PLACEBO
{ (12“. "..€"f2 ":)"‘ ::'-:‘-‘. <2..s maize Brian Molko. the maseara— wearing hi swinger who takes his pleasure where he ean get it and then sings about it in songs like the ehart-husting ‘.\'aney Boy”. lie is witty. oeeasionally eatty and. when he wants. either eamp or y'ampis'h. Stroking the bass strings is .\lolko‘s' eo—writer and sehoolhoy ehum. Stel‘an ()lsdal. lle’s Swedish. not lar ol'l se\‘en loot and gay. lilaying the drums is the newest memher. Stey'e Hewitt. lle‘s ol‘ ayerage height. straight and the only British memher ol‘ l’laeeho.
But enough hiographieal detail heeatise. as l’laeeho will reiterate time al'ter time. it‘s the musie that is important. rather than salaeioUs stories ol‘ who and what Molko and it inyariahly does lows on .\1olko -— is snorting. shagging and drinking. ';\ll that stul‘l‘ is Very horing.’ he yawns. somewhat disingenuously. ‘I resent the pressure it puts on me. I am to a great degree responsible for it hut I think at one point we had almost
heeome eartoon eharaeters ol who we are. :\lso. the pereeption was that Stel‘an and Steve were just my haeking hand. whieh isn't true . . . On one le\'el. the title of the alhum is a message l'rom us to eaeh other as well as to our l‘ansf
llay'ing released the sensationalist puhlieity genie. Molko then l'ound it a little dil‘liietllt lo stttl'l. haek into its hottle. “In many ways it tell like heing l)r l’rankenstein and there was this monster running around killing people.’ he says now. ‘lloweyer. the Villagers are the journalists. 'l’hey're all fired up and they‘re a lynehing party. I would question whether or not it's aetually me and what I believe in as heing a signil‘ieant l‘aetor l'or heing lynehed.’
"l‘he seale ol‘ the hedonism was exaggeratedf llew itt ehips in.
‘lt was hullshit. hlow'n out ol~
proportion hy hored journalists looking l'or something to write ahout.‘
12 THELIST a ~ N
A“ M whieh is a hit rieh. The British press loy'e l’laeeho and hay e seldom printed at negati\e artiele. ney er mind ly nehing them. Sex and drugs and roek in. roll may he eliehed hedl‘ellows hilt they make great stories. .\1olko is perl‘eetly media-literate and well understands the Value ol‘ shoek. It seems unlikely that his personal seerets were prised from him hy wieked journalists. .\lore leasihle is the seenario where \lolko. ha\ing a firm grasp ol the allure
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that \ iearious danger holds for teenage l‘ans. plays on the lans‘ need l‘or roek stars to li\ e the roek ’n‘ roll lil‘estyle. He walks the walk and. perhaps more importantly. he talks the talk.
Still. Molko does make one yet} good point: ‘\\'e did what most young men in their early 20s did. It‘s just that we did it in puhlie.‘
l’laeeho's plaee in the puhlie eye is unlikely to \‘ttttlsll. .-\s well as the l'ortheoming tour to
'Gary Glitter, The Sweet, Mud were just a bunch of lager louts running about in their mothers’ underwear. We're definitely not trying to reinvent that.’ Brian Molko
Can you blow £10,000 in a day and have nothing but wild memories to show