Brian: Dresses, I find, are impractical in social situations, but I enjoy wearing them a great deal on stage.
Brian: Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.
Brian: I'm continually surprised by the amount of people I wind up. For many guys, I'm the faggot their girlfriend fancies.
Brian: My sexuality is very fluid but it's very real. I have had confusing and contradicting emotions since I have awakened sexually, and it's something that I have come to terms with and that I have manage to live with in a very positive way. I have never been a homophobic person and one of the reasons I stopped going to church, because my mother used to take me to church a lot, was because of the church's attitude to homosexuality.
Brian: I just enjoy fucking with people's heads. For the first half of our gigs, there's normally some guy convinced I'm a girl, and a pretty cute one at that. As the gig continues, it begins to dawn on him that I'm a bloke, and suddenly he has to ask himself some serious questions. Ha ha!
Brian: I'm really bad with jokes. I would have to say Limp Bizkit. (On "Joke of the Year")
Brian: There's a difference between 'glamour' and 'glam rock'. Glam rock, to me, is a bunch of straight, hairy, football-liking lager lads dressed up in mother's castoffs. And glamour is a certain sophistication, a certain other-worldliness, a certain unattainableness, which I think we certainly calculate. We believe that a band should be slightly larger than life-you should be transported to an alternate reality. I'm giving you some really good answers here, I'm very proud of myself. (On glamour)
Brian: Most of these are love songs where I'm trying to come to grips with relationships. They're frequently told from the point of view of ex-lovers, so at first it may seem like I'm being arrogant, but actually I'm eating humble pie. I'm cutting open a vein and letting it bleed for you. (On Placebo's second (first with Steve Hewitt as drummer) album Without You I'm Nothing)
Brian: They’re getting used to it. I think fear is slowly turning into pride: I think they were quite perturbed in the beginning, but they’re coming round to it. I was always a bit of a loose cannon, then again I was always the artistic one: bit of a social misfit. I probably still am. (On what his parents think of Placebo)
Brian: To write beautiful music and communicate real emotion, and to play strong and exciting gigs. That is now our drug. (On developing as a band)
Brian: I feel very comfortable with the way I look, and I feel very comfortable with the kind of confusion that it creates in people's minds. (On his appearance)
Brian: So, then you find yourself in a situation where you have to do things because they're on offer to you, because you don't have much self-respect left. You just can't say no, even to something that you've never done before. You just can't help yourself. (On self-respect)
Brian: I was a very frustrated, lonely and anti-social young man. I felt very alienated and very bored as well. (On the teenage years)
Brian: I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, that things are never black and white, things are very much shades of grey. (On desire)
Brian: You lose so many material possessions being on the road. You can't get too attached to stuff. And you have to remember that people must never become possessions. People are spheres intersecting. You have to make sure that one sphere doesn't ever take over the other. Individuality is absolutely the most important thing. (On material things)
Placebo have performed live for over 1.4 million fans worldwide.
Placebo have covered Bony M’s Daddy Cool.
Frank Black of The Pixies appears on stage with Placebo in the Soulmates Never Die DVD. Together they perform Where Is My Mind, originally by The Pixies.
Placebo have a personal label – Elevator Music, on which all their albums have been released.
Steve is British.
Brian is born to an American father and a British mother.
Brian Molko is bilingual, and the band have released two songs in French – Burger Queen and Prot?g? Moi (Protect Me From What I Want).
In the movie Velvet Goldmine, Brian and Steve were in a band called Flaming Creatures, while Stefan was in Polly’s Small Band. The Flaming Creatures performed 20th Century Boy (originally by T. Rex) in the movie. This song was actually covered by Placebo for the soundtrack. The cover appeared as a B-side on Placebo’s single You Don’t Care About Us.
“This Picture” was inspired by a legend about James Dean. Brian talked about this legend in an interview the band gave on BBC Radio 1, on March 17 2003. “Ashtray Girl”, the refrain from the song, is in fact nothing to do with the band’s previous name, Ashtray Heart.
Brian and Stefan had nothing to do with each other at school, only becoming friends and forming a band years later in London.
Before they formed Placebo, Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal were in a band called Ashtray Heart.
The opening bass riff of the song "Taste in Men" bears remarkable resemblance to the Pink Floyd song "Let There Be More Light" featured on the 1968 album A Saucerful of Secrets.
They have released 5 albums and a singles collection: Albums: - Placebo (July 17, 1996) - Without You I'm Nothing (October 12, 1998) - Black Market Music (October 9, 2000) - Sleeping with Ghosts (March 24, 2003) - Meds (March 13, 2006) Singles Collection: - Once More with Feeling (October 25, 2004)
As of 2005, the band consisted of: - Brian Molko: Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards, Saxophone - Stefan Olsdal: Bass guitar, Keyboards, Guitar and Vocals - Steven Hewitt: Drums, Percussion
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