished it, never wrote any lyrics. But, in the back of my head, I was like ‘One day it’s gonna make a really good rock song.’ And in 15 years later, when we reconvened, I was like ‘Let’s try this!’ and it was the first thing that we kind of got our teeth in.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Essentially, the longest overdue homework…
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Absolutely!

Placebo at Main Square 2009. Photo credit unknown

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Ever! That’s pretty much so. That’s the first track, we will talk through the record. We should explain the whole process this time around because you made it yourself, you financed it yourself this time around, this record.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yes.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Did you do anything differently because of that?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, you have a different attitude towards the purse strings a little bit when it’s your own money.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Had to bring your own tea into the studio?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Actually we did, yeah (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠) you know, because you can't get decent tea in Canada, yeah. Even though they're still the Queen's children over there but you still can't get a decent cup of tea, so we had to bring our PG tips over, I’m affirming you that.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: So you rehearsed out the songs - did you? - before you went to the studio or were you still writing it over there?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: No, we rehearsed at all in West London, at the Railway Arch in West London where we work, and David Bottrill came over from Toronto. And so we did a lot of pre-production work with him on the structure and arrangements of the songs. So it was the first time we really worked that way with a producer. We just got the song as far as we could get it, played it to him, and then he would’ve just deconstructed and put it back together in a more sophisticated way. So he's kind of responsible for, you know, that structural complexity of this record.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: You’re learning things about your own musical writing by seeing the process happened then…
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah, I mean it really forces you to not be extremely precious about your material and to have the right attitude about it, it puts you in a place of humility towards the song, you have to serve the song itself. So it's a good process to sort of squash the ego. (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Did you need your ego squashed?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah, every now and again, yeah, you know, I'm not as bad as I used to be but every now and again I get a little carried away of myself. So yeah, a bit of humility it was good.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: So, no diva moments now in the studio?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: No… it was a very disciplined and workman-like kind of experience. And normally we would record about 9 or 10 songs, this time around we recorded 18. I think that was the fact that we were far away from home, so we didn't have everyday life distractions getting in the way. We had 3000 miles away from our managers, so they couldn’t stick their nose in. And we didn't have a record company at the time worried about the commercial aspect of it. So we just felt completely free.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: And you had a new drummer first time, isn’t it?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: That's right.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: You’ve stuck on: when a drummer Steve leaves, you employ a new drummer called… Steve.
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Yeah.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Was his name on the flight cases so you didn’t want to scrub it off and repaint somebody else's name?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, we didn't want to be prejudiced towards all Steves of the world, we didn’t hold it against him and we decided to kind of focus on his musical ability and his positive mental attitude towards being in a band rather than hold to that unfortunate moniker against him. (𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠)

Placebo at Cirque Royal 2009. Photo credit unknown

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Do you have a final idea of what the record's going to sound like in the shape of the finished product? I think you’ve mentioned before somewhere that this is like a book, with 13 chapters to this book, isn’t is a bit vaguely?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, a bit more like a collection of short stories to me that sort of relate to each other, really. And I hope that there's some kind of thematic unity. It's not really meant to be a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, but it’s meant… if seen as a whole, it can be appreciated, and also if each individual song this is just seen individually, it can be appreciated as far as meaning is concerned.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: When you listen to this record (we have a lot of Placebo fans listening and we’ve got some questions actually coming from some of the fans which we’ll get to in a second) but when you finally hear this record – it was pretty up in my head - it does sort of start with this feeling of frustration, anger, and disappointment in the first third and then there's kind of this certainly reflective reevaluation period and there’s slightly weird left-turning into a song which we’ll get through later on and then kind of resolutions at the end, in that sort of never-again-style but with no answers. It’s like ‘I know what I want to do but I don't really have the answer, I want to change but I don’t know what I want to change into.’
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, it's about a journey I guess, and it's about the process of change and the struggles that you encounter along the way because it's not always that easy to change your ways. But I guess what it's saying is that the choice is important and the struggle itself is also very important as well because you can learn a great deal from that. I don't think that people who inhabit the songs actually arrive anywhere but what they're doing is that they're recognizing the fact that there is some kind of conflict going on, and it's their efforts which are important and which are kind of documented.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Are the heroes and villains there in the songs?
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Well, yes they are, and most of them are different aspects or versions of myself really.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: Right, okay, so there isn't you. See, because I was thinking, I’d hate to fall out with Brian because it might be a song of somebody like that… not me personally but if you fall out with somebody, they might be in a song. But then again, now reading this back, because in Battle For The Sun, a title track, there is that line ‘You are a cheap and nasty fake.’
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: Mmm… but - you see, in Battle For The Sun, the person that is being addressed… I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not necessarily a person who's being addressed - it could be a substance, it could be an idea, it could be being stuck in a rut - it doesn't necessarily have to be directed towards a human being.

𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒒: You make it more ambiguous than we’ve already seen it!
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑠.
(𝐵𝐵𝐶 6 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑅𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑜, 𝑀𝑎𝑦 11𝑡ℎ, 2009)

Transcription by Olga
Post by by Olga

⭐️✨𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖: 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘✨⭐️

Dear soulmates!
Today I’d like to share Brian Molko’s 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 with you that he did with 𝑯𝒐𝒕 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 in December 2009. You may possibly recognize some quotes from it which I discussed with you recently in my Sunday posts. But this interview as a whole is so great in my opinion that I can’t resist getting back to it once again.
Please enjoy it and let us know what Brian’s statements and reflections impressed you the most.

Photo credit unknown

⭐️✨𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘✨⭐️
In the 90's, they blazed a trail of draggy, druggy excess. Now cross-dressing goth-popsters Placebo have cleaned up their act and found happiness in the simple things...

My first exposure to the murky depths of rock 'n' roll happened in the SFX in 1999. A teenaged version of myself talked her way into a Placebo concert and made her naïve way backstage into Brian Molko’s inner sanctum. I was charmed and terrified in equal measure by what I encountered there.

Ten years later, I find myself waiting in the dressing room of the Olympia Theatre for the same man to arrive. I hear his impressively dirty cackle of a laugh dance down the hallway and Mr. Molko appears in the room. His salutation is warm, as he settles into the red velveteen loveseat and lights up a cigarette.

Brian Molko’s reputation precedes him. Much has been written of his androgyny, his sexuality, his drug habits, his sexcapades, his arguments, his ego and, of course, his big mouth. Sitting across from me, with one Dublin show behind him, and one to go, there is little evidence of all that. His make-up is subtle and his costume is a quieter affair than the sartorial splendour of the past. This is a grown-up glamour, no less striking, but much more real. His emerald eyes scan the room, looking above and below for inspiration, but he locks eyes for the killer lines and to share the laughter when it erupts. For one with such a melancholic artistic impulse, he is full of fun, and ready to laugh at any moment.

I tell Brian of my adolescent adventure in which he starred. In response, he flashes back to his own first rock and roll adventure...

“I was eleven years old and my brother took me to see a French band called ‘Telephone’ play outdoors in Belgium," he recalls. “I scaled the barrier and watched the gig with the security guys, and my brother kind of freaked because he thought he was going to get his ass whopped because he lost me. The gig was filmed for Luxembourg national TV and about six months later I saw myself on it. I had completely forgotten about it until recently – we were doing a TV show in France and some poor sod went through every single frame of that concert until they found me at the age of eleven!”

Who could’ve known that this little trouble-maker would go on to sell 10 million albums worldwide to a veritable army of devotees. Placebo's latest and sixth long player, Battle for the Sun, is a triumph – a powerful and celebratory follow-up to the dark and emotionally despairing predecessor Meds. And yet, lyrically the record is as forlorn and melancholy as ever. Why do we take such pleasure in sad songs?

“Well they're just a lot less insipid than happy ones, aren’t they? And insipidity is a quality that doesn’t really sit well with me or with people who are not continuously looking to escape. We find solace in them. Do you remember that old Elton John song ‘Sad Songs (Say So Much)?’ My favourite songs are songs which I call the happy-sad. They make you sad but also make you feel a great sense of joy at actually being able to feel that emotion, and you feel more alive as a consequence.”

Molko has written extensively about disappointments in affairs of the heart, dysfunctional relationships, lost lovers. Does he believe love can survive the rock and roll lifestyle? And conversely, would rock and roll survive without the eternal quest for love?

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

“Woah. That’s big... I’d probably have to answer 'no' to both of those questions. I think it’s incredibly difficult to be in a relationship when you’re touring all the time. However, I think this ridiculous and romantic quest for love is something that’s a massive driving force for people like me who are so psychologically dubious that we seek attention from total strangers in the form of performance and exhibitionism.”

And yet this quest is rendered a failure so often because of betrayal – or what are perceived as 'sins of the flesh'. Does he think infidelity is less a question of morality and more a question of opportunity?

"Oh it’s definitely a case of opportunity. It’s very difficult to be in a rock and roll band without coming out with some kind of addiction. I know people who are love addicted, sex addicted, addicted to drugs or alcohol. It’s a rocky road, a dangerous path and I think only people with real courage should embark upon it. By the way, I’m fighting off a massive head-cold so I’m a little spaced out at the moment. I’m not stoned – I promise!”

If you’ve lived this life of decadence where you can indulge in anything or anyone that takes your fancy, do you not tire of it eventually?

"Absolutely."

So where do you go then to find wonder?

"Jesus!"

Brian explodes in a burst of mirth that is highly infectious. But he doesn't answer!

Photo credit: Screenshot from Coming up for air

So, tell me, where do you turn for excitement? Does the ordinary get elevated to the extraordinary?

“I’m a very ordinary person at the heart of it and probably always have been," he maintains. "I’ve needed a context to be extraordinary, and this context is the band. I don’t seek extraordinariness in every day life. This probably comes with aging a little bit more, but it seems to me that you find real beauty and real depth in things which are really quite mundane and quite simple. A lot of other things are just distractions and frivolous and not necessarily of any real substance. My new set of challenges is trying to be a parent while being away all the time.”

Does he ever think about the conversations he’ll be having when his son is old enough to Google him?

“Yes and I can’t wait. I think it’s going to be great. I’m a really straight-up kind of person so I don’t believe there’s anything you can’t talk about with your children.”

Perhaps, I speculate, we’ll be the first generation of parents to have an open dialogue with our kids about the realities of life.

“I hope so. Which means that we could be responsible for cultural Armageddon and the fabric of society breaking down around us due to the loss of our moral compass.” (laughs)

Those of us who have one to lose?

“Exactly.”

Is there a Placebo song that best captures the spirit of the band?

“I think we’ve changed through our career, so it would have to be from album to album. On the last one ‘Meds’ is definitely the defining track because it’s about a drug-induced psychological breakdown, which is kind of what was going on at the time. Before that, Sleeping With Ghosts was very much concerned with the ghosts of past loves and how one carries them around, so I would say the title track there. On this one it would be ‘Speak in Tongues’ because of the refrain ‘We can build a new tomorrow today’, which is essentially what the album is about: hope for a better tomorrow, for yourself.”

So how did Placebo survive the breakdown Molko suffered during the making of Meds, plus the departure of drummer Steve Hewitt? Was there a stage where he thought there wouldn’t be another album?

“After Meds it was time for everybody to go away and get help and get healthy," he says. "It was very much a make-or-break period personally, and in order for us to survive as human beings, and survive as a band, a great deal of changes needed to be made in our personal and professional lives... and I suppose that decision was the beginning of the next record. That’s the journey that is documented in an arty-farty way on this record. A journey of hope.”
(𝐻𝑜𝑡 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠, 𝐷𝑒𝑐'09)

Post by Olga

⭐ 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 𝐎𝐍 "𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐄́ - 𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐄́ - 𝐌.𝐀.𝐔.𝐑.𝐀.𝐃" 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟒 ⭐

𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔!

This afternoon I'm sure we are going to have a great time together because we're going to enjoy one of the funniest interviews you can find of 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐. It was made on October 28, 2004 on the French radio show "𝑳𝒊𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒆́ - 𝑬𝒈𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒆́ - 𝑴.𝑨.𝑼.𝑹.𝑨.𝑫" on 𝑬𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝟐.

Between questions from the fans, weird questions from the hosts and some jokes, I have chosen some fragments since the interview is pretty long. At the end I shared the link so you can listen to it in full and not miss all the atmosphere that was created in the program because there lies much of the magic of this interview.


🔸𝑩𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕, 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑳𝒂𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒂 𝑬𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒂 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒖𝒔. 🙏💖💕

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

✨⭐ 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 𝐎𝐍 "𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐄́ - 𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐄́ - 𝐌.𝐀.𝐔.𝐑.𝐀.𝐃" 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟒 ⭐✨

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Brian Molko is with us in the studio. It's great. My niece loves you, my brother loves you. My name is Maurad. Can you say: 'I am with Maurad'?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I am with Maurad.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Do you hear my niece? Brian Molko is with us! Brian Molko, you speak French very well, you were born in Luxembourg, right?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, no, I was born in Belgium.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: You lived in Luxembourg. You lived in Lebanon and now you live in London. Was the GPS invented for you?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, not at all. They've invented the Rizzla for me, perhaps.
🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: Rizzla is cigarette rolling paper.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: How does feel it do...? There are a lot of people in the street…
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: How does it feel to be in the studio with you, right?

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Yes, how does it feel?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I'm completely overwhelmed.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: There are a lot of people who want to ask you questions. You've sold over 5 million albums worldwide, 700,000 of the best-of which will be released soon. That's impressive. Laura is with us. How are you?
📞 𝑳𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂: Yes, I'm fine. My heart is beating a mile a minute.
🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: You have a question for Brian Molko?
📞 𝑳𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂: Yes. Hi Brian, I wanted to know when your next album will be released?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: In 2006. In 2005, we will produce it. We've been touring for two years now so we still need to take some time off and then we're going to do the new album in 2005 and it's going to be out in 2006.

Photo credit: Renaud Monfourny, HD edit by molko_remastered

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Let's talk about your outfit. Why do you always wear black?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I dress in black because it's easier to travel with and it makes you look slimmer.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Slimmer?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Yes.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Celine's here and wants to ask Brian a question. Ask your question, Celine.
📞 𝑪𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: Hi, Brian.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Hi.
📞 𝑪𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: I wanted to know why you like the French public so much?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: It's the French public that loves us. It's been a love story with the French public since the first single. There was a connection. I think it's because there's a long culture of literary romance in France. When I was at school, I studied Baudelaire…

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Do rock stars go to school?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I even went to university.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: I thought rock stars didn't go to school, that they were rebels and stuff. You went to university and what did you study?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Drama.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Computer science, right.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No... Drama.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: So you went to Star Academy?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, I didn't.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Celine, do you have another question for Brian?
📞 𝑪𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: Yes. Last year, at the concert in Geneva, you fell and hurt your thumb. Did it bother you at the concert?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I remember I fell off the stage. It was the first time I fell. I think it's a rock cliché. You have to go through the rock clichés and then I fell off the stage. These things happen. It made me laugh a lot. I didn't get hurt too much. I could have been hurt but it was okay.

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: We're with Brian Molko. We're going to make him do a 'Courthouse'. We'll talk about everything that's going on with him in total freedom. Placebo's releasing a best-of album.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: It's not a best-of.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅 : What is it then?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: It's a historical document.

✨✨✨✨✨

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Honestly, among the famous people, who do you find pretty?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I like Angelina Joly. She's pretty. Although he's dead, I've always liked River Phoenix.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: River Phoenix. What does she look like, Boudine?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: It's a boy.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: A boy? What does he look like?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: He's dead.

✨✨✨✨✨

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Look what it says on the paper, it's written 'sex' on it. We're going to talk about sex with Brian Molko. But before we do, Sarah's here to ask Brian a question.
📞 𝑺𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒉: Hi, Brian!
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Hi Sarah.
📞 𝑺𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒉: Since your beginning of your career, you've always been seen as an outsider. But with the success of the last album, do you still define yourself as an outsider?
🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: What a serious question!
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I don't feel comfortable .... even with the idea of being Brian Molko and being the singer of Placebo. I still feel a bit of an outsider. I hope success hasn't changed me too much.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: I get the impression that you don't like compliments, that you're not comfortable with compliments?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, not really.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: Does it shock you? Does it upset you?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, because I don't really believe it.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Stop fussing Boudine! My 'little' Brian, we're about to go into a place…
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I am not your 'little' Brian Molko.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: What are you to me then?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I'm your 'big' Brian Molko.

✨✨✨✨✨

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Ask your question, we'll see later.
📞 𝑨𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: Hi, Brian.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Hi.

📞 𝑨𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: You okay?
🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: [...] Ask your question Adeline.

📞 𝑨𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: I saw you live in Vienna and you kissed Stefan on the mouth.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: So what!

📞 𝑨𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆: This is a bit of a personal question, but I would have liked to know if it had gone further with him.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: If I'm friend with him?

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: No. Further physically.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Ah! Further... No. A little bit further but not too far. We have a band together, we see each other every day.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: It's a bit complicated. Not at work.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Don't sh*t where you live.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅 : Exactly. Good one! That's a great metaphor. Have you ever dated guys from other bands?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Yeah, well…

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: You don't want to tell us?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, I don't.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: It's only the singer from U2, you can say it!
🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: Or Etienne Daho.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, stop it. Never.

Photo credit: Alex Vanhee  

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Do you have a question for Brian Molko?
📞 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒚: I'd like to know who's the crookest person you've ever met in showbusiness?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: The crookest person.. Sting.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Sting is an a**hole?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Yeah, yeah. He's awful.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Why?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I can't really explain what happened, but.. trust me, he's an a**hole.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: We're going to enter 'The Courthouse' with Brian Molko. This time you can't escape. You had the time to think about your story. It 11 pm, we're going to listen to you about a sex strory you experienced.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I don't know what you want me to tell. Explain to me, be more specific.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: A story you experienced in real life, a story during a tour…
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I'm in a rock band so, lots of things happened.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: One story which ended…
🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: Your last orgy.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Yeah, why not. For example…


🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Your last orgy
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: My last orgy…
🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: When was it?
🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: With Etienne Daho.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Stop, stop with Etienne. He's my friend. Stop.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Tell us your last orgy.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: The last orgy... It was a long time ago, because now I'm a very religious person these days - and I believe in Jesus and, after the broadcast, I'd like to talk about Jesus to you.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Alright.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I notice you're lacking of ethical fiber.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: That's not true.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: And I'd like to talk about Jesus a bit.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Now? You're kidding me. He's kidding me! You will tell your story for sure.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I've tried something (...) like politicians. They never answer the question, that's cool.

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: [...] Aurore, are you all right? Do you have a question for Brian?
📞 𝑨𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒆: Hey, everybody, hi Brian. First of all,.... I know you don't like to talk about your past, but I wanted to know if some of your songs were a reflection of a rather difficult past life?


🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: You all ask very serious questions! Have you ever been asked such questions?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Yeah, but it's not a bad question.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: What the kind of questions you've never been asked?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Which question should I answer then?

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Answer Aurore's.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Can you repeat please?
📞 𝑨𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒆: I wanted to know if your songs reflect a difficult past life?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Yes, yes, of course. You don't publish your diary on a record. It's a mixture of truth and fantasy. It's art, it's not a documentary. And it needs work. It's inspired by your emotions but also by the emotions of your friends, your parents, your relatives or even by TV or what you read, the cinema.
📞 𝑨𝒖𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒆: Thank you.

✨✨✨✨✨

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: After Wembley, what are you going to do?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I'm going to India.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: India? What's in india?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I want to go somewhere as far away from the music business as possible.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: To write?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, to live.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: For how long?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: About three or four months. You guys are cool but I get asked questions all the time. We've been working for two years and I'm really tired of being Brian Molko. I wanna go somewhere to be Brian.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Okay. What's the one question you've never been asked that you wish you'd been asked?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: "How did you get to be so hot?"

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: But a believable question... So tell us how you got so hot. Tell us.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: It's my parents' fault. I like to discuss religion.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Are you religious?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: No, I'm not.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Were you brought up Catholic?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Not Catholic, but very religious. I find it fascinating and it has given me a lot of metaphors that I use in my songs. The Bible is a fascinating book. It has nothing to do with real life. It was written by frustrated people who wanted to control people. It's full of metaphors, full of violence, full of sex, full of incest and so on.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: That's life.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: You can use these people as metaphors.

Photo credit: Tony Barson Archive 

🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Please let me go!
🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: We'll let you go but there are still a few questions. Do you get your clothes or do you buy them ?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I buy a lot of clothes and some are given to me too. I know people in the fashion business. It's really cool to be a musician because you get clothes to wear on TV and at the same time you have to buy stuffs. You don't wear Dior every day and at home you have to wear something.

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: Have you ever been offered to do modelling?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I did it once and I didn't like it at all. I'm short.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: There are no more criteria in modelling, when you have a look, a face, that's enough.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: It was for a friend of mine who is a designer. I did it once. I met a lot of models and I found them quite vicious.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: Another question: what's your best proof of your love you did for someone? Something incredible.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Oh sh*t…

🔹𝑴𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒅: In the bathroom! That's disgusting! It's scatophiliac!
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: Not my thing. Not at all.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: A mind-blowing thing?
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I find that you can make strong actions, symbolic things like that but if you listen when she/he talks, it's much more important. That's it.

🔸𝑩𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒆: It could be a song too, writing a song for someone. For love.
🎤𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏: I have written a lot of songs for many people. The people who are in my songs are a composite of several people and often it's me. When I say "You", I am talking to myself.


⭐𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞:

https://youtu.be/BWrnDyQKgX4


✒️𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 & 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒃𝒚 𝑳𝒂𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒂 𝑬𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒂.

Post by Rita

🔶🔸𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐕: 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎'𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 🔸🔶

On November 28th, 2016, just before Placebo shows in France as part of 20 Years of Placebo Tour, Brian Molko did an 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖 on 𝑳𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒆𝒏 𝑻𝑽. You can watch a shortened version of it in a beautiful video while I’d like to share a full text which was published on their website. Brian discussed some milestones of Placebo’s career, remembered their first concert in France and shared his thoughts about the terrorist attack at Bataclan in 2015.

✨𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: "𝐖𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐁𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐞", 𝐋𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐕, 𝟐𝟖.𝟏𝟏.𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟔
https://bit.ly/3pK1fnA

Photo credit: screenshot of the video interview by Le Parisien, 2016

🔶𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓🔶
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 20 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔, 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓, 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐, 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒔.
“Happy birthday Placebo! To celebrate their 20th anniversary, the British rock trio released "A Place for Us to Dream", a pantagruelic compilation of 2:15 and 36 tracks, with duets (David Bowie, Michael Stipe, etc.), covers, B-sides, new versions and a new one, “Jesus' Son”. “To show all the colors of Placebo, light and shade, the risks we took,” comments singer and guitarist Brian Molko in French. Like a retrospective in a museum." Their anniversary tour stops tonight in Nantes and tomorrow at Paris-Bercy (now AccorHotels Arena). To satisfy their fans, who have been consulted on the Internet, Placebo replay old nuggets like "Nancy Boy", "Pure Morning" and "Protège-moi", French version of "Protect Me". “We also turned 36 Degrees into a ballad,” says Molko. Bands play the same song for decades, but we're not like that. We get bored very quickly."

🔸𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟓-𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟐. 𝐈𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐞'𝐬 𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐭
“We had the same agent as David Bowie. And one evening, on his Outside tour, singer Morrissey left, without warning anyone, to his mother's house. An opening act had to be found urgently. Our agent played our demos to Bowie, and he liked them. A few days later, we were in Italy in front of 8,000 spectators. We toured his albums Outside, Earthling and Heaven. I spent seven years in his orbit, and it was absolutely amazing. I learned a lot from him. During the tours, every evening, I would go down to the backstage, I smoked a joint and I observed him. What a lesson, what an opportunity! And in 1998, the surprise of my life! On vacation, my brother wakes me up. He hands me the phone: it's Bowie. Oh okay (laughs). He tells me that he would like to sing our song Without You I'm Nothing as a duet, which he loves. I'm half asleep, I don't immediately realize the enormity... "

Photo credit: Maud Maillard

🔸𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟔. "𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞", 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞
“I was young, I had a lot of fun. But we worked like crazy. There were three of us, I was trying to write something abrasive and melodic, powerful, and popular. I had only one ambition, it was not to do an office job. I would have been happy to be in a band with average success. But fate changed everything because we had success from the first album. And we said to ourselves that we had to do everything to make it last. We wrote hundreds of songs that we threw in the trash before thinking: This song deserves to be listened to by people."

🔸𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟔-𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟕. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞
“I remember with emotion our first concert in France, in 1996, at Route du Rock, Saint-Malo festival. It was so lovely. The reception from the French audience was immediately warm. They opened their arms to us."

🔸𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟕. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐞
“At the time of Sleeping With Ghosts tour and Meds album, there were troubles in the band. It was quite a traumatic time. We no longer spoke to each other, we protected each other in our corner. I've invested my whole professional life into this band, I wasn't going to let a character as old-fashioned as Mr. Hewitt ruin it for me. He hadn't always been like that, but success, money, drugs were there, as always..."

Photo credit: Marco Vittur

🔸𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟓. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐚
“I spent a sleepless night, I was absolutely upset, I was looking for my friends from our record company who were in the venue, but also the Eagles of Death Metal, whom I know well. I spent the night on the phone trying to reach them (he sighs). I really like Bataclan, we played there a lot when we started. There is something magical about this venue. I would love to be back, it is necessary. If anyone hears me..."
(𝐿𝑒 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑛 𝑇𝑉, 𝑁𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 28, 2016)

📍To add something special to my post, I found a short video from 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐝𝐮 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐅𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥 that took place in Saint Malo on August 14th, 1997 and, as Brian said, was 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒃𝒐’𝒔 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆.

✨𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐛𝐨 – 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 & 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞, 𝐒𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐨 𝐅𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥, 𝟏𝟒.𝟎𝟖.𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟕
https://bit.ly/39IREru

📢𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐨: “I always felt that our band would attract a little bit crazy and wild fans, and it really looks like becoming a truth. […] The most passionate fans can see that our technique changed a lot since Steve Hewitt joined the band. There’s much more admiration, much more love and respect from European audience, and our creative process liberated a lot.”

Post by Olga

𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝐁𝐁𝐂 𝟔 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨, 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟰

𝑯𝒊 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔!
Today I have another ✨𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖✨ for you. Brian did it for 𝐁𝐁𝐂 𝟔 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 on August 2nd 2014. He explains how his understanding of androgyny evolved through the years, admits what kind of a compliment he appreciates most and tells about the influences of the songwriting process.
Enjoy it!

Photo credit: Nino Fuori

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Our legend today is from one of my favorite bands, Placebo. Welcome to 6 Music, Brian! Hiya!
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Hiya! Hi Liz. That's very kind of you.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: No. I really mean it. I hope you won't take offense, but there was a bit of mistaken identity when I first heard you, before I saw you, and, I wonder what you think of this. I thought you were a female lead singer.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: I take no offense to that, whatsoever.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Oh good. I loved your voice.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: It's something that I noticed happening when I was at university. And so, when I got into a band, I thought that I would play it up a little bit to see what kind of effect it would have on an audience. In the end it sort of became very much a kind of a political act, more than anything.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: What do you mean?
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Well, I wanted to confront homophobia, basically, I wanted anybody who was homophobic in our audience to think I was a girl, to fancy me, then to have to ask themselves a few questions when they found out my name was "Brian".

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Right. And did you get asked questions?
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: (Laughing) Well, yes, certainly. But it kind of evolved from there after a little while. And some of the elements of what we were doing effectively were appropriated by the mainstream. We kind of moved on, a little bit. I sort of understood that androgyny was more about blending, you know, the in-between place, rather than a guy in a dress. It took on more of a sophisticated and subtle tone.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: I've fought battles. I've tried to make gender irrelevant in my own trade. So, should gender be irrelevant?
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Well, yeah. I think it should. Absolutely.

Photo credit: Angelo Marchini

𝐋𝐢𝐳: So, in rock-and-roll, are we not selling sex, to some extent?
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Yeah. But that’s historically, always been the case from Elvis onwards… and it’s always been part of the attraction. And certainly a concert is a place where people can come and feel free, and our concerts are particularly like that, you know. It’s a celebration of freedom and tolerance and acceptance.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Well, I loved you when I thought you were a girl. And I loved you when I found out you were a bloke. When I saw you on “Top of the Pops.” I just think you have one of the most distinctive voices ever in rock-and-roll music.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Uh, thank you, that’s a real compliment. I’ve always been obsessed with voices that are unique like from Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bjork, Polly Harvey. So that’s a big compliment for me. Thank you.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Well, like all those people you’ve mentioned, I think you’ve got real passion and pathos and pain in your voice as well.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Well yes, because it’s a form of catharsis for me. It’s a form of self-therapy in many ways. People often ask me ‘what are your influences in terms of deciding what to write about’. I’m often scared by the blank page. For me the most major influence is the process itself. And through the process of songwriting I discover what’s going on inside of me emotionally.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: You’ve had seven albums, seven studio albums, and another album which I absolutely love is your Covers album, and that features “Twentieth Century Boy,” “Running up that Hill” by Kate Bush, […], but you did get labelled with this kind of glam rock genre as well, didn’t you? Not least ‘cause you got embraced by David Bowie.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Yes, that is true. Umm...we were lucky enough to kind of be mentored by David Bowie very early on in our career. And, he heard a demo of ours, it had the Nancy Boy song on it, and he invited us out on tour before we’d even released our first album. Which is incredible. And then I wrote this song “Without You I’m Nothing,” and one day he phoned up and said he liked it so much he wanted to sing on it. So, that happened. I mean, there isn’t really, for a songwriter, you know, a bigger accolade. And, it’s an incredible thing, for me, anyway, and I was so young when it happened. So I think this whole glam rock thing sprung from our very brief appearance in a movie called Velvet Goldmine. And it just became a very easy thing for people to uhh… just kind of put us in a box.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Well, I’m glad you did cover that T-Rex song, ‘cause I think it’s a great version. I also loved your Boney M “Daddy Cool.” That’s such fun! Anyway, let’s play a track now from the new album, it’s uhh.. well it’s not new anymore, it’s six months old or something. Loud Like Love, but it's a new single from that – “A Million Little Pieces.”
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Oh wow! It’s a cliché really, I’m most proud of the last one, but I will probably be most proud of the next one, when we make the next one.

Photo credit: Yevgeniy Zateychuk

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Which song, do you think, you get through your set and think, 'Can’t wait to sing that one, because the whole place is going to erupt.'
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: We started playing a song from Loud Like Love called Begin the End, which is quite a hypnotic song which we haven’t played live very much. We just started doing that recently. Umm… but the very last song on the album, it’s called Bosco, umm, and it’s very difficult. We can’t play it live at the moment because we need a string section in order to do it justice. And I’m particularly proud of that song because it uhh… I think every now and again, a band, if they’re lucky, they write a song that transcends the band’s identity, that can kind of exist within its own context without referring to who the band are in order to have life and to tell its story, and I think that Bosco is that song for us.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Ok, well I’m gonna tell you what my favorite song is in a minute, and play it. But first of all, you are in France as I speak to you now, and you’ve got quite a few dates there, different festivals, and then all ‘round Europe, Switzerland, Milan, Rome, Madrid, Athens, Hungary (just pickin’ in the air), Germany, and then later in the year, In October, back in Spain and Portugal. What about us here?
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Uh, well, we have to do some more British gigs very soon. We’re talking about it at the moment. So, watch this space.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Well, do! Because I know four girls who do a string quartet thing so I can even help you out with that.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Ok, alright. Ok, cool. We’ll talk about that after the interview then.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: OK. Well, I hope you keep on keeping on and bringing us great songs and great performances and I hope we’ll see you soon. So I absolutely… I loved it from day one, in 2003 I think it was not long after this station 6 Music had started up, and I thought – Yes! This is the kind of thing that 6 Music was made for. And it’s Bitter End. Is that a favorite?
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Yes, it’s a live favorite.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Yeah, I thought so, because I been there, and we all did go bonkers.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Yeah. It’s usually the last song we play before the encore. It’s usually the peak of the energy crescendo of our show.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: That’s why I thought you might have chosen that one, or mentioned that one. But I’ve done it anyway, I’m glad you agree, it hits the spot.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: It certainly does, yes.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Well, lovely to speak with you. And we hope we do see you in the UK soon. And uhh...
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: So do we. Lovely talking to you too.

𝐋𝐢𝐳: Ok and… so A Million Little Pieces out now. Placebo coming soon. I’m gonna play Bitter End and sort Brian out with some cellos and stuff. Thank you for coming on the show.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Source: https://bit.ly/355NVla

Post by Olga

Story behind a picture: Photographer Alfred Steffen exclusively for Placebo Anyway

In 2013, Brian Molko participated in a project called „𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗦𝗔𝗬 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚" which was commissioned to German photographer 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗻 by 𝗦𝗨̈𝗗𝗗𝗘𝗨𝗧𝗦𝗖𝗛𝗘 𝗭𝗘𝗜𝗧𝗨𝗡𝗚

𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗮𝘇𝗶𝗻.Alfred Steffen photographed 160 interviews without word for
SZ-Magazine, including celebrities Lenny Kravitz and Katy Perry, as well as various politicians and other art people.

𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗻
https://bit.ly/2XT43D6

And here is a link to the whole very interesting interview of SZ-Magazin from May 2019, where the photographer answers questions about this long-term project. It's a very interesting read, if you do not speak German you can use a google translator as me. Unfortunately, there is no mention of Brian at all, but that is understandable.

https://bit.ly/3gUzOmI

💥💥💥 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗹𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗻.💗

Mr. Steffen read our post on Instagram and responded to my remark that unfortunately we have no information about Brian's photo shoot. He was very kind and wrote his wonderful memories in a comment.💗

Let's enjoy it together, dear Soulmates.
************

ALFRED STEFFEN:
"Dear Marti, hello folks.
That's a very nice contribution, thank you.
In my memory it was like this with the Brian shoot:
I had the appointment in a hotel suite in Berlin, the Soho House Berlin.
The record company had blocked some rooms and I was able to build my set in peace.
At some point Brian came into the room and we had a connection within a very short time. I explained how it works. And let's go.
Brian was extremely quick and creative, really extraordinary. No stumbling or thinking about it.
He needed the dress for an answer; someone got it from another room.
In the short break I smoked my e-cigarette, Brian tried to puff a few puffs through the tilted window in the hotel room, which was not allowed to smoke.
It was weird. He was a little jealous and asked me to recommend an initial set of e-smoking equipment.
I think my supplier thought that was very cool and then sent something to Brian.
But I never heard how it went on.
At the end of the session, 20 questions - 20 answer photos, we checked all the images on the computer, all perfect, no corrections necessary - and that was clearly due to Brian's creative and self-confident attitude."
💥💥💥

A short preview of the long interview:

🔸🔸🔸 𝗦𝗭-𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗮𝘇𝗶𝗻: 𝗗𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴?
Alfred Steffen: Sure, my cell phone rang 13 years ago, at the other end was my photo editor Eva Fischer and told me that SZ-Magazin was planning a new section, an "interview without words", only with gestures and facial expressions. She said there was a role model: the illustrated book The Frenchman, which the legendary portrait and fashion photographer Philippe Halsman made in 1949 with the French actor Fernandel. Then I knew what she meant because I knew the book and had given it to assistants over and over again.

𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼𝘄?
Jürgen Trittin. The questions were great, for example: "Can you open a bra clasp with one hand?" Unfortunately, he looked the same in all photos, he always tilted his head slightly and made a pointed mouth. I suggested that he answer the questions again in a second round when one of his employees called that he had to be in the Bundestag in ten minutes, an important vote. Then it was clear that the shoot had to be moderated more strongly and the celebrities had to be given the chance to take a little time for the answers. And that's how we did it, until today.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝟭𝟲𝟬 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼?
I don't talk so much anymore, but let the question sink in and wait to see what happens. You have to endure the silence, but it is often worth it. If someone still doesn't have an answer after a minute, I ask: Okay, what do you want to express? Most of the time a chat develops like this, at the end of which there is an idea. If that doesn't help either, I suggest a gesture, which always leads to the other person saying: Okay, thank you, but I have another better idea. Is a psychological trick. Nobody wants to do what is suggested to them.🔸🔸🔸

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲 "𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝗹𝗸𝗼"
https://bit.ly/31L7ddi

Can you imagine the photographer's collaboration with Brian? How difficult was it for Brian to express the question with a gesture? The photos look very playful and immediate, Brian confirmed his creativity and acting talent.

🙌Marti💗

Credits: all photos by Alfred Steffen / pic 1 - edit by Marti