30 years after its beginning in London, the group
Placebo
has become a classic of alternative rock from the '90s that is still current and active.
Led by singer and guitarist
Brian Molko
along with bassist and guitarist
Stefan Olsdal
, the band combines elements of post-punk with glam rock and industrial rock, a cocktail that gave them much success in hits such as
Nancy boy, Pure morning
and
You don't care about us
.
They were sponsored by
David Bowie
, had
Robert Smith
as a guest for their first show at Wembley Stadium, and recorded with
Michael Stipe
.
All milestones in a career that was only stopped for a few months due to the pandemic, but they are now back on the road and will play on
Thursday, March 14 at Luna Park
.
Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal are the group Placebo, which will now return to Argentina.
press photo
The need to express yourself
Belgian by birth, Brian Molko has lived in London for many years, where he connected via Zoom to talk about the band's current moment.
The beginning of the talk was about last year's intense tour: "It's never too much and it's always too much," he reflected.
Brian Molko is the singer and guitarist of Placebo.
Photo: IG
"The important thing," he added, "is to remember how lucky and privileged you are to have an audience that follows you. You know? My main motivation for forming a band was to never have to get a real job. I never wanted to have a boss or look for a job. really".
He remembers and says: "I remember that one day, when I was 11 years old, I looked at my father and told him that I went to the same place every day and that I always wore a suit. He answered that that's life, and I said that "That wasn't for me. That's when I decided that I wasn't going to do what was expected of me, and that I needed to find my own path without support from anyone. I needed to express myself."
-The first thing was to try music?
-No.
The first thing I did was act, but when I finished college what I really wanted to do was form a band.
So that's what I did, although I didn't know how.
That's why I say that, every time you think that a tour is too intense or you're too tired, you have to remember that there are other bands working harder, and be grateful that you are in a privileged position because you are expressing yourself in a very personal way to the world. , and people are interested.
That's the most surprising thing.
And when you're on tour for eight months, you didn't have many days off and you're very tired, you have to remember that this is how it is.
It's everything you worked for.
And the audience continues to grow every year.
We've been playing live for 28 years and the audience continues to get bigger and bigger.
It is something very unique, a great position and a privilege.
Brian Molko live during a Placebo show.
Photo: IG
Angry at Spotify
-Do you want to tour all year round again or do you prefer to stop and return to a recording studio?
-I would love to record another album.
It makes me want to do something very creative again, but thanks to that idiot Daniel Ek, Mr. Spotify, now all the bands in the entire world can't make a living from our recordings and we have to tour twice as long.
Placebo in 2010 at the Malvinas Argentinas Microstadium.
Photo: Silvana Boemo
-It must be strange to know that millions of people listen to you and then you receive just a few cents for each listen.
-Absolutely.
Snoop Dogg said it best: "I had a billion streams on Spotify, how does that translate to just $40k?"
The compensation is just absurd, because that moron from Sweden created this company that basically exploits every musician on the fucking planet.
He created nothing and became a billionaire at the expense of the creators!
And do you know what he's doing now?
He is investing in artificial intelligence to make war technology, probably to make it easier to kill people.
So that's where your profits go.
Fuck you, Daniel Ek!
If I ever see that guy in real life, I'll have to leave the room because he might not be able to control me.
-Spotify also seems to force you to release singles instead of albums.
-I think it's worse than that, because in reality it's not just Spotify.
This all started with digital downloads, with LimeWire and Napster, so it happened a little earlier.
I grew up with albums that were like a whole, a piece of work.
It's going to be a little difficult for us to become a singles band because we think in terms of albums, precisely because that's what we grew up with.
It's quite a challenge to make an album of 12 amazing songs, and it's easier to throw a song here and another there.
But we've been doing this for almost 30 years and I know that what interests me is this challenge and an album is essential for that.
Brian Molko, a figure of alternative rock.
Photo: IG
-Does all your creativity go into music or do you have other forms of expression?
-In my mind I have other forms of expression, but in the physical world almost everything I do goes towards music.
.
-In some way you could be considered a poet or a writer, because you recently released a book with Placebo's lyrics.
-Well, it is a collection of letters and it is not really a book.
Someday I would like to write something, maybe my memoirs, but that requires a lot of discipline and is very lonely work.
I am someone who needs collaboration to be able to give my best, as I do with Stefan.
The beginnings
-Tell me what the scene was like in London in 1994, when they started Placebo.
-It was really exciting.
There were no cell phones, so at concerts people were connected to what was happening.
There was a lot of
moshing
and
crowd surfing
from the stage, with a sort of feeling of collective euphoria in the room.
Today everyone knows what the concert is going to be like, because they saw it on YouTube or looked at Setlists.com.
Brian Molko in a 2003 show at the Printemps festival in Bourges.
Photo: AFP
Plus, half the people in the room are obsessed with the idea of documenting rather than enjoying it.
In the early '90s, the grunge movement and American indie music was very exciting and there was a lot of mystery involved.
I think we have lost that along with the feeling of collective euphoria, precisely because people are less present.
It is a pity.
-It's difficult to fight against that.
-Before we were all hanging on every word and every note they played, whereas now people just stand there and raise their phone in the air.
It's boring.
It's boring!
What we do now before the show is ask people to please put away their phones and enjoy the fleeting moments that will never happen again.
We are interested in creating a sense of communion and an exchange of energy, and we need a human connection to do that.
I guarantee that if you put away your phone and immerse yourself in the present moment, you will enjoy the concert more.
It's a win-win situation.
What was the turning point that transformed you from being a cult band to a massive and really popular band?
-It happened a couple of times.
In Europe it was our third single,
Nancy Boy
, that put us on the charts, something very strange for us because we were very young, we had just started and it was a quite amoral, licentious and dissolute song.
It was strange for something like that to be at number four in the British charts!
Then the song that really put us on the map was
Pure Morning
.
I remember around that time we crossed the border from the United States to Canada, and the border guard came up to me and said, "You wrote that sweet song, didn't you?"
If it made us famous among the border guards, we were surely famous everywhere.
Brian Molko with David Bowie at the 1999 Brit Awards. Photo: AP
-Last question. Is it correct to say that
Happy birthday in the sky
is dedicated to David Bowie?
-It started out being about David Bowie, because his death impacted me a lot because he was a mentor and a friend.
He taught me about music, but most of all he taught me how to be a better human being and how to get along with people.
The great thing about Bowie was that you could be Bono or the waiter, and he would treat you with the same respect.
I learned from David to be a better human being.
Then in 2022 I lost my brother to cancer at the age of 59.
My only brother and my favorite person in the world.
So
Happy birthday in the sky
also became something very important to my brother.