FROM：http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Placebo/
By Jay Hathaway
Sep 11, 2007

Brian Molko, the always-engaging frontman of Placebo, has been around the world twice since SuicideGirls last checked in with him. Although Placebo has had a successful decade-long career in the UK and Europe, they've never managed a full-on conquest of America. This summer's Projekt Revolution tour, headlined by Linkin Park, might be the Trojan Horse that finally gets them through the gate. Did Placebo take their new audience by surprise, or was it the other way around? I got a chance to talk to Brian as he was getting ready for one of the last shows of a year and a half of touring.
Jay Hathaway: How has the tour been going so far? 

Brian Molko: It's been pretty exhausting. We've been touring for 18 months, and we've been touring for 18 months pretty much preaching to the choir. The first show on the Projekt Revolution tour was a bit of a shock for us. We swaggered out there with our bravado, which was immediately crushed by a few thousand disinterested Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance fans. Took us about three or four gigs and three or four set changes to realize that Linkin Park and My Chem fans at 5 o'clock in the afternoon do not want to be wooed by our particular brand of European melancholia. They want to be slapped across the face. So we rose to that challenge as well and pulled out some old songs. Songs which we hadn't even rehearsed, let alone played, in over three years. The more punky, straightforward, in-your-face fast side of Placebo. And once we did that, it really improved. It's a lesson that every band, no matter how long you've been in the business, has to learn. You have to be adaptable and have a kind of Darwinian attitude toward things, then you may not get certain opportunities. I think we're particularly good at that. We don't just have one style that we do. There isn't a blanket sound over an entire Placebo record. As for what's it been like backstage, there's a lot of cameraderie, a lot of bonhamie. There's no egos, everybody's very approachable and all the bands, especially Linkin Park, we've just kind of been getting to know each other bit by bit, day by day. It's like a big summer camp thing, in a way. 

JH:
Obviously they were familiar with your stuff when they asked you to be on the tour, but had you listened to any of the other bands? Were you previously fans of any of the other bands on the tour? 

BM:
Well, Linkin Park is kind of un-missable. You'd have to sort of live in Lebanon, maybe. Or not even live in Lebanon, but live under a rock to have missed Linkin Park. Every record they've put out has been everywhere. So, very familiar with Linkin Park, but we'd never met before. The band we had met before a few times and played with at festivals before was My Chemical Romance. So we kind of knew each other, and liked each other from before, and we were looking forward to seeing each other. They're very popular in the UK and we played Reading together and things like that. It's been good to spend more time with Gerard, just hanging out. We've become mates, you know, which has been great. I'd heard the Taking Back Sunday single. The other bands, though, I'm not really familiar with. I made a discovery this time, though. The band that headlined the Revolution Stage, the second stage, they're called Mindless Self Indulgence. And I have no idea what it sounds like on record, but their live show is an absolutely unique experience. It really is. I won't say that lightly, and I don't say that about very many bands. So I really recommend catching Mindless Self Indulgence live. They have a singer who has the greatest onstage banter. Very confrontational, arrogant. And an amazing female bass player who would make an excellent Suicide Girl. She did something the other day that I've only ever seen Iggy Pop do before, which is walk on the audience. Not crowd-surf, but walk on the audience, which I didn't think was possible, plus she did it in knee-high boots and a tartan miniskirt. Very exciting. So that's my recommendation from Projekt Revolution -- Mindless Self Indulgence. 

JH:
I think that what makes it possible for her to pull off something like that, and something you have in common with them, is that you both have extremely serious and intense fans. The level of fan devotion there is something that's pretty well known. 

BM:
It's true. We've done a lot of signings on this tour, and what we've noticed is a lot of people in line with Mindless Self Indulgence T-shirts. Which is really interesting -- the crossover of fans between a few bands, and the level of commitment, the level of obsession and devotion. That's quite interesting. 

JH:
Are you starting to get more of that in the US? With every album, you've picked up more and more American fans, so -- if you went out to a club in the US, would everybody recognize you at this point? 

BM:
No! No. (Laughter) Which is fine with me. I'm not somebody who needs to be recognized to feel a form of self-worth, you know? I take the subway in London, for example, sometimes, because it's the quickest way to get from A to B. When you see me on stage, that's the more flamboyant side of my personality, the more extroverted side of my personality. I need that time on stage in order to let that aspect of myself come out and flourish and blossom. But I don't carry that flamboyance through into my everyday life, so being recognized in the street is not necessarily something that I crave. We've got a cult following in the US. It's been quite a housewarming. Every time we come back, it's been slightly larger. It's cool for us too, being a band who have played for 12 years, you can get kind of complacent about success. It helps keep our hunger alive. It's kind of like the last frontier for us. Of course everybody wants to be huge and successful in America, because of the revenue that it generates, but I find it quite charming, the level that we're at right now. If it doesn't grow, we'll always come back and feel like a cult band in the US, and that's great for us too. 

JH:
I think there's a good chance that it will, because you're on a tour with audiences who might not have heard your stuff before. So they're now focusing on the music, after you've been through a time where there was so much focus on your personal lives, and so much baggage attached. These new fans can just focus on what you're playing out there. 

BM:
Which I think is fantastic! It's incredible how much excess baggage a band can carry around. To be free of that feels really cool. 

JH:
Is that still something that you're getting a lot of, or have people gotten over it at this point? 

BM:
I think people are starting to get over it and people are starting to focus a lot more on the music. I mean, a lot of the UK press doesn't really write about us anymore. We've kind of become part of the furniture. Like an old cracked-up leather sofa that's very comfortable, but that you don't really notice is there anymore. Our fan base in the UK has grown over the last decade, and continues to grow. We play Wembley whenever we play in the UK, for god's sake. It doesn't seem to have an effect on us. Well, to be honest with you, I don't really spend that much time thinking about it. (Laughs) I want to get on with my job and write songs, try and be as free as possible. Try to be baggage free every time you pick up an instrument to write. That's kind of what interests me, to keep improving as a songwriter, keep improving as a musician and as a lyricist. I feel that there's still so far to go and so much room for improvement. That's what keeps me here doing it. 

JH:
Do you feel like there's also musical baggage attached? You've been around for over a decade now -- are there expectations that people now have about the band that you're working to subvert, or that you have to live with when you're writing songs? 

BM:
You know, if all of a sudden we made an album of country songs, I think that would really confuse people. I think people expect Placebo to be a rock band, and we understand that. We're ok with that. We know that's who we are; we're comfortable with that. However, the definition of what a rock band is very, very fluid. As far as we're concerned, it's very, very open. We don't approach record-making with a calculated idea of exactly what we'd like to do this time, "That's too rock, that's not rock enough." We try our best not to self-censor, and I think that's really, really important. We're a band that makes a lot of noise with guitars most of the time, and that's part of our identity. I think my voice also is very much part of Placebo's identity. The way Stefan plays guitar, the way I sing, that really gives us our uniqueness. Every time we make a record, the difficult equilibrium to strike is how to renew yourself, and to not repeat yourself, and to challenge yourself, while at the same time not turning your back on what makes you uniquely you. And that is the challenge that we face as a band every time we find ourselves in the studio. 

JH:
I think that's what makes your cover songs so interesting. They're other people's songs, but you still manage to make them distinctly Placebo. 

BM:
Thank you. I think that a good cover should. 

JH:
Certainly. I was wondering how you chose your covers. What inspired you to do those particular songs? 

BM:
We're children of the ‘80s. We grew up with disco on the radio, and we grew up with mainstream ‘80s pop. But at the same time, we grew up with the birth of alternative and indie music labels. We grew up with the Smiths and the Cure, and the Pixies and Sonic Youth. What I find interesting about that decade as far as the mainstream music is concerned -- for example, take “Running Up That Hil� by Kate Bush, take “Babushka� by Kate Bush, take “Wuthering Heights� by Kate Bush. These are really fucking kooky, weird, pop songs. Take “Ashes to Ashes� by David Bowie. This is a really weird, avant-garde song. What I find interesting about that decade is that mainstream artists were trying to really push the boundaries of what pop was as far as they could, and had an avant-garde art approach to pop music. I think unfortunately, due to the proliferation of these popularity contests, which I believe to be the work of Satan -- and I'm talking about “American Idol� and all that nonsense -- which have no cultural value whatsoever. It should be called “Karaoke Idol.� Its sole reason for existence is to fill the pockets of the TV company and the record company that's going to get the winner. It's partly responsible for the cessation of an avant-garde approach to what pop music is. You go back even to something like “Rapture� by Blondie, my god! They almost invented rap music at that point. It was incredible that Debbie Harry would have a go at rapping about Fab Five Freddie. It's insane! I just don't think that the avant-garde spirit exists today. So when we cover songs, we have a tendency to go back to the ‘80s and cover songs which got us interested in pop music. That's why you've got “Johnny and Mary� by Robert Palmer, that's why you've got “Daddy Cool� by Boney M -- or “Running Up That Hill,� for that matter. These are songs which remind us of our childhood and make us feel nostalgic, which is why we try to do something modern with them. 

JH:
Do you get a lot of time to read on the tour? I really want to know what you're reading right now. 

BM:
What I'm reading right now? I was reading a psychology book, by a psychologist called Oliver James. It's called Affluenza. Which, as it explains on the cover, is a noun. It's a contagious middle-class virus causing depression, anxiety, addiction and ennui. A global tour of infected minds by a renowned psychologist in search of the secret of being successful and staying sane. So that's my heavy reading. My light reading is a book called Invisible Monsters by Chuck Pahlanuik, the guy who wrote Fight Club. It's about a supermodel who gets disfigured and becomes this mute monster on the inside. I find him an incredibly challenging author, I've read a lot of what he's done. Haven't actually read Fight Club, 'cause I've seen the movie so many times. Any book written by a man who doesn't own a TV sparks an interest in my imagination. 

JH:
I really enjoyed Choke, that's my favorite of his. Have you read that one? 

BM:
Ok, yes. I like Survivor as well. He's just a very challenging writer. Very, very wry. He's been out for a while, but he really does open his eyes. But yeah, so I do get time to read. There's a lot of downtime. There's only so many movies you can watch, and there's only so many times a day you can masturbate. 

JH:
Yep. 

BM:
So you have to fill your head with words. I'm a lyricist, I work with words. So I need to read, because I just need to be exposed to the guys in the business, for that to rub off on me, hopefully. 

JH:
Sure. 

BM: 
Just like I need to consume a great deal of music in order to continue to have ideas. Not that I steal other people's -- well, maybe I do. What was it that Frank Zappa said? Bad artists borrow and great artists steal? I'm paraphrasing. I'm not going to pretend that we're not influenced by anybody; that would be kind of a ridiculous statement to make. 

JH:
All three of you have worked on music outside the band, solo projects. Stefan's got the DJ thing going. Is all that an outlet for things you can't do within the confines of Placebo? 

BM:
I DJ-ed for a while. I stopped for many reasons, but I may begin again sometime in the future. Stef DJs under the name of Hotel Persona, and has made a record as well. I think that's definitely an outlet for him, for an aspect of his musicality which he can't explore in Placebo, and which is much more gay disco. I guess that's why Hotel Persona exists, to satisfy that aspect of his musical taste and his desire to express himself in that way. I suppose when I collaborate with other artists, like Timo Maas, the German superstar DJ, or Jane Birkin, the legend -- at least she is in France and the UK -- to me, working on other people's songs, because it's not all Placebo, I feel a little less precious about it. I'm able to let go of it more. I find that aspect of working with other people collaboratively interesting. When you get into a collaboration, you have to relinquish control. The final product is up to other people. It's a good lesson for me, it teaches me to be less precious about it. I haven't necessarily been able to put that into practice when working on a Placebo record just yet. One never knows, perhaps maybe the next one. 

JH:
I know you've been on tour for quite a while -- have you been talking about the next one at all? 

BM:
Well, first we need to find a new record deal. Once that's out of the way, I think we'll start talking about it. (Laughs) It's been 18 months. Right now all we want to do is go home and hibernate until Christmas. It is possible to get sick of being in your own band. 

JH:
Do you guys prefer to be on tour versus in the studio? 

BM:
I think we're all very much aware of how different these experiences are. Touring is pure performance, it's the exploration of that flamboyant, exhibitionist aspect of your character. And when it works -- I think all great art, you have to take a step towards it as much as the art takes a step toward you, like a painting. You stand in front of a Willem De Kooning, you can just stand there and go "I don't get it." Or you can take a step towards it and start to see things and feel emotions. And I think the best gigs are when an audience takes a step towards you as much as you do as a band towards them, and there's this meeting in the middle, this synergy that is created. That's when sometimes being onstage is better than sex. It's a very, very different experience than being in the studio, where you're very contemplative and also very disciplined. It's a process of creation as opposed to performance, Performance with a big "P" that you do when you're in front of an audience. You feel like you're mad scientists, mixing different compounds together and seeing what colored smoke you're going to get. You can let your beard grow, you can get a studio tan, put on a few pounds, doesn't really matter. Unless you do one of these silly things like hook a webcam up in front of your studio. Which I think is quite silly, because (laughs) people watching these webcams don't realize how fucking boring it is sometimes…how much repetition there is! I've seen them before; you get a webcam of people reading the newspaper on the couch behind the mixing desk. It's a more private affair, and I like to keep it that way. It's a place of complete freedom. Whereas a live performance, if you do the kinds of tours that we do -- in Europe, we're accompanied by a lot of self-made visuals, it tends to be very, very structured. Whereas being in the studio is a very free experience. Particularly when you make mistakes, and you make beautiful mistakes and they become part of the song. You get surprised by something. You go in one direction expecting to end up somewhere - you get on the train, and instead of ending up in Camden, you end up in Borneo. And you think it's amazing. 

JH:
Talking about repetition, has it been kind of frustrating with the set list that you've gotten locked into now? Is there other stuff you'd rather be playing, but you know it's not going to work for the situation? 

BM:
Sure, but that's not necessarily a problem. It takes a certain amount of self-discipline and flexibility to play songs for people that you wouldn't necessarily choose to play for yourself. You have to find a connection to it, otherwise it's a lie. You don't want to go onstage and lie. So you're kind of put on the spot and put in a position where you have to find a connection to these songs. Otherwise you might as well not have even bothered to do so in the first place. You've buried these songs somewhere. You have to exhume the corpse, and you have to make it beautiful. And the only way you can make this corpse beautiful is by breathing new life into it. I think we are a band that thrives on challenges, so it's not really a problem for us. 

JH:
Is that a night-by-night process, or have you gotten in a groove now? 

BM:
I think we've gotten in a groove, but bear in mind that we are four shows away from the end of an 18-month world tour. We've been around the world twice already. 

JH:
You can see the light now! 

BM:
(Laughs) We're still going out on stage and giving 110% every time. 

JH:
Kind of a sprint to the finish. 

BM:
That's exactly what it is, a sprint to the finish. Actually, I'm going to have to leave you. It's been a very, very good interview, but there comes a time to go get ready. I'm going to go put my face on. 

JH:
Ok, have a good show. 

BM:
Thanks, man. Nice talking to you.

Every You Every Me (Live Lowlands 2006)
http://www.megaupload.com/cn/?d=H7ZTGZVV

Nancy Boy (Live Reading 2006)
http://www.megaupload.com/cn/?d=IBVHO9BN

Special K (Live T In The Park 2006)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gatmmt

Infra-Red (Live T In The Park 2006)
http://www.megaupload.com/cn/?d=NUQ2E8Z6

Song To Say Goodbye (Live T In The Park 2006)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zx0b6h

The Bitter End (Live T In The Park 2006)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8GFWS4BG

10年前的一个采访,有关BRIAN的sexuality

Who better to interview than Placebo's Brian Molko when you want to discuss sexuality. Brian dresses and looks like a little girl [kinky, eh?]. Since Brian's sexuality and sexual ideas are probably misunderstood, we figured we'd enlighten some folks. Good interview; great guy. Check this out... 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If given the choice, do you prefer being around men or women?

I'm getting very tired about being around men. Really, um, you know, I'm going on tour with three guys in the band, the bus drivers, you know the bus driver's are usually very racist, homophobic sort of kind of people, crew guys my guitar tech a particular kind person with a very, very sick mind. But you know crew guys are crude. I'm kind if tired about conversations sort of like fucking teenagers and farting. You know? So I do have a tendency to prefer to be around women. Conversations are usually more stimulating. I wish I was in a band with girls really, you know, we could like exchange makeup tips. Talk about things which didn't revolve around pussy all the time.

Do the majority of your friends happen to be men or women?

Um, it's pretty fifty-fifty.

So you're only twenty three?

Yeah. I don't like birthdays, They're a reminder of how everything was a complete fuck up in my family. And no one was ever really around.

Do you think that's why you got in rock and roll?

No, everybody wants to be in a rock band. I wanted to be an actor, really. More than anything else. The thing is you spend a lot of time working on other people's ideas. And it's also known as instant as sort of being in a band is. When I was in college I made films, but you spend about three to four months working on a film before you actually see the fruits of your labor. You know what I mean, any fruits of like your artistic expression. Being in a band, writing songs is like an instant thing. When I left college the band was getting together. I was gonna make a film. But I was having panic attacks. To much hard work, this is now becoming too much hard work for us. This wasn't like hard work at all. First thing I do when I get back to London is get a facial. Do you still get zits?

Um, not really well, sometimes of course everyone does but actually I never got them really when I was a teenager. Just like once in a while.

Wanker. I have them all over my body.

If you could have a choice of anyone in the world, who would you have as your lover?

The person that I've just broken up with.

So why did you break up with them?

Well, we do the same thing and you know it's very difficult. As soon as we started to form some serious commitment with each other, it kind of all fell apart really. I went on tour and we haven't seen each other since then. We probably won't be able to see each other until February or something. It's absurd. It's very frustrating when you feel that somebody is the one. But that there is absolutely no way on the planet that you can make it work. Because of your job, because you are geographically challenged.

Are they in New York too?

No, she's in London.

Would you be willing to give up one year of sex if you knew it would give you a much deeper sense of peace than you have now?

I've already done it, possibly like the worst eleven months of my life.

So I guess it wouldn't.

It wouldn't give me any deeper you know. It didn't give me any deeper. What was it? Understanding of myself?

Deeper sense of peace.

Deeper sense of peace, it just brought huge amounts of frustration. Nothing else really. Then I got drunk and threw myself at the first person that smiled at me. I spent a lot of time in college being bisexually frustrated.

Where did you go to college and what was your major?

London. Drama, it's not a major, it's just what I did. You don't have majors over there. You just do one thing.

So you don't have to take all those bullshit courses?

Nah. Why do you think I went to college in London. Um, that was tough, that was very tough. But you know I was suffering from what I define as post-coital come down. I would find myself in situations where as soon as I came I would find myself covered, filled with huge amounts of disgust and revulsion for the person I had just had sex with. I lived in a really bad neighborhood of London and was so disgusted of these people that I had to kick them out of my flat at like four in the morning and just fuck off when I cum. And it was really, really horrible. I kind of decided to stop, and just concentrate on the film I was making. Concentrate on finishing my degree and I got a lot of work done but I was deeply, deeply unhappy.

How did you develop your image?

The image kind of developed itself, really. It's kind of an evolution of what was happening to me on a daily basis, practically. I was constantly being mistaken for a girl. I thought that was quite interesting, so I decided to play around with it because people were so easily confused. Even when I hadn't shaved. I thought that I would turn the confusion button up a little bit and see what happens. If it could kind of, like challenge in any way people's preconceptions of what a man is supposed to look like and what a man is supposed to behave like. I think it's positive if I can encourage more guys to get in touch with their feminine side. I think that if there's anybody who has ever been homophobic who comes to one of our shows, thinks that I'm a girl, thinks I'm really cute, and would like to fuck me and then realizes that I'm a guy. They have to internalize it, and ask themselves a few questions about themselves as to why they found me attractive in the first place. That's something that I firmly believe in. When it comes to desire and comes to emotions things are in no way black and white. When it comes to sexuality, if you are honest with yourself you find that it is something that is not set in stone. Um, we're not a band necessarily with a message, we're not a band who is kind of like forcing something down someone's throat and being judgmental. We are not interested in giving any answers, but just asking more questions, really. More than anything else.

So if I was to ask you to describe sexuality, how would you?

To quote the Temptations..."…a ball of confusion."

Translated by: Alice & Sherry

英国摇滚乐队Placebo把他们的成功归咎于“非流行”。

从他们周六在仁川（Inchon）Paradise宾馆的记者招待会上可以看出，Placebo是一支靠音乐说话的乐队。乐队在韩国仁川举行的Pentaport摇滚音乐节中表演。

Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal以及Steve Hewitt都身着黑色，显示出非常注重音乐的摇滚音乐人的姿态。

自Placebo的首张同名专辑问世已有10年，但歌迷们仍然拥护着他们实验电子风格的摇滚音乐。

“我认为在过去的10年里，我们尽量忽视外界的时尚、流行以及音乐动向。我们没有被那些所谓‘新潮’的事物所影响，我们只跟着自己的感觉走，所以我们仍然屹立不倒；我们的成功并不靠流行，我想我们是‘非主流’的”Molko说。

Molko，乐队的核心成员，表示乐队并没有计划马上制作MEDS（被称为乐队有史以来最成功的专辑）后的下张专辑。“Meds这张专辑刚发行不久，我们对它还没有感到厌倦。很明显，一张新专辑往往是对以前专辑的一种回应。在Sleeping With Ghosts是一张非常电气化的专辑，所以这次我们用很原始的方式录制了Meds。这样看来，我们还可能在水底制作下一张专辑。”他说道。

Olsdal告诉我们，他们花了很多时间才来到韩国，但是他们非常惊讶的发现乐队在这里居然有一支如此庞大的歌迷队伍。

另外，Molko还承认自己非常喜欢韩国电影，他看过朴赞郁拍的的“老男孩（Old Boy）” 和 “亲切的金子（Sympathy for Lady Vengeance）” 还有金基德拍的“春夏秋冬（Spring Summer Autumn Winter）” 和 “空房间（Three-Iron）”

（译者按：朴赞郁和金基德两位导演都是以拍情色暴力电影为主）

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter

不高兴翻了,先存着,省得丢了...

Daniel Robert Epstein: Hey Brian, what are you up to?

Brian Molko: I’m in Paris at a hotel which resembles a 17th Century bordello. It’s got chandeliers, red walls and mahogany everywhere. I’ve been doing interviews and photo shoots. You’re my last victim of the day.

DRE: Are you guys playing a show in Paris?

Brian: No, we’re just here for promotion.

DRE: What was the inspiration for Meds?

Brian: During the lyric writing, I never sit down and “I’ve been inspired by this event or this feeling or this set of circumstances.” I try to operate on an instinctual level, which takes me to a place where I don’t think I would go to if I was being intellectual in my approach. In a way you don’t really know what the themes are and what shape an album is going to take until you’re halfway through recording them. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle sometimes. Every day you go into the studio and you put another piece in. I find that the songs lead you as opposed to you leading the songs. The thing about the band is that we never sit down and decide in a calculated way where we’re going to go. We allow the emotion of the music to take us in a direction. Of course we try and achieve a certain amount of cohesion thematically but it’s never really calculated. We try our best to operate on a kind of a very instinctual level. We’re not the people who sit down and say “Well, today I’m going to write a song about politics” or “today I’m going to write a song about fucking.” A song tells you what they’re about as you’re halfway through working on them. I had no idea what the fuck Infra-Red was about because it was the first song where I’d written the lyrics backwards. I started with the last line and worked my way to the first. I’d never done that before. So it wasn’t until I got to the first line that I was able to take a step back and understand what it was about. It turned out to be about revenge but I never sat down and decided to write a song about revenge. I like operating on that level.

DRE: Has it always been that way?

Brian: Pretty much. There’s never really been an agenda with Placebo. We just try to be ourselves. At the beginning we were just trying to find our own identity perhaps naively because it was a case of growing up in public. But these days we try to remain as open as possible like we’re conduits or vessels to a certain degree. I think that is what allows it to be emotionally accessible by people. You’re not trying to force them to feel something because you haven’t decided before you’ve written anything what this is going to be about. You lay yourself bare and open to where it takes you and perhaps you find more truth that way.

DRE: That’s cool because it’s so common for a lot of music to spell out everything.

Brian: I don’t like to force the meaning of a song down somebody’s throat. I like the idea of each person who hears the song to live their own personal story through it. As soon as you record a song and release it, it ceases to be yours so it can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people and I’m completely cool with that. I want people to live their own stories through the emotion that’s communicated through the song. Far be it for me to tell people what to feel.

DRE: Have you ever met people that have misinterpreted your song it in a way that was wrong or incorrect?

Brian: I guess so. Sometimes what’s more rewarding is when they come up with a scenario which you never even envisioned and they teach you something which makes you go, “Fuck, wow. I had no idea that it could be taken that way and in fact that’s very interesting.”

DRE: Meds seems to have a little less of an electronic feel to it.

Brian: A lot of that was down to our producer, Dimitri Tokovoi a crazy Frenchman of Russian origin who we worked with in the past. Whenever we worked with him on cover songs and stuff we realized that those things sounded better than the fucking album we just recorded. At that point we went, “we have to make an album with this guy.” He’s relatively unknown and that was important for us as well because we realized that by working with somebody like that, he’d be as hungry as we were. Also he’s not set in his ways and that he didn’t have a resume as long as his arm. There wasn’t a generational gap or a cultural gap between us. In fact, we were born on the same day of the same year so we were very good friends before we started working on this record. He realized that we’d found a comfort zone which was Vince’s synthesizers. He wanted to pull us out of that comfort zone and make us stare at ourselves in the mirror to make us realize that in essence we are a rock band. So we went to a studio that hadn’t been renovated since the 70’s so there’s no technology to hide behind. There’s no studio trickery to hide behind it’s just, “get in the fucking room and play.” The album started to become about performance and musicianship and songwriting as opposed to constructing songs on computer and new technology. That brought us back to the essence of Placebo and gave us a new lease on life. It was really good for us because we’d been on tour for about two years and by the end we felt like a karaoke band playing the hits to make the audience happy. It’s about time that we brought a whole bunch of new songs to make ourselves happy.

DRE: How was the first day of being in the 70’s style studio?

Brian: The first week was a bit crazy with lots of insecurity. But then you slip into a work ethic and we’ve never been shy of hard work. Ultimately it was extremely rewarding because it was hands on as opposed to coming up with bits and pieces of sound and then just throwing them on the computer.

DRE: I assume you’ve known Michael Stipe for a long time.

Brian: Yeah we met Michael in 1998 when he was executive producer on Velvet Goldmine which we had small parts in. We became friends then and kept bumping into each other. In fact, it was in this very hotel itself that we had the idea of working with Michael again because we bumped into REM here. We had written a song about adultery for a duet and we weren’t sure if we were going to include it on the album because we couldn’t find the right female vocalist. Then we saw Michael and it just was like, “Michael. He’s the one.” That immediately made sense to us, because there have been so many songs written about adultery and so many duets sung about adultery and it’s always been a guy and a girl. It’s so much more modern to have a song about adultery sung by two men. Also the idea of working with Michael who has such a recognizable voice was very exciting. Since Michael is a friend and was somebody who’d really influenced the development of my voice, that was extremely exciting. We wanted to take this potentially cliché song and give it extra gravitas and more edge. It totally wasn’t about trying to find the most famous person to be on the record.

DRE: When you revealed that certain part of your personal life out in the media, did you realize it would be such a big deal or did you just want to get it out there?

Brian: When it comes to something important I’ve never been a shrinking violet. I wasn’t going to lie and pretend that I was something that I’m not. It really wasn’t that much of a big deal. People’s reactions were just really unimportant to me.

DRE: Was it not a big deal since you reveal so much about yourself through your music?

Brian: I’m 33 now and I feel like I express myself to the world. But over the past five or six years I’ve become a more private person than I was in my early 20’s. It’s really important to draw a line in the sand. There’s only so much of myself I’m prepared to give away and that’s what I do in the songwriting. Anything beyond that is personal and private and it has to remain that way.

DRE: If you gave away too much would your music feel less relevant?

Brian: No, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with music. I think it’s got everything to do with everyday life and that you have to have a life outside of your band. If you don’t have a life, you’re going to have nothing to write about.

DRE: How do you give yourself a life?

Brian: When I’m at home I’m not particularly that different from anybody else. When I’m on stage hopefully I’m unique, but that’s up to opinion.

DRE: How’s the tour been going so far?

Brian: We’ve been doing really small shows in clubs around Europe and it’s been great. We get to go and play 11 out of 12 songs on the album and then choose a few oldies that fit in with the new record. We’ve got a new guitarist in the band because our keyboardist left us to go be a cabaret artist in London so the show’s become quite different. It’s become much more of a rock show and less about technology. The response has been phenomenal.

DRE: Since Meds was leaked onto the internet earlier this year, did it change how you guys think about releasing material on the internet?

Brian: Not really. It was really depressing to spend six months of your life busting your balls making a really good record and then some dickhead in Brazil puts it on the internet. It’s depressing for one day but then you realize that there’s no use crying over spilled milk and you just have to get on with it. I understand a lot of people’s impatience to have access to their favorite band’s new music and these people will go out and buy the album anyway. I really don’t think that it’s harmed us in any way whatsoever. In fact Meds is the fastest selling album of our career.

DRE: Would you release tracks from the next album online?

Brian: It’s definitely something to think about in the future. You can’t really be a luddite and just ignore technology. You have to use it in a positive way and the most important thing, if it gets music closer to people, then that’s really good. But there is the simple law of economics. If you don’t buy your favorite band’s music, your favorite band won’t be able to house themselves, put food on the table, put their kids through school and so then would have to get a second proper job. If you love your favorite band you have to support them. But apart from that, I really have no problems with the internet as long as the music is distributed fairly.

Meds里的歌曲你是如何选择的？
BM：其实，这一切都很自然。刚开始，我们为专辑准备了20首歌，然后再是一个筛选的过程，剩下的歌组成了这张专辑。幸运的是，在工作进度方面，公司给予我们充分的自由，不像单曲的推出有一个明确的时间限制。这是合约的一部分。制作Meds的时候我们在时间和音乐方面，以及推出时间和一些琐事上有更多自由空间，专辑发布前的6个星期对我们来说是最艰难的，因为我们经常一天会出现在几个不同的国家。推出Black Market Music后，公司希望能出一张单曲合集。幸好公司推迟了发布日期。那时乐队还在探索过程中，很多需要完善的地方，我们不想因为推出一张合集而引来不必要的麻烦。除非有什么新意，否则“精选”就是从歌迷手中骗钱，我很不喜欢这种方式。所以当Soulmates never die的巡演结束后，我们决定推出一张带有一些新歌的精选合集，并附带一张混音版本的CD。

当然，虽然有些歌并没有作为单曲发表，但他们本应出现在合集中，因为他们很好的诠释了Placebo的风格。
BM：比方说？

我想“I Konw”是其中之一…
BM：我喜欢那首歌！事实上，本来这首歌包括在内的，但是我们不能把什么都放入合集中，这就是在采访中我说这只是一张单曲合集的原因，这并不代表这些歌是最棒的。你知道“I Know”背后的故事么？

不知道…
BM：我曾经住在纽约，当时我打算搬去那儿，而不想住在法国，当时我的情绪很低落。我不太谈自己的私事，但那时我正在恋爱的事众人皆知，而这也没有任何帮助。我们真的需要一些时间休息一下。所以我去了那个没有熟人的大城市。我的家庭关系很糟糕，我和我的家人为此都很沮丧。我们曾决定不和彼此交谈，但我再也不能忍受了。我记得我在百老汇那里的某个电话亭里打了个电话，说道，“瞧，我知道现在不该打你电话，但是我想我们需要谈谈”。这首歌和我们电话中的交谈有些关联，歌中包含了很多内疚。Blind，Meds中的一首歌，也是类似的一首歌。一种关系的结束就像是死亡。你和某个人一起生活着，但是突然间，一切都静止了。最悲哀的是，地球仍然转动着，人们忙着自己的事，没有人知道你所受的伤。创作这首歌十分有趣。

我觉得，一个成功的作（词、曲）家是能把复杂的感情用简单的方式传递。
BM：也不尽然。世上只有部分的人接受直白的方式，你懂我所说的吗？在舞台之外我是个很注重隐私的人。我不想成为八卦的对象。但是我用我的歌很坦率的表现自己。

你写歌通常是一时半刻完成的，还是需要几天甚至几个月？
BM：有时，写歌的过程很快，有时却需要几年。有些时候，我写歌可以用疯狂来形容，灵感源源不断。一些歌创作很简单，有的则需要很长时间。

你认为你的同性恋歌迷们能体会你歌中所表达的那种孤独感吗？
BM：问的好，我觉得我们的大部分歌迷都有过困难与痛苦的经历，无论同性恋与否。我的歌并不是特别为某些人而写的。我所在的城市是个国际化大都市，在这儿性趋向没什么大不了。但就全球而言，同性恋者还是会被视为异类。我想Placebo的一个特别的地方就是我们是多文化的乐队，我们努力去尊重（不同文化带来的）不同思考模式。要是有人不满我们的做法，去他的吧！要知道你不可能愉悦每一个人，这很正常，但更重要的是，你要找到自己的目标。如果你没有伤害别人，那你根本不用觉得丢脸，你只要让那些思想狭隘的人闭嘴。我也是花了点时间才了解到这些的，因为我曾觉得自己是个异类，我有个一直周游列国的父亲，同时我也在不停的转学，高中的第一年对我来说简直可怕极了，因为我被视作是个艺术家，而且很有品位。你知道吗？行为古怪可以为你带来成功！我希望这能激励一些人。我甚至不能理解这种歧视的存在，但人们会因为与众不同而感到害怕。爱就爱了。你和什么人睡在一起和这个世界无关。我相信你对我的性趋向也有一定的看法，不过现在，我一点儿也不会为此而恼怒，因为这对我来说很重要。

-未完不续-

新专辑MEDS中Infra-Red作为PLACEBO又一支单曲将于6/19在英国推出。
MV的拍摄仍然是PLACEBO的一贯风格
这支MV很有趣的从乐队的角度对社会和政治问题作出评价
描述了一个腐败无能的政府的丑事被数百万的蚂蚁所揭发
地址：http://www.megaupload.com/cn/?d=LI8V47T3

这是BRI现场演唱的David Bowie的一首歌
大小:84.54 MB
http://www.megaupload.com/cn/?d=757F5UY7

Five Years

( David Bowie Cover / Live @ Traffic Music 27.02.2004 )

Pushing thru the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in

News guy wept and told us
He said 'earth was really dying'
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying

I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
There were boys, toys electric irons and T.V.'s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there

And all the fat-skinny people
And all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
Never thought I'd need so many people

A girl my age went off her head
Hit some tiny children
If the black hadn't a-pulled her off
And I think she would have killed them

A soldier with a broken armfixed
His stare to the wheels of a Cadillac
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest
And a queer threw up at the sight of that

Well, I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
Don't think you knew you were in this song

And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor
And I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I miss you, you're beautiful

We've got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we've got
We've got
Five years.

英国的摇滚乐队Placebo在他们的新专辑中告诫他们的年轻歌迷有关酗酒的危害性。该乐队的第5张专辑Meds中，歌词劝告那些孩子们不要饮酒过量。尽管主唱Brian Molko在早些年是一个有名的享乐主义者，但是他现在想要提出一种不同于以前的观点。Molko说，“我想这张专辑中有很多首歌有有涉及到饮酒的危害和带来的影响。”

资料来源:http://www.contactmusic.com/new/ ... names/brian%20molko

Brian Molko和贝司手Stefan Olsdal与John Kennedy的独家采访谈论了有关他们已期望已久的第五张专辑'Meds' 的点点滴滴。

在精选辑'Once More With Feeling'大获成功后，Placebo带来了他们的第五张专辑'Meds'。上一张在2004年发行的专辑'Sleeping With Ghosts'全球销量达到140万。与Xfm的John Kennedy 的独家采访他们谈到了与新制作人合作的收益，印度之旅，以及在老式录音室里录音的感受。

全部---->点击
分段---->
‘Meds’点击
“ It’s a statement of fact and what being alive today is all about.”

‘Infra-Red’点击
“ This track is the first time I’ve ever written, lyrically, a song backwards. I wrote the last line first and worked my way back.”

‘Drag’点击
“ It’s the most old school sounding Placebo track on this album, pure pop punk which we do well.”

‘Space Monkey’ 点击
“ This track was a real journey of discovery and felt like it just dropped out of the sky one day.”

‘Follow The Cops Back Home’ 点击
“We wondered what teenagers get up to in Iceland, which we visit regularly, as there is no police and barely any crime.”

‘Post Blue’ 点击
“ This was written when I was moving flats and at the time was listening to a lot of hip-hop in particular G-funk rhythms like Dr Dre.”

‘Because I Want You’  点击
“ When I went into the studio I wanted to out do the Foo Fighters and write a great American rock song.”

‘Blind’点击
“ One of the tracks you write for all the ladies out there.”

‘Pierrot The Clown’点击
“ About seeing someone who you once had a relationship with and remembering why you were first attracted to them.”

‘Broken Promise’ 点击
“Written completely whilst on the road and is about adultery.”  

‘One Of A Kind’ 点击
“ About feeling completely dislocated from the world and not feeling like a real person anymore.”

‘In The Cold Light Of Morning’ 点击
“ Very much inspired by Leonard Cohen and being on the streets early in the morning after a night out when everyone else is going to work.”

‘Song To Say Goodbye’ 点击
“ A way of making clear to myself the path not to take as a human being.”

资料来源:http://www.xfm.co.uk/article.asp?id=190321