interview by louis.tanguay
Who better to interview than Placebo's Brian Molko when you want to discuss sexuality. Brian dresses and looks like a little girl [kinky, kinky]. Since Brian's sexuality and sexual ideas are probably misunderstood, we figured we'd enlighten some folks. Good interview; great guy. Check this out...
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, homophobics 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 alot 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 alot of time in college being bi-sexually frustrated.
Where did you go to college?
London.
What was your major?
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?
Na. 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 alot 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 stonevery fluid. 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...