Placebo interview in Vision in Jun. 2009

Thank you, Natalie for the translation ^.^

Middle of March in an old-fashioned suburb of London. on a huge, decently ragged industrial area you find one of the biggest complex of studios of the metropolis. At the walls signed photos and posters of bands like Depeche Mode up to Iron Maiden; in barred reservoires is stored equipment of bands such as U2, Razorlight and New Order, as the stickers on the flightcases tell. You can easily get lost in the corridors between the numerous recording and monitoring rooms, the more so as the complex has several floors. In one of the biggest studios, a so called live rehearsal studio, you can find the entire concert equipment of Placebo, completely configured. These special studios which are rented by professional bands to prepare a tour, have to be imagined like a huge concert club, just without a matching room for audience: A monumental, though pretty low, stage emulates the measures of a festival stage to the band, to both sides of the stage is a PA which could easily serve a stadium, while just a few metres from them the wall already closes the room.

The New Brutality
In the small space in front of the stage are about 30 people from all out of Europe crammed tonight – a few of the new label, some of the management and a hand full of journalists. The first 20 get earmuffs, then they are out of stock. Those who didn’t get any will experience in the next 60 minutes, that sonic brilliance and powerful dynamic can as well have the volume of an armada of jet fighters. It’s probably the loudest good sounding concert the author has ever experienced. Played – and with that shown to the public for the first time – are ten songs of their 6th album “Battle For The Sun”. Until that day, no one has ever even heard a single note of that, now the time has come: In full live outfit they start without a big introduction. More than ever, Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal build the optic and sonic centre; they share the front, are in the focus of the spectator, are what amounts to the band. on a little platform, the new drummer Steve Forrest is slaving away, rounded by the two already known, as pertinent playing as nearly invisible additional live musicians.

New is a dilly attractive violinist who takes also a lot of other instruments into her slender hands in the course of the mini-concert. It is – this shall be foreclosed – doubtlessly the most brutal first contact with a new disc that has ever been created. Of course those visits of studios when bands would put up the volume as much as possible in an euphoric passion are well known, aiming at blowing even the last bit of scepticism out of the press journalist’s mind with pure elemental force. But what we sample here, is different: An exceptionally accurate, broad sounding, incredibly loud private concert of a band that usually plays in front of 20000 people, not 30. An unreformable fool who believes that this would not massively impress even old stagers. Allowedly, it doesn’t even really matter anymore, how good or bad the new songs are – you just gloat over the shining feeling to be experiencing a pretty special moment of rock music.

The New Loudmouth
“The signs of the times show it: You have to go new ways to inspire the media and even the fans with yourself” Brian Molko is going to say exactly two weeks later at the interview in Berlin to explain the extraordinary album presentation. “On the one hand you want the press to report on your album already before it’s published, on the other hand we can’t hand you CDs anymore because we are fucked then. What’s left then if you want to avoid listening sessions in cool press bureaus? You just have to act accoring to your time, and either you are an idiot or a visionary. The advantage of such a live presentation is: That’s where the wheat seperates from the chaff; that’s where you show wether you are a man or a boy.” And he even sees a further, way more important adavantage: “Because nowadays rock bands can only really earn money by concerts, the scene will shrink down to a healthy level again sooner or later. Because every band that can’t convince you on stage – and we have more than enough of those in England at the moment – will drown at the latest with the second album. Look at bands like Hard-Fi, Dirty Pretty Things or Babyshambles: one European tour, and that’s it. Everyone got that they have no skills. We on the contrary say “Thank you a lot” and make the next world tour.”

What already looms in this quote, but gets visible in the course of the evening in London, even more at the conversation in Berlin: Brian Molko, the once introverted and not easily accessible frontman, who was hiding his eyes behind thick lines of eyeliner, whom you never really wanted to believe that role, has become firmly cocky. You can hear slogans like “Above us there’s only U2 and the Stones, but we will get them as well!” which make even his old buddy Stefan look slightly embarassed aside. Another one appears several times: “Our goal is to become the biggest band of all times, and with that album we can make it.” Sentences like this will come out of his mouth again and again during those 45 minutes, and you have to ask yourself wether he is really serious or rather a good dose of Columbian marching powder made his ego swell up to the size of the Eiffeltower.

The new place for creativity
At exactly this place, at the foot of the Eiffeltower, Molko lived, after they had finished the seemingly endless tour for “Meds” and had parted ways remarkably quiet with drummer Steve Hewitt, for some months on a rented houseboat. “One of the most beautiful places in the world” Molko reports excited, “just unfortunately very expensive even for a rock star.” Precisely? “I don’t know exactly. I think I paid more than 10000 pounds per month.” There, far from everything concerning the band, he wrote the first tracks for the new album. “I learned a new freedom there which I don’t want to miss anymore. It’s always said when you are a famous musician you enjoy every freedom possible, but that’s not true. Contracts, duties, deadlines, rows of interviews, tour schedules...you are terribly bound. In my time in Paris I finally found out again what it means to be really free and independent. I would stand up just sometime, do me a cup of coffee, sit down on the terrace of the houseboat, watch the people and then think about how I want to spend that day. Sometimes I just kept there sitting until the evening, other days I wrote three songs in a row.

At the same time, Stefan toured the dance clubs of the world with his Spanish friends David Amen and Javier Solo, turned tables and dared to record “In The Clouds”, one of the most bloodless albums in the history of side projects. The mixture of handbag house, eurodance and pseudo latin pop can only be seen as a collective blooper as a consequence of too many nights of being wasted. A side effect which can still be seen on Stefan: The smart, handsome man became only skin and bones with grey face colour and dark circles as thick as car tires under his eyes. At least it had “been fun and has as well liberated my head from all the shit that had happened in Placebo before” Stefan says about Hotel Persona – which can, with the publishing of the new Placebo album, be considered dead.

The New Drummer
What ex-drummer Steve Hewitt – third friend in the band for a long time, today resembling Pandora’s box for Brian and Stefan, whichs opening had made the band fall to dust afterwards – is doing nowadays nobody knows. And they don’t want to know as well. With a surprising frankness the two of them wash dirty laundry in the interview, but don’t forget to say “But don’t write this, we don’t want to kick someone on the ground (not sure if that is well translated, I think not! In German it’s “we don’t want to kick again”, but it resembles what I translated)” after every third sentence. Long story short: Hewitt had lost grip to the ground, had become arrogant, self-rightous and humanly unbearable and had started to experiment with too many drugs. “Don’t get me wrong” Molko says, “we all like to have a bit of quick fun from time to time. But if you, like we experienced it, can only talk if all of you take in two grams of coke in ten minutes, something has to be wrong.” And then he starts telling. About the phases of his depression which he himself calls “seriously pathologic”; explains how the disturbed relationship with Steve has even influenced the friendship with Stefan which had been lasting for decades; for months, he tells, they hadn’t talked to each other in the tour bus, the only bits of communication had happened in order to rant about the performance mistakes of the others. “If just one small wheel in a complicated system isn’t working acceptable anymore, the whole system is gonna fall apart” he says. “It’s like a rotten apple – there might be only a little dent in it, but the whole fruit tastes horrible.”

A nice image – but how can you translate that into people? After all, the three of you have shared your lives for ten years.

Stefan: That’s true, and the journey was exciting for a while. But already in the first part of the “Meds” tour which had been too long and ample, Brian and me noticed that something was going wrong. We knew quick: Without a basic change, there wouldn’t be a future for Placebo. The thoughts about a final split up have been openly articulated more than once. I admit that we probably projected some of our own problems on Steve; it’s not his exclusive fault. But for me and Brian it was clear that we belong together. Not so many possibilities left for a change in personnel in a trio then...

Compared to that, what does it feel like to be a part of Placebo nowadays?
Brian: We are in the great phase of the first sexual approach, when every kiss feels special, every quickie seems to be the best fuck of your life. Believe me: Our sex is overwhelming at the moment. Of course all this will feel way more used in a few months. But at the moment we enjoy this novelty at the fullest. We have played only two concerts in this line-up in front of an audience, one of which you have seen – hasn’t it been incredibly good?

By any means you can feel the passion with which you do your work.

Brian: See? That is worth an endless lot already. If you knew how dark and miserable it felt to be in this band in the last time of the last tour! I just wanted to be somewhere else back then; now I want nothing more than getting on stage. You can’t expect more of a change really. I’m just happy to experience this new facet of Placebo, to taste this new taste of the new songs. And all this just because of my new very young and very tattoed friend Steve Forrest.
Latter plays, as the evening in London shows, an insanely powerful, flogging drum set – to the very contrary of his predecessor who had always been caring for aesthetics and beauty in his play. Not only does Forrest, just in the beginning of his 20s and already covered in tattoos, look like a young fun punk – he as well plays like one. That’s what he as well did in his former band Evaline, which had been supporting Placebo on their last tour in the US. That’s how Brian and Stefan became aware of him. So today, he kicks the two elder ones into their asses by serving them with his kicking punch drums full of relish from the back of the stage. But: He has nothing to say. In the interview – even when a question is directed straight at him – Brian answers for him. “The kid is living his dream now: From the Californian rehearsal room in the basement up to the big festival stages. We are so happy to give this chance to a young talent. Because it gives us wings as well – his naivity, his curiosity and crave to experience pass on to us. If we do something with him we have done a thousand times before, but he is doing for the first time, this euphoria immediately rubs off on us. And he always gets the best women.”

Steve Forrest just smiles and remains silent. Which proves that he’s more than just “the new one behind the drums”: He’s a source of energy for the two spoiled heads of the band. An excuse to behave like a naughty boy even thought they’re close to their 40s. Steve is the new playful element Placebo needed to scoop power and passion again. He’s the living dream of a young man for Molko and Olsdal, whose own career had only started when they were in the midth of their 20s. And he’s clever enough to let all these projections on his person and the playful comments happen, smirking to himself. From his perspective, he has won the drummer-jackpot. No need to insist on answering the questions yourself.

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이 완벽하진 않을 것 같지만 그래도 영어를 잘하는 팬인듯 하다. (유투브에 살짝 보니 Placebo cover랑 자작곡 연주하면서 부른 동영상도 있더만...)

이 팬의 말처럼 이 기사를 쓴 기자는 좀 삭아지가 없어 보이면서 주관적 생각을 드러내는 살짝 객관적이지 못한 기사를 쓴 것 같지만 그래도 그걸 감안하고 읽으면 될 듯...

지난 주 휴잇씨의 LAR 첫 gig 이후 gig mp3를 rip했던 호주팬은 드뎌 포럼에 가입했다.

알고보니 공연기획 비스므리한 직종종사자다.

이 호주팬이 LJ에 올려놓은 LAR mp3 다운링크 글을 휴잇씨가 보고 페북에 note를 썼던 것.

얼마나 뿌듯했을까...ㅋㅋㅋ

Kate는 LJ account 만들라고 하는데 증말 아직도 LJ 컨셉이 잘 이해가 안 된다는...ㅜ.ㅜ

지금 내가 들락거리는 데 말고 하나 더 들락거릴 곳이 생긴다면 도저히 감당이 안 될 것 같다...

게다가 LJ는 규모가 전세계적으로 상당히 방대하게 보이던데...

LAR 공연 mp3를 다운받는 사람들이 늘어나면서 LJ account 없는 사람도 듣고 평을 남길 수 있도록 Kate가 설정을 바꿨다고 어제 그러더라... LJ는 쫌 생각해봐야 할 것 같다... 공부 좀 더 해서...ㅡ.ㅡ

H+H도 왜 그리 낯선지... 당췌 인터페이스 잘 적응 안 됨...ㅡ.ㅡ

Anyway, 이 기사에서 Hewitt씨에 대해 기자가 쓴 말이 참 거슬리네... Brian, Stefan이 설마 정말 이렇게까지 말했을까?

기자가 증말 삭아지 읍군...

이 기사 뒤로는 이 기자의 음반리뷰라는데 그닥 앨범평도 '베리 굿!' 이렇진 않은가보다...ㅡ.ㅡ

LAR의 첫 gig에서 들었던 곡들은 진짜 다 괜찮다. 나도 이런 걸 예상하진 않았는데 곡이 다 좋다.

아직 첫 gig이고 플라시보도 라이브에서 실수 하고, 음정이 가끔 이상할 때도 있고 하니

딱 한 번 공연 듣고 아니라고 판단하진 않으려고 한다.

라이브에서 이 정도면 앨범은 확실할 거란 생각이 든다.

그나저나 앨범을 여기서도 살 수 있을지가 궁금...

H+H 포럼에 휴잇씨 과거에 대한 글을 휘리릭 훑어봤는데 나름 고생도 많이 했던 사람 같다.

브라이언이 '자랑스럽게' 자신은 다른 직업을 가져본 적이 없다고 한 것과 달리

휴잇씨는 그야말로 공사판 일 등 음악이 아닌 일도 했던 것 같다.

Brian, Stefan과 도대체 무슨 일이 있었는지는 본인들만 아는 것일 거고 누가 잘못한 건지 따질 수도 없을 것이다.

나름 다들 이유가 있었을테니...

휴잇씨가 보컬 부분 좀 더 보강해서 앞으로 더 발전된 라이브 실력을 보여줬음 하는 바램이고 앞으로 정말 잘 되길 너무너무 바란다...^.^