Speaking exclusively to The National before their blistering performance in Morocco's Mawazine Festival on Tuesday, Placebo frontman Brian Molko says next year will be a big one for the rockers with a greatest hits tour celebrating their 20th anniversary.
Happy upcoming 20th anniversary. You guys have spent the year so far performing in festivals. How has the experience been?
We are really enjoying ourselves at the moment. Over the last couple of years we have become a better band essentially and we are really enjoying performing. We finally learned how to truly connect with an audience which is really important, otherwise things are very flat.
Earlier this year Placebo made their discography available for streaming on Spotify. What took you so long?
We were very dubious about streaming and I do think there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to how much artists get paid. I think it is very difficult for new bands to make a living because of streaming so there is still a lot work to be done. So the streaming for us is an experiment. We resisted for a long time but we felt it is not our position to dictate to people how they want to consume our music, but I am still of the opinion that artists need to be remunerated better for their streams.
Reflecting upon Placebo's last album, 2013's Loud Like Love, are you satisfied with the way it holds up today?
The way that I wrote in the past used to be very confessional and now I have changed. Now what I do is I tell stories and paradoxically, by telling stories with characters, you can be more vulnerable and open because you are less self conscious. That really comes in to play in Loud Like Love and it made me a better song writer.
What’s next for Placebo?
We have already started writing the new album. Next year we are doing a greatest hits tour and it is highly likely that we will play songs that we haven’t played in a long time. We are a strange band in that we don’t like our commercially successful material so we don’t play it live, but this time around next year we will try to make the fans happy by playing our most popular material - maybe for the last time.
Any chance that tour may stop in the UAE?
There is no plans to play there at the moment.
• The Mawazine Festival ends on Saturday
sasaeed@thenational.ae
Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history
Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)
Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.
Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)
A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.
Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)
Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.
Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)
Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.
The language of diplomacy in 1853
Treaty of Peace in Perpetuity Agreed Upon by the Chiefs of the Arabian Coast on Behalf of Themselves, Their Heirs and Successors Under the Mediation of the Resident of the Persian Gulf, 1853
(This treaty gave the region the name “Trucial States”.)
We, whose seals are hereunto affixed, Sheikh Sultan bin Suggar, Chief of Rassool-Kheimah, Sheikh Saeed bin Tahnoon, Chief of Aboo Dhebbee, Sheikh Saeed bin Buyte, Chief of Debay, Sheikh Hamid bin Rashed, Chief of Ejman, Sheikh Abdoola bin Rashed, Chief of Umm-ool-Keiweyn, having experienced for a series of years the benefits and advantages resulting from a maritime truce contracted amongst ourselves under the mediation of the Resident in the Persian Gulf and renewed from time to time up to the present period, and being fully impressed, therefore, with a sense of evil consequence formerly arising, from the prosecution of our feuds at sea, whereby our subjects and dependants were prevented from carrying on the pearl fishery in security, and were exposed to interruption and molestation when passing on their lawful occasions, accordingly, we, as aforesaid have determined, for ourselves, our heirs and successors, to conclude together a lasting and inviolable peace from this time forth in perpetuity.
Taken from Britain and Saudi Arabia, 1925-1939: the Imperial Oasis, by Clive Leatherdale
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
