𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗞 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗕𝗢𝗪𝗜𝗘

There is so much to say about David Robert Jones (better known as David Bowie) that it would take me several long posts only to share the basics before we could get deeper into the material and talk about other interesting things concerning this legendary artist. And as I'm sure that most of us already know a lot about him I think it is enough to leave a link for those of you who are quite new to the topic.
General info about David Bowie here:
👉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie

So I want to concentrate on the relationship between Brian, Stefan and David and therefore I collected some quotes by them about our beloved Mr. Bowie.
Let me know what you think about the statements and please share your own thoughts and feelings about David with us.

🎬 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗜'𝗠 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁. 𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗕𝗢𝗪𝗜𝗘
🎵 http://bit.ly/39xOULp 🎵

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗗𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗕𝗢𝗪𝗜𝗘 📌
📢 “I learned a great deal from David. We really built a relationship because we were his favourite support band early on, so we ended up supporting him on two albums’ worth of tours. There is a certain amount of magic surrounding people like that – they have been through everything and so, just through spending time with them, you glean little bits of wisdom almost through osmosis.”
(NME Blog, Brian Molko – “What Rock’n’Roll has taught me“, 23rd October 2009)

📢 “I’ve had a lot of time to meditate on a lot of what David said to me during the five or six years that we toured with him and I was in his orbit. He was my friend and my mentor. He gave me a lot of advice. [...] His presence is still there for me in the form of a sage and mentor.”
(NME, October 5th 2017)

📢 “David Bowie was a very important person for us because before we had a record deal, Bowie heard our demos and decided that we were going to tour with him. At that point I was living in a house that was paid for by the government with a couple of other guys. And we were really poor, so poor that we had to scrape our money together and decide on what we were going to eat every day. And then one day the phone rang and it was like, “Hello, would you like to go on tour with David Bowie?”
(Juice, March 2010)

📢 “I remember him saying, 'Whatever you do, never ever lose your spontaneity'”.
(Metroguiltypleasures, October 4th 2017)

𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳?
📢 “David Bowie. He was somewhat of a mentor at the beginning of our career.”
(Time Out KL, March 2010)

📢 "Morrissey pulled out of the Bowie European tour, he sort of disappeared for some reason. Through connections that we had through our agent we sent him a demo and he heard it and decided we were the band to fill Morrissey's place. Which is quite amazing really, we were quite shocked and we went on tour with Bowie in Europe, and a few months later we did it again and that kind of cemented our friendship really. He is a real big fan of the band and there is a lot of mutual respect going on now. It's quite amazing to talk to him as an equal and exchange ideas."
(Sessions "Role Reversal", May 1997)

📢 Brian: “I remember telling you, David, that I actually stole a lyric from you. Have you found it yet?“
📢 David: “Well, I heard something that may have had a passing resemblance to a certain wanking line.“
📢 Brian: “No, I stole the phrase 'valuable friends' from "Ashes to Ashes".“
(Chat hosted by David Bowie, March 29th 1999)

📢 “He is somebody I have so much respect for.“
(Juice, March 2010)

📢 “I don’t know what he saw in us; maybe something of himself as a younger Bowie. Maybe there was an outsider element to a lot of what we were doing. Maybe it was the romanticism. Maybe it was the stubbornness of not wanting to fit in.”
(NME, October 24th 2018 )

📢 “He was very comfortable in his own skin. Very open and generous with his time. One couldn’t wish for a better apprenticeship.“
(Metroguiltypleasures, October 4th 2017)

📢 “Without you, your tutelage and your wisdom, I don’t think I would be where I am today, as an artist but also as a person. For that I will be eternally grateful.”
(Open letter from Brian to David, January 11th 2016)

📌 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗕𝗘𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗕𝗢𝗪𝗜𝗘'𝗦 𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗔𝗖𝗧 📌
📢 ”What happened was that David Bowie was touring his 'Outside' album around Europe and Morrissey was supporting him. And one day in Italy Morrissey, without telling his band, without telling his tour manager, took the tour bus and drove it all the way home to see his mother in England. So when everyone woke up in the morning the band asked, “Where’s Morrissey?” and David Bowie is going, “Where’s my support band?” And as luck had it, David Bowie and Placebo had the same booking agent and the booking agent said to Bowie, “Well, I have this demo of this new band that you might like.” This was before we had recorded our first album. So David Bowie heard our demo and on the strength of that alone he called up and said, “Hey, come and support me on my tour.” So Placebo went from playing shows in front of 300 people in a Pub in London to playing in front of 8,000 people in Italy. So it was like, “Holy Shit, we’ve jumped into the deep end and we’re crossing paths with David Bowie back stage.” [laughs].
(Fourculture, October 3rd 2016)

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 “𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗜'𝗠 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚” 📌
📢 Brian: "David fell completely in love with the song [“Without you I'm nothing”] when we played it together at the Brit awards. We were in New York at the same time, and he came in the studio to record it."
(The Sun Herald, Jul 22nd 1999)

📢 Stefan: "It was very strange, one day he [David Bowie] called and said "Hey guys, I love what you do and especially 'Without you I'm nothing', I would be pleased to record it with you or cover it. What do you think ?" We said: "Ok, we will meet and see what we can do (laughs)!" And then you know, there was a sort of unease... It's Bowie and he conducts and wants to control everything... And then, finally he came to the studio and there he went to sing... how to say that ? We were there behind the window : "Fuck that's Bowie!" It was magical! I can't say it was a dream come true because I never think about it, but after the fact, I must admit it was one of the most thrilling and unforgettable time of my life."
(Rock Sound n°72, September 1999)

Photo credits unknown
Post by Silke

“It’s Only Rock'n'Role Reversal”, VOX, June 1997

DO YOU EVER WISH YOU WERE IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SORT OF BAND?
“Sometimes, yeah. It hits me particularly on tour. It’s got a lot to do with roadies and crew and being in a band with guys, and you get kind of tired sometimes of just talking about farting and genitals and the 'Oo er, I’d give her one’ kind of vibe. It really makes you crave for being on tour with girls. I’m sure that girls are just as dirty, if not more dirty, but you just get a bit tired of the whole male point of view, being surrounded by men constantly. So sometimes I really wish that I was in a band with a few girls.”

THE SPICE GIRLS, PERHAPS?
“Maybe. I’d probably be Dikey Spice though.”

ARE YOU AT ALL WORRIED ABOUT WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE IN PHOTOS THESE DAYS?
“What I look like in photos is basically what I look like when I go out, what I look like when I’m not completely chilling out at home. I wear girls clothes because they fit me and they’re usually more interesting as well. But what does bother me is that, these days, it tends to be 90 per cent about the image and 10 per cent about the music, which gets on my tits because it should be the other way round.”

WHAT'S YOUR DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENT LIKE?
“My flat is really tiny. I’m not staying there for very long. It’s a one-room studio with a very tall ceiling, and they’ve built a bed which basically goes from one end of the room to another, and you have to go up a step ladder to get there. It’s actually very nice because you’re sleeping in the sky, but it’s bad when you’re a bit pissed and you try to go to the toilet at two in the morning. There’s been a few accidents down the old step ladder.”

DO YOU BECOME A DIFFERENT PERSON WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR PRIVATE SPACE?
“It’s not so much becoming a different person, it’s just that when I’m at home I’m usually very quiet and this shy person inside of me presents itself. Going out, is almost like getting ready to go on stage, the application of the make-up, the jeans come off and good clothes come on, and then you feel up to it.”

DO YOU MAKE MUCH USE OF YOUR ACTING BACKGROUND?
“No, I only use my training in The Method on stage, because that allows me to open up emotional doors when I’m playing, so that I can get lost in the emotion of the song and get lost in the music. I’ve started to use my acting background more now that I’ve got my first feature film, and that’s something that I want to pursue more, definitely. But for me it’s not a sort of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, different character-per-concept album kind of vibe, it’s very much who I am. I’m not about to cut all my hair off. I’m not sure I’m allowed to.”

YOU DON'T WANT TO CONFUSE YOUR FANS, AFTER ALL.
“The fans want their Brian to be girly. If I went masculine they’d be disappointed.”

WHAT WERE YOU LIKE WHEN YOU TURNED UP AT GOLDSMITHS?
“It was October 1990. I was very shy, I was very closed in, I was very American as well, I had a much stronger American accent, so I spent the time at Goldsmiths sort of softening it up.
"Having grown up in a continental atmosphere in Luxembourg, being surrounded by people of all European nationalities in a Francophile country, I found myself faced with the English reserve. I was putting my foot in the mouth a lot and I had to teach myself to be a bit more diplomatic and less brash and maybe not say exactly what I thought all the time to people. It’s kind of gone full circle. Now I have the power to say exactly what I think all the time to people and they can like it or lump it.”

WHAT WERE YOUR ACTORLY STRENGHTS?
“I was ridiculously bad at writing essays, taking exams. I basically flunked all my academic stuff, and scored top marks on all my practical work, which evened it out for a straight 2.2, which is what I got. But we were quite adventurous. There was a small group of people who came together, we did a lot of absurd theatre, did re-working of Shakespeare, and a lot of directing as well. I went in my third year to making small films on Super 8, and working them into performances… [the aubergines arrive]… It’s alright. I can talk with my mouth full. It’s the Italian blood in me.”

YOU HAVE ITALIAN BLOOD?
“Yeah, my grandmother’s Italian. And my mother’s Scottish and my grandfather was French. Hence my love of good living.”

BRITISH PEOPLE TEND TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF BON VIVEURS.
“I hope so. If it sticks a fist up the ass of the British musical heritage and the splendid isolation of this island of yours, that’s great.”

WAS THERE A MAD PHASE FOR YOU WHEN YOU FIRST CAME TO LONDON?
“Completely. A lot of my mindless drug-hoover reputation is based on a lot of things that I got out of my system at college - what I liked, what’s good for me, what I can handle and what I can’t. I’m turning into a bit of a workaholic there days. I don’t have time to abuse my body as much as I used to, and I have too many responsibilities and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let things get in the way, the trappings of rock'n'roll. But hell, I can still party as good as the next guy.”

SO WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE BAND INSTEAD OF ACTING?
“Well, drama students are possibly the most competitive and bitchy people you’ll ever come across in the world, and I was quite apart from them when I was there…”

YOU MEAN YOU WEREN'T COMPETITIVE AND BITCHY?
“I wasn’t interested in being competitive and bitchy with them. I was just interested in collaboration and the exchange of ideas. My focus changed a lot when I was at college. After getting involved in making films I was searching for something more instant, something that seemed like a hell of a lot less hard work, which of course was wrong, and something that suited my hedonistic tendencies more. And the band seemed ideal for that.”

WAS A LOT OF IT EGO-DRIVEN – WANTING ALL THE ATTENTION YOURSELF?
“Well, that’s part of being an actor anyway, it’s part of what I’ve been trained in. I always kind of figured that my place would be on stage in one way or another.”

WERE YOU ATTENTION-SEEKING WHEN YOU WERE LIVING IN LUXEMBOURG?
“No. I was a very lonely kid and I was very quiet and I didn’t have many friends and I kept myself to myself, wrote a lot, and just basically dreamt of getting the fuck out. I used to get on a train and go to Holland as often as possible. It was very unstimulating, very rich, like a little Switzerland. Lots of good places to eat, but very boring.”

WAS IT AN 'UNHAPPY CHILDHOOD'?
“Erm… yeah. My brother’s ten years older than me, so I spent my formative years as a teenager feeling much like an only child. There was a lot of loneliness involved and a lot of alienation, and I was surrounded by a lot of people who were trying to make me into themselves, and what it ended up doing was making me go: 'Fuck you, I’m going to forge my own’s identity’ at a very early age.”

WAS THAT FAMILY PRESSURE TO MAKE YOU FIT IN?
“Family pressures, religious pressures, things like that.”

YOUR PARENTS SPLITTING UP MUST HAVE AFFECTED YOU A LOT.
“Yeah it does: it was very confusing, but in the long run what it’s ended up doing is to make me quite distanced in general from my family, apart from my brother who’s my best friend. That ten-year gap, once I got to a certain age, meant that there wasn’t going to be any competition between us, which was great, and once I got to a certain age we could start partying together. He works in a bank. He takes care of all my money. And I know he’s not going to rip me off, so it’s cool.”

WERE YOU AFFECTED BY YOUR MOTHER BEING A BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN?
“Yeah, that’s something I spent a lot of time running away from, and had to write a lot of songs about it, a lot of really bad songs, before I could get it out of my system and write some decent music. I did write a lot of songs about 'shedding the spectre of Jesus’. But I’m over that now.”

JESUS ID A KIND OF ROCK'N'ROLL FIGURE THOUGH.
“The ultimate rebel perhaps.”

WHO'S SEXIER, YOU OR JESUS CHRIST?
“Oh, me definitely. Jesus was hairy!”

PEOPLE WHO'VE HAD A RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE ON THEIR LIFE OFTEN REPLACE THAT INFLUENCE WITH SOMETHING ELSE SPIRITUAL. HAVE YOU DONE THAT?“Well, it’s very important to me that I live according to my own rules and that I let my life be dictated by my own madness. One of the things that is negative about religion is that it replaces choice with a book of rules. It takes away doubt and questioning, and it gives you something to follow willy-nilly without thinking about it. It takes away thought, it takes away confusion, and all of those are things that I’m particularly interested in. So, you know, music is a very spiritual thing, but it’s also a very sexual thing.”

SEX CAN BE SPIRITUAL, TOO.
“Sure, if you can get enough of it, and if you’re in love, otherwise it can be a very empty thing.”

DO YOU THINK SEX, MUSIC, GOD AND DRUGS ARE ALL INTERCONNECTED?
“Well, yeah. That’s what Prince would tell you.”
A BRIGHT MAN.
“Also a very short man!”

BUT IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU'RE INTERESTED IN AT ALL AS A CODE?
“Well, within the band we just talk about karma, not in a religious way, more in a philosophical way. We just say: 'Don’t fuck with your karma’, and if you want to tie that to some sort of Judaeo-Christian ethos then it would be: 'Do unto others as you would have done unto you’. And if you have one principle to live by, then live by that because it will keep you in good karma, and I think that the fact that we’re here at this point so early in our careers must mean that there’s a lot of good karma surrounding us. But I don’t actually believe in it as an out-of-body force.”

SO WHAT WERE THE CULTURAL EYE OPENERS FOR YOU – LITERATURE, MOVIES, PAINTINGS?
“Mmm, well every kid when they hit about 15, they think it’s cool to read Kerouac and then they find out that Kerouac’s boring and they move on to Burroughs, and he’s one of my favourite writers. I discovered the writing of Dennis Cooper while I was at college, who’s like the modern Marquis de Sade, and I’m hoping to interview him quite soon actually. But it was a real musical discovery over here, more than anything else.”

WHAT POSTERS DID YOU HAVE ON YOUR WALL?
“Sonic Youth, from the 'Daydream Nation’ record and it’s them standing on the street looking really tall and completely blurred. I think Sonic Youth are aesthetically satisfying as kind of like geek-rock gone dissonant. They’re very sexy! They are. Kim Gordon is absolutely sexy.”

LEE RANALDO'S A BIT TOO CEREBRAL.
“Well, the real sex organ is between the ears, not between the legs. It doesn’t matter how small your dick is as long as your brain is big.”

WAS YOUR ANDROGYNY PRESENT WHEN YOU WERE A KID?
“When I was really young, I used to have really long hair, much longer that it is now, and yeah, I remember walking around Dundee with my mum and we were going to visit my grandmother and her bumping into people that she knew from years ago and they’d say: 'So who’s your little girl then?’ So it started at that point, when I was about three. When I arrived in London, I let my hair grow again and I started being mistaken for a girl a lot of the time. And I’d worn make-up in theatre since I was 11, so I was kind of used to it. And I decided to play it up a bit. I just started making up to see if people’d be confused even more, and when the band came along I started putting more on. Nail polish is great if you play guitar because it looks really good on the fretboard as your fingers slide up and down.”

DO YOU THINK YOUR SEXUALITY WAS ALTERED BY THE WAY YOU CHOSE TO LOOK?
“Possibly. I mean it was always something that was very much there. When I was a teenager I never ruled out the possibility of falling in love with another man, even though I had quite a healthy attraction towards the opposite sex. It’s one of the things I had a very big problem with the church about, and one of the things I continue to have arguments with my mother about. As a teenager, I just made sure that I didn’t close off opportunities. When desire manifests itself you have no control over it because it’s there. It’s your choice over whether you repress it or explore it, and I chose the more adventurous path and decided to explore. And I still do.”

WAS YOUR INITIAL LEARNING PROCESS ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY PROBLEMATIC?
“Not really problematic. I lost my virginity when I was really young and then didn’t have sex for a while. As a lot of men do. They get over it with and then become friends with their right hand. i guess I’ve always been quite a lonely person and loneliness breeds a certain frustration and relationships have always been quite complicated for me and never seemed to have lasted very long, because I guess I can get too analytical about things and we all struggle with some kind of ideal within ourselves and we all want a relationship that’s going to blow your head off, and it’s hard to find.”

CAN YOU IMAGINE A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH A MAN?
“Yeah, I don’t see why not.”

DOES THE GAY SCENE INTEREST YOU AT ALL?
“I don’t really appreciate it because of the music. And I’ve never been into classic camp.”

BUT YOU'D LOOK GOOD IN HOT PANTS AND A VEST.
“You reckon I’d look good with really short hair, a moustache, a white vest and a pair of jeans? Maybe. No, the gay scene’s very crusey and the music is very cheesy and there’s more mystery and ambiguity in the in-between spaces, those interest me, more than things which are steadfast.”
DO THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BAND RESENT THE AMOUNT OF ATTENTION THAT YOUR PERSONA GETS?
“Absolutely not. No. Within the band we represent all facets of sexuality. I think it was a problem with Robert [ex-drummer], but not now.”

ONE POINT OF VIEW IS THAT ANDROGYNOUS POP STARS ARE NO BIG DEAL ANYWAY, SO WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?
“Well, I’m not fucking Julian Clary! Er, let me rephrase that, I’m not Julian Clary, for fuck’s sake! Even though we did go to the same college.”

BUT IT IS SOMETHING THAT'S BEEN AROUND FOR A GOOD WHILE.
“It’s been around since Little Richard, basically. It’s been on Manics’ T-shirts since their first album - 'All rock'n'roll is homosexual’ - and good rock'n'roll has always had a gay undercurrent to it. So it really is no big deal. I’m not the one who places so much emphasis on it, it’s people like you.”

DO YOU FEEL LESS ALIENATED THESE DAYS?
“There is a lot more satisfaction in my life. I’m an artist and I’m being paid to be creative. I still can’t hold a relationship together, though. And maybe all the things that made it impossible to hold one together in the past have been replaced by my job.
People think that when you get a record deal and you’re successful and people know who you are that all the voids in your existence are filled up. Some of them are, but most of them stay. Often they’re replaced with a whole set of new voids. It can be a struggle… but without the struggle, it wouldn’t be worthwhile.”

AND IF THE DEVIL CAME TO YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND SAID: 'BRIAN, I'LL GIVE YOU A NUMBER ONE ALBUM IN AMERICA, BUT IN ORDER TO DO IT I HAVE TO TAKE AWAY LIAM GALLAGHER'S VOICE', WOULD YOU AGREE?
“Would I have to sell my soul though?”

NO. JUST AGREE TO THE SILENCING OF LIAM.
“I’d say 'Satan… let’s go for a drink!’”(VOX, “It’s Only Rock'n'Role Reversal”, June 1997)

Photo credits: Scarlet Page, Renaud Monfourny, Derek Ridgers, Stefan De Batselier 

Post by Silke 

Placebo20 - Time Out "Wembley", November 2004

One thing you count on is that there will always be goths.
Politicans, leg-warmers and Fall line-ups come and go, but there will always be goths on Carnaby Street. Which is just as well, because it means that Placebo will always have a market for their wobbly angst rock.

'Placebo is music for outsiders, by outsiders', said anaemic-looking frontman Brian Molko a couple of years back. 'Our gigs are like convetions of outcasts, which is cool'.

Cool? Really? Well, if ou cast your mind back to 1996, there was a time when Placebo were pretty cool. Grunge and Britpop had died, and bands like The Seahorses ruled a pitiful 'indie' chart.
Placebo. though, touted guitar rock that smacked of battery acid, dampness and rust. And wee Brian, with stubble 'n' slap and enthusiastic bisexuality, was a damn sight more interesting than the likes of Cast.

In the year of Travis and Stereophonics, at least somebody was conducting interviews wearing a maroon smoking jacket and knocking back Bloody Marys.
In the eight years since releasing their storming 'Nancy Boy' single, Placebo have sold 5 million albums worldwide. A quick listen to the band's new singles comp will tell you that their style hasn't changed massively: the energic, tinny drumming, tangles of guitar and over-wrought lyrics.
But that bledn of manky, miserable and highly sexed ("I'm unclean, a libertine!" cries Molko) - that's not goint to lose its appeal for a fair while yet.
Just ask the kids at Wembley.


By Sophie Harris Time Out - 3-10 November 2004

PLACEBO will be headlining the 2015 Hurricane Festival & Southside Festival

PLACEBO will be headlining the 2015 Hurricane Festival & Southside Festival

'Early Bird' tickets are now available for both festivals via their respective websites : 

HURRICANE : http://www.hurricane.de/en/tickets1/tickets1/

SOUTHSIDE : http://www.southside.de/en/tickets/ 

Exact performance dates TBC.

Sources: Placebo 

Placebo Anyway