Brian Molko Quotes

1. We live in a strange bubble.  



2. I like to feel around in the dark a lot and bump into things, and then take Polaroids of the bruises, and ponder them for a while, and see if I still like them a week later.

3. We were in danger or breaking up a few years ago, but we sorted that out, and now we're stronger than ever. I don't want to lose my boys!

4. When your parents tell you that there's this fat guy with a beard in a red suit that comes down the chimney and gives you presents, you kind of believe it. And when your parents tell you that there's this thin guy with a beard who died on a cross for you, you kind of believe in it too. I find it interesting that people lie to you from day one.

5. I think that most people expect us to be lying in the gutter with needles hanging out of our arms, quoting Oscar Wilde to the stars. But that hasn't happened in years.

6. I was able to pass through incognito because I simply wasn't pale enough. They'd look at me, think "Is he?" then decide "No, he can't be, not with that tan".

7. What's missing is the music. I'd like to rant on and on about the music, the mechanics of it. It's what I think about 90 per cent of the day. I don't think about getting high all the time. I guess I do think about sex a lot, though...

8. I get given loads of rubbish. So, I have two Alanis Morissette records which I hide when anyone with taste calls around.

9. (on whom he reaches out to, when he's "at the end of his tether") My brother who's my best friend. That ten-year gap, once I got to a certain age, meant that there wasn't going to be any competition between us, which was great, and once I got to a certain age we could start partying together. He works in a bank. He takes care of all my money. And I know he's not going to rip me off, so it's cool.

10. If Placebo was a drug, they would no doubt be pure heroin - dangerous, mysterious and totally addictive.

11. Every time I cut my hair, I give the hairdressing business in London a big boost.

12. Placebo is music for outsiders, by outsiders and our gigs are like conventions of outcasts, which is cool.

13. (on being mistaken for a prostitute by a hotel worker) I was trying to take my trousers down and screaming: "Do you want to see my d..k?". The poor guy was reduced to tears.

14. Stef is officially the sexiest member of Placebo.






15. 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.

16. My father wanted me to grow up and be a businessman like him. My mother wanted me to grow up and go to heaven like her.

17. To write beautiful music and communicate real emotion, and to play strong and exciting gigs. That is now our drug.

18. My Marshall sounds so hot, you could fry an egg on it!

19. I'm tired of being around men all the time. I'm going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I'll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses.

20. My heroes aren't really decadent, they're quite masculine. Bruce Lee was beautiful. I probably fancied him and didn't even realize it.


21. (on scars) There's one on my wrist where I put my arm through a window trying to open it; the glass missed Mr Vein by a millimeter. It healed in the shape of a Nike Swoosh. They can't buy advertising like that.

22. 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 terns 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.

23. I'd be interested in finding out if there is a light you walk into, and if you do meet people from your life and walk hand in hand with Jesus. I would hate for my death to be tragic: I'd like to be old when it happens. But hopefully a young death is unlikely.

24. (on heroin) People want me to be f…ed-up and strung out, taking it to Kurt Cobain levels… That drug entered my life and left my life a long time ago. We did everything in our first couple of years and got it out of our systems so now we can concentrate on the important stuff.

25. Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

26. 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.

27. 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.


28. (on getting older) I've still got a bit of a baby face, so I'll be all right.

29. I had a great deal of arrogance and a great deal of bravado, but I think the bravado was brought on by a huge insecurity.

30. (on losing his virginity) It was quite special, actually. I was 14, she was French, and my first girlfriend. It happened in my room and we lost our virginities together. I convinced my mother that I'd had a nosebleed on the duvet but she said: "You must have been lying in a strange position".

31. The more you'll dress up the more fun you'll have.




32. (on "Nancy Boy) It's obscene. A song this rude should not be number four in the charts

33. Cause they kinda wanted me to be a boy, but I didn't want to wear any mens clothes.

34. It's such a weird place, America. We came straight in from playing in front of 2,000 Parisians, with crowd-surfing and total mayhem, to playing in front of 40 people in Aerosmith's club in Boston. I mean, not only can a band be pretty big in the UK and Europe and come here and be totally unknown but they can be huge on the east coast of America and be nothing on the west coast. Or huge on both coasts but mean f... all in Oklahoma, Kansas or Iowa. It's just such a huge country. Breaking it could take forever.

35. I refuse to be held responsible for bringing back a wave of pasty-faced people into the world.





36. (on breaking America) I think we'll do it. We're damn tenacious. We just won't let them not love us. They really have no choice.

37. A lot of what has pushed me forward is desire, and I have expressed that in my songwriting - perhaps because it's safer!

38. (on the sexual revolution) I think what you have to realize is that our generation is the first generation since its sexual awakening has come into the world, and realized that sex can mean, ultimately, death. That has had a very serious effect on social morals and on the way people deal with each other. As we approach the millennium, people are getting more and more confused, and contact is getting more and more sanitized, so there's a lot more mental games being played.

39. Music is about expressing things you can't in everyday life.

40. We're just trying to find meaning within all the madness. And if you find yourself saying "you know, if I met myself last night, I would've thought I was an a…hole," that's one hell of a severe warning sign that you've gone too far with the madness.


41. (on his favorite tabloid rumor) That me and Stefan used to go out with each other.

42. Schizophrenic is the best word - I change from day to day. I can be quite confusing. Indecisive, workaholic, and tired today.

43. I like the fact that people either think I'm incredibly gorgeous or f...king ugly.


44. After five years of being on tour you learn what you can do to keep yourself out of trouble, hence the Ping-Pong.

45. (on the rock star life) When every day became a hangover. And when you look at yourself in the mirror and go "I don't like how you're coming across to people" and when every day just started to feel the same. After the 50th shag, it doesn't mean so much anymore.

46. (on his favorite joke) What do you call a Spice Girl with a brain? Pregnant.






47. I used to fly off the handle in everyday life, but I'm a little calmer now.

48. I check out the Placebo chat rooms and have a bit of fun trying to find out what everybody thinks. It hasn't backfired yet!

49. The intelligent artist is one who understands that he's manipulated by the media and manipulates the media right back.

50. I was a very frustrated, lonely and anti-social young man. I felt very alienated and very bored as well.

51. I guess the line between being paranoid and being a rock star is smaller than one would expect.

52. (on what he would do if he was a woman for a day) Maybe invest in some exotic extravagant and battery operated toys.

53. I steal from mini-bars, in hotels on a daily basis. I steal CD's as much as possible. I'm a pretty habitual thief.

54. I don't want to be the one who carries the whole band, the responsibility's too big.

55. (on his ideal partner) I don't think I'd ever enter into a life long courtship with someone who didn't have a lot to teach me.

56. 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.

57. (on the strangest gift given to him by a fan who was apparently abused by her parents) I was given a photograph of this girl with a black eye with "Kill/Fuck/Die" written on it, which I carry with me everywhere, because it's the most intense thing I've been given.




58. I'm probably one of the most un-guitary guitarists you'll ever meet. I don't know the names of the strings and thank god for techs, because I'm not very good at tuning.

59. The thing about Manson I've always liked is that he's challenged the mores of America.






60. Most teenage boys pick up a guitar to be attractive to the opposite sex. In a certain way, it's a penis extension.

61. (on the band) It's almost bordering on cliché but Hewitt and Olsdal are my best friends in the world…They are like my two husbands. I've never felt more at home anywhere. I love them more than I have loved any other men on this planet in my life. They are both very beautiful people, as f..ked up as I am - true. Acts of God aside, this is why this band will be here for quite some time.


62. I'm very lustful. I'm in this fortunate, or unfortunate, position being bisexual in that I have twice as many people to lust over. So it can get hard on tour. I don't think lust is a sin - people should have sex as much and in as many situations as possible. Then they'd be less uptight.

63. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but clones kind of get it wrong because we are promoting individuality and being proud of being yourself.





64. I refuse to be the man responsible for encouraging children to put white emulsion on their faces.

65. The more personal you make something, the more universal it becomes, because essentially we're all made up of the same emotional stuff.

66. I think I have a very overworked, very diligent guardian angel who's been taking care of me for many years.

67. 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.


68. The only pressure I believe in is atmospheric pressure. It's the only thing that can be measured.. as far as pressure is concerned.

69. Once you realize that you're never going to be liked by everybody, you just have to accept it.



70. I've always found music that is carnal very attractive but not in the most obvious way.


71. I love being a freak. It's great!

72. (on Slave to the Wage) The song tells you to be an individual, believe in yourself and have the courage to chase your dreams. If you do, the rewards at the end are tenfold versus doing what your parents tell you to do. Get a good job, get married, have 2.4 children, 1.2 goldfish, 3.6 cars…To a lot of people, that's the epitome of personal success. Which is why so many people get through a mid-life crisis. People reach a point in their lives and go: "Is this it?"

73. (on Placebo's fifth album, Meds) I think the interesting thing about the people who inhabit the songs on this album is that they’re always going through some kind of conflict, with themselves or in terms of their place in the world or in terms of dependence or addiction.

74. I just have this picture of myself as an old man, getting together with Stef and Steve at the age of 60. Not playing music, but sitting down and going: "Do you remember…?"

75. (on bisexuality) If I was a girl I'd still swing both ways anyway.



76. For me, sexiness has to be effortless.



77. It's interesting to write songs from all sexualities standpoints, being the kind of person that dips his toe in both pools.

78. 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.


79. Music has to be uncomfortable and disappointing. It must have a sense. It has to communicate through emotions and create new ones. I have a natural inclination to like the darkest side of emotions in human beings.

80. You feel a bit lost when you come off tour because there's no one to make your coffee for you or light your cigarettes!

81. But personally sometimes being so under the microscope and being so analytical, just the idea that thousands and thousands of people have formed an opinion on what you must be like without ever having met you is a very very strange position to find yourself. It does create a certain amount of insecurity when it comes to your identity.


82. My mouth has a tendency to get me into trouble, but because I'm so small and I take on people who are lager than me. If someone punched me, I'd get my drummer beat them up.

83. (on orgies) I mean how many people does it take to make an orgy? Who made the orgy rules anyway?


84. I'm a weirdo magnet, but I'm handling it better than I used to.

85. There's a hell of a lot of freedom in this rock and roll circus…it's where all the freaks go - it's the environment for me.

86. If we have cut down, it's been through necessity. We're not 21 anymore. In the past we've probably been guilty of putting lifestyle before music, but we've grown up a little bit. Delivering 100 percent to our fans is now more important.


87. (on musical inspiration PJ Harvey) She's always been very brave. She's not afraid to make a record sound like someone's bleeding on you.

88. In photographs, you'll see that my beauty spot moves around my face quite a bit, depending on where the largest zit is.

89. I had quite a religious upbringing. I gave my life over to Christ at 11. I took it back when I was about 14.

90. (response to a fan after a distortion pedal malfunctioned on stage) What was that? You can't trust technology? Well, in my experience, you can't trust people much either.

91. Dresses, I find, are impractical in social situations, but I enjoy wearing them a great deal on stage.




92. 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.

93. (on pets) A girlfriend of mine at college, after we split up, gave me a goldfish. I didn't change their water and I just kinda watched them die.

94. I'm twice as much man as you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever get.

95. Actually we're quite moralistic. Jealousy says more about you than the person you're directing it at.

96. The extreme side of my personality, which I chose to sort of display, was snowballing and getting a life of its own. It was like looking in a mirror and not recognizing myself.

97. I find myself going down to the shops for nail polish and I haven't had a shave for a couple of days, so I look very strange, and people look at me bizzarely...




98. I go on Placebo sites and have a terrible time trying to convince fans it's actually me. No one ever believes it. I've spent about four hours, giving away intimate details about myself that I'd never tell a journalist, in an effort to prove that it's me.


What do you think of Brian Molko's quotes?


Feel free to comment and share this blog post if you find it interesting!