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What would David Bowie do?” It’s a question Placebo frontman Brian Molko asks himself on a regular basis when his patience is being tried. The great man was one of the band’s most vocal supporters (along with The Cure’s Robert Smith and R.E.M’s Michael Stipe) from the earliest days, when Placebo invaded London’s lager-soaked mid- 90s rock scene in a starburst of exquisite androgyny, armed with a set of alt.rock anthems that combined a gothic edge with a joyous, riotous sense of mischief. They sounded, looked and acted like absolutely no one else. Which was why Bowie invited them to perform their song Without You I’m Nothing with him at his 50th birthday bash at Madison Square Garden in New York City – amoment that remains a high point of Placebo’s career, and one that Molko still treasures a quarter of a century later.
“I was kind of like: ‘Yeah, this is where I’m supposed to be, man,’” he reminisces today, in Bilbao, Spain where he’s enjoying a day off during a tour that will continue to the end of the year. “I didn’t really understand the weight and the significance of it. David taught me more about what it meant to be a good human being than he taught me how to be a good musician. He treated everyone that he came into contact
