‘I carry a piece of him with me as a mentor’: Placebo’s Brian Molko reveals he believes his late friend David Bowie is still with the band as their ‘lucky star’
Brian Molko has revealed that he believes his late friend David Bowie is still with his band Placebo as a ‘lucky star.’
The singer, 49, had worked with David over the years and admitted that he still sees the legendary glam rock icon as a ‘mentor’ who is close by following his death from liver cancer at the age of 69 back in 2016
He told the Daily Star: ‘I feel like I still carry a piece of him with me, as a mentor, godfather or lucky star. I still feel it’s hard for me to talk about David.
‘I carry a piece of him with me’: Placebo’s Brian Molko (right) believes his late friend David Bowie is still with the band as their ‘lucky star’ (pictured with Stefan Olsdal, left)
‘I have absolute gratitude for him, unequivocally. There are certain days, like his birthday, when he would have been 75. I’m nearly 50 now, I’m getting old so I often think about him.
‘When he was my age he threw a huge party at Madison Square Garden, which we had the honour of playing. When I was in his orbit I was young and arrogant.’
The Pure Morning hitmaker – who collaborated with the late star on their hit Without You I’m Nothing in 1998 – went on to explain that he didn’t ‘fully understand’ the impact that David had had on him until after his death.
Admitting that sometimes the grief ‘hits him hard’, Brian said the ‘apprenticeship makes sense now’ not only as an artist but as a human being.
Pals: The singer, 49, had worked with David over the years and admitted that he still sees the legendary glam rock icon as a ‘mentor’ (pictured, left, in 1999, with David, right)
It comes after Brian admitted he’s tired of being fetishised, following years of wearing lipstick while singing about drugs and sex with different genders.
The band’s frontman and bassist Stefan Olsdal, 47, were famous for glamourising psycho-sexual fantasies in the 90s, but have had a change of heart following their reunion last year after a five year hiatus.
He told Vice: ‘We’ve had s**tloads of time to think about the demands that are placed on us – being photographed and fetishised and surveilled – and how it makes us feel.’
Adding that they’re ‘less willing to sacrifice their feelings and souls to the band’, the Nancy Boy songster confessed the pair have coped with their ‘shyness’ about returning to the limelight by distorting their images.
He continued: ‘We were also thinking about how nobody presents themselves in the world today without some kind of filter, so we thought that we would take that Instagram aesthetic and push it as far as we could with distortion and filtering.
‘For me, it was also about trying to create discomfort. My friend and mentor David Bowie always used to say, “If you’re feeling comfortable, you’re doing it wrong.”‘
After drummer Steve Forrest decided to give up his role in the group in 2015, Stefan questioned whether he ‘had it in him’ to embark on a new album.
He went on to reveal that it was Brian’s enthusiasm that inspired him to head into the studio, leading to the creation of their ninth LP Never Let Me Go.
Talented: It comes after Brian admitted he’s tired of being fetishised, following years of wearing lipstick while singing about drugs and sex with different genders (pictured in 1999)
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