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By Whitney Weiss
Placebo's new album, Sleeping with Ghosts, could be their best yet if
fans give it a chance. Fresh from their biggest European tour yet,
Brian Molko gave Movement a few minutes of his time via phone from Los
Angeles.
You just got done with the European tour, correct?
Yeah, a few weeks ago.
How was that?
Oh, it was amazing. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger over
there. It's been fantastic, the best tour so far.
What made it the best tour so far?
Oh it's just we're reaching so many more people and we're headlining a
few festivals out there and the reception for the album has been
phenomenal. You know, it just seems that seven to ten years of hard
work has really been paying off now.
Well that's really great. Have you noticed
with playing festivals do you prefer that to playing on your own in
just a club or a stadium or do you like a smaller kind of vibe?
Well obviously the nature of festivals is that it's much more fly by
the seat of your pants, you know? In a way more can go wrong, and it's
more of a challenge but at the same time it's like a big picnic with a
lot of friends and a lot of musicians that you haven't seen in a long
time interrupted by a gig.
Obviously within your own show you can control a lot more and the
audience is there very much to see just you so it can be more
rewarding in certain ways. But then sometimes when you headline a
festival it is really something incredible. There are a lot of
different elements and factors that go into it really.
You mentioned seven to ten years of hard work
finally paying off. What do you think the biggest difference is
between Placebo now and Placebo when you first started out?
Oh, ::laughs:: there's so many! We're far more experienced. We've
lived a great deal more. So much has happened to us as people. And as
artists we've achieved a great deal. There's also been a lot of crazy
roller coaster rides. You know, we've grown up; we've gotten younger
at the same time.
I think our songwriting has developed. I think we've become more
adventurous simply because we've become more experienced. And we're
always looking for a new challenge.
What was the process for making Sleeping With
Ghosts? What did you find yourself doing on this album that you hadn't
done on this album that you hadn't done on other albums, what kind of
steps did you think you made?
Oh, a great deal. We're working with an incredible producer. The last
album, Black Market Music, was self-produced. We're working with Jim
Abbots who produces DJ Shadow, works with Massive Attack, Bjork,
Sneaker Pimps; it's kind of been an amazing pedigree you know? You
know, you're really really aware around the time of your fourth album
that you could start to work toward the formula kind of thing and that
you can get lazy and complacent and we wanted to work with a producer
who was going to push us into a new place. So it's a very different
approach to rock music because of his pedigree and because it's the
kind of person he was, and because of what we asked him to do which
was kind of crack the whip and push us into different directions. And
we wanted that as well. We wanted to experience something fresh. You
know?
The cover art is great. I think the picture
really describes, I think it's probably the best cover art I've seen
this year. How exactly, who conceptualized that?
Thank you. Well that was Jean Batiste Mondino . He's responsible for
the cover of Bjork's debut, for Prince's Love Sexy, he's done videos
for Madonna including "Justify My Love". So we sent him the album, he
liked it, and we went down to Paris to talk to him about it. And that
was his visual interpretation of what he thought was going on with the
record. It was really amazing to work with somebody so talented and
ahead of his time and at the top of his field.
"Every artistic expression is in and of itself a political gesture"
Brian Molko
on working with producers, Sleeping with Ghosts,
and why Americans should listen to Michael Moore
I hear that you've been making some Tony
Blair jokes when you're on tour?
Well there's no need to make any jokes about Tony Blair seeing as
though he is one.
You've got a very straightforward stance
about the war in Iraq, has this led to any problems while touring?
No, no. None at all really, I don't think the kind of
people who come to our shows really necessarily follow the George
Bush/Tony Blair line about the whole thing. So we haven't really had
any problems, no. And it's very very important to stand up for what
you believe in. You know?
And do you feel that your stance, with all
that's going on right now politically, do you feel as a musician that
it is your job to take people's minds off of things, or to open their
minds and educate them?
Oh, as much as you can without being pretentious, and without being
completely polemic about the whole thing. To not just open it because
you have a platform. If you shy away from it then you're Daniel
Reddingfield or Robbie Williams.
We're artists, so everything that we do, every artistic expression is
in and of itself a political gesture. You know? And so we not in the
entertainment business, politics have always been wrapped up in what
we are and what we are about as people and as fans. You know, it's
vital.
What exactly are your beliefs and your views
on what's happening currently in politics with what the United States
is doing? Not being from the United States you have a much different
perspective than people here.
Well, it's about imperialism really. I think every American
should read Stupid White Men by Michael Moore first of all. And watch
Bowling For Columbine. Michael Moore's work is really on the button.
For me, personally, I think it's about imperialism. It's been a while
since the world's had an empire. You know, the British had one for a
while, and historically other countries have had one too. It's about
the exporting of what certain people believe to be a quintessentially
American lifestyle. At the sacrifice of things like the environment,
of personal freedom, of civil liberties, and um, I don't want the
world to turn into a Mc Donald's, do you?
No, I absolutely don't. What do you think of
Moore's reception at the Oscars when he tried to speak, did you happen
to catch that?
Well, I think it's typical. You know, the response is typical of what
happens in America today. I also think that people's reaction to the
fact that he didn't support Gore is really quite scary. Personally I
really don't believe in bipartisan politics, because what you end up
voting for is the lesser of two evils. In the case of the recent
election, which Gore won anyway, what you were faced with was one
potentially very evil and powerful individual and one very stupid one.
So, how can anybody come out of it winning there? So I think the
system needs a bit of an overhaul. Well, quite a bit an overhaul.
Now, do you find yourself thinking about
these topics when you write lyrically? Where exactly are you when you
sit down to write?
Well, it's just very very natural. You never ever sit down to write a
song about politics or about a swimming pool, you know, you sit down
and it's a very very instinctual approach to what you do. Personally,
as somebody who writes lyrics, I write about today. And the emotions
of people who live on this planet today. You can't ignore the fact
that we live in a post 9/11 world. That's very significant so people's
concerns and people's emotions are very very particular to the time
that we live in. So your music or your lyrics should reflect that. But
you don't sit down and calculate or sit down and have a list of issues
that you decide that it's time to do. If you sit down and decide to
write on an issue it's got to be something that's really really
touched your life in a way that it's the only way that you can
exorcise it. Exorcising the demon is just by talking with it in that
way. What we do is very very emotional, and is very much about
people's emotions. And that's a kind of exorcism within itself. But
those emotions are of today, in a way they're very universal, but I
think it's important to face them in a very modern context.
PLACEBO: NORTH AMERICAN WINTER TOUR!
After three internationally successful albums and numerous sold-out
world tours, Placebo have returned with a new album that demands your
attention, Sleeping With Ghosts. The new album finds the band with
unprecedented assuredness, fully aware that the only people left for
them to challenge are themselves. A newfound focus on atmospherics,
electronics and textures (made to flourish by producer Jim Abbiss of
Bjork, UNKLE and Massive Atttack fame) has given us their most
emotionally reflective yet explosive album to date.
On November 18th, Astralwerks will release the limited-edition CD of
Placebo's Sleeping With Ghosts. This pressing includes a bonus disc
of cover versions, most of which have never been released in America
and many of which have never been released anywhere in the world. The
disc features Placebo's take on Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" and
the Boney M's disco classic "Daddy Cool", amongst many others.
PLACEBO's international success is impossible to ignore. On their
last tour, the band played to over 500,000 people in 30 countries at
their own headline shows (excluding festivals) and they have sold out
shows globally including the US, Asia and Australia. Their last album
went Top 20 in over twenty countries, and knocked Radiohead off the
number one spot in France. PLACEBO also played to over 6,000 people
in Gorky Park, Moscow in 2001.
PLACEBO Nov/Dec Tour:
11/20
Vancouver, BC
Commodore
11/21
Seattle, WA
Graceland
11/22
Portland, OR
Crystal Ballroom
11/24 San
Francisco, CA
Slims
11/25 Las
Vegas, NV
The Joint
11/26 Los
Angeles, CA Wiltern
12/1
Anaheim, CA
House of Blues
12/2
Phoenix, AZ
The Marquee Theatre
12/4
Dallas, TX
Trees
12/5
Austin, TX
La Zona Rosa
12/6
New Orleans, LA House
of Blues
12/8
Tampa, FL
Masquerade w/ Stellastar @ 8:30
12/9
Orlando, FL
House of Blues w/ Stellastar @ 7:30
12/10
Atlanta, GA
The Roxy
12/12
Washington, DC
9:30 Club
12/13
Philadelphia, PA
TLA
12/14
Montreal, Quebec
Spectrum
12/16 New
York, NY
Webster Hall |
