Interview taken from HermAphrodite #6 - Part 1.

Today, myself, the two Claires, Becca, and the newly adopted James are huddled around our (free) drinks in one corner of a crowded back-room of the Sound Republic. There are posters for ‘Without You I’m Nothing’ adorning all walls. From where the band are soon to be seated, they will have the choice of making eye-contact with their adorers / artistry appreciators, or watching their own promo videos which are playing on continuous loop behind the seated crowd. They enter. The room’s occupants hush each other. We are allowed five minutes of a flash photography barrage, and then it’s question time. At least the band’s music doesn’t continue to underscore conversation once they’re miked up and talking. But still. This must be a ‘hyper-conscious of self and public role’ moment. Hello Placebo. Why don’t we start off with an easy one, to make sure we’re all feeling comfortable…

Q. “You’ve referred to the 1997 tour as leaving behind a trail of blood and spunk. What’s this one going to be ?”

( silence )

Steve – “I don’t know really. I think we’re going to be good boys. Not that we weren’t good boys anyway.”

I don’t think the band were that happy with that ‘blood and spunk’ article.

Steve turns to Brian.

Brian – “No comment.”

The audience giggle, the microphone moves to someone else.

Q. “Lots of the critiques of Placebo’s work seem to be based around Brian’s character - do you think that this discounts your musical achievements in any way?”

Brian - “Absolutely, and it’s very boring; it places a great undue pressure on me, which I resent.”

Touche. Though you never HAD to live up to the ‘drug-crazed sex-dwarf’ idea.

Brian – “ I am to a great degree responsible for it, and I think in many ways that we at one point became cartoon character versions of ourselves, in the eyes of the press.”

Mmm. And Placebo’s new tour t-shirts depict the band as, hey, cartoon characters. ( Hurrah for satire. ) And, as yet, there are no official products featuring individual band-members.

Brian – “And also the perception was that Stefan and Steve were just kind of my backing band, which is very irritating. We’re doing everything possible to kind of redress that situation at present. So, if you wanna speak to me, you’ve gotta go through these guys first.”

Which yeah, is definitely the right way forward. Because the band are a three-piece. And this way they all share in the pressures and glories of fame.

Oh, and it also means that Stef and Steve can monitor the outpourings of Brian’s ( sometimes hyper-active ) gob. Sometimes he reveals too much. But even though today it was Brian as the one doing MOST of the talking, Steve wasn’t exactly proving himself as the shy and retiring type. And throughout, each band member would be holding eye-contact with the others as they fielded questions. They did come across as being close. And as more’n just 2D cartoons.

Q. “How do you want to counter-act the image that people have built up around you ?”

Brian - “Well, in many ways it felt a bit like being Dr Frankenstein, and there was kind of like this monster running around the village killing people and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. However, the villagers are the journalists and they're fired up, and they are a lynching party, and I would question whether or not it’s actually ME and what I believe in as being the significant factor for being lynched.”

I think that the band are feeling a leetle persecuted at the moment. Interview twisting by journalists so as to sell copy, fiendish editing by TOTP making themselves and the band look incompetant…

Q. “From a few of your past comments, does it mean that a lot of the hedonism that’s been portrayed in the media about you is over now, or are you just gonna keep as far away from the media as possible?”

Steve - “A lot of the hedonism which has been portrayed lately has actually been - and you can quote me on this - bullshit, actually. A lot of journalists are bored, have nothing else to write about… Obviously if you get three young guys going out, first album’s doing well, they’re going to party. Which is exactly what happened. And you can guarantee that any of you guys would so exactly the same thing. You’re probably all doing it now – you’ve all got bottles in your hands, having a nice time…”

Brian - “I think the difference is that we basically did what most young men in their early twenties did, the difference is that we did it in public.”

Steve - “Unfortunately.”

Someone else asks the band if they consider themselves to be ‘morally good’, considering those ‘well-documented’ tour antics of the past. The response is swift, and unequivocal.

Brian - “Absolutely.”

Steve - “Absolutely.”

Brian - “Completely, yes.”

And yeah, maybe so. A couple of weeks later, when Chi and I found ourselves backstage, post-gig in Middlesbrough, the band weren’t snorting coke off nubile young hermaphrodites, or riding each other about the room, or, well, leaving any sort of trail of anything. They were listening to Stardust. And one of their crew was collecting up their dry-cleaning...

It’s debatable as to whether the band themselves or simply the media had a bigger involvement in the creation of the Placebo tour mythology. Whichever, the music papers aren’t the most popular topic in the Placebo camp at present. I think they’re feeling a little bit got at.

Me. “The videos for your last two singles have both shown you cheating other people’s idea of death, what should actually kill you - is this something of personal import to you, or have you just developed superhero powers in the last year?”

( my, what a fine question... )

Steve and Brian giggle. Yay.

Brian - “I think we’re just getting more and more paranoid, basically. Everybody seems to be out to get us, you know, at the moment. The video for ‘Pure Morning’, the idea came from the band – the video for ‘You Don’t Care About Us’ we didn’t have very much involvement with the concept. The important thing about these videos is that we’re tired of doing performance videos, we’re tired of watching bands just play their instruments on TV, we’re tired of doing that anyway. Videos seem to be more and more a necessary evil; we took on board the idea that if they are a necessary evil then you have to make them into a work of art, so right now we want to do things which are more like small movies as opposed to, um, corporate tools.”( pause )

Steve ( grinning ) – “You said tool…”

>>> Part 2

Last revised: 26/07/01