Brian Molko quotes:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Music has touched me deeply, sometimes to tears. But at the same time it's been life-affirming, because I've been grateful for the fact that I'm alive and human and capable of being so moved.

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

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.

I'm really bad with jokes. I would have to say Limp Bizkit.

I want to be a better person. I want to be a stronger person. I want to be someone who hurts less.

Good conversation turns me on. A connection between two people, a mental one first.

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.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

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.

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 recognising myself.

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

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

Stef is officially the sexiest member of Placebo

Don't let small minded people dictate how you should look and be free.

There is nothing more wonderful in life than seeing life as an adventure. We should all try things that we're afraid of. We should all look very clearly into the unknown and enjoy it. Because when you come in contact with things that you really don't know, that's when you're truly living.

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

We live in a strange bubble.

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.

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

Interviewer: [What do you get up to] In real time? Brian Molko: 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.

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.

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

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.

When people hear the word â??beautifulâ?, they expect something to be pretty. And for me that's not always necessarily the case, y'know.

I believe people are still wonderful in hating. They hate what they don't understand, they hate each other. No matter what anyone says, this world is still not a bit more tolerante than it was before.

You would not like me if you knew me.

I used to feel more straight for certain months and then just think about boys all the time I'm attracted to women who are very, very boyish. I'm not very big on big mammaries. I have a tendency to be attracted to very, very boyish girls. And usually very feminine men.

I am very lustful. I am in this fortunate or unfortunate position being bisexual in that I have twice as many people to lust over. So i can get hard on tour. I dont think lust is a sin - People should have sex as much and in as many situations as possible. Then theyd be less uptight..

As musicians it's often difficult. You go to a dinner party and most people treat you like some kind of exotic animal and in a way like you don't have any problems and that it's all fantastic and glamorous and that you wake up in the morning, you kick the groupies out of bed, you roll onto the floor onto a needle, right, which fills you with a lovely substance, you roll into the gutter and you stare at the moon and out comes beautiful poetry. The fact of the matter is that that's nonsense. It's a lot of hard work.

Well, the real sex organ is between the ears, not between the legs

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.

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

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

I don't seem to meet very many men I find attractive. And usually when I meet them and develop crushes on them they are usually straight. So I end up having more relationships with women...

I think the scariest addiction on this planet is to alcohol. Because alcohol is a very addictive drug, and it ruins families, it ruins relationships. And it is socially acceptable, and it is easy to find. Controlled substances, other drugs are more difficult to get, and it's a crime to... to buy them. But alcohol is everywhere. And if you are unfortunate enough to become addicted to it, it can be disastrous. And there is still a stigma attached to alcohol addiction, or addiction in general. It is perceived as... an addict is perceived as somebody of weak moral fiber

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

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.

If I was a girl I'd still swing both ways anyway.

I'd like to be more of a bad influence than a role model. I'm getting lots of boys to wear eye-liner again which is good.

Everybody is trying to be so trendy. I think not being trendy should be the next trend.

I think what you have to realise is that our generation is the first generation since its sexual awakening has come into the world and realised 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 sanitised, so there's a lot more mental games being played.

Names for bands lose their meaning after a little while. They become a series of sounds that you associate with people in music, really. The most important thing about choosing a name for a band is if you can imagine forty-thousand people screaming it in unison.

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

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...

I'm continually surprised by the amount of people I wind up. For many guys, I'm the faggot their girlfriend fancies.

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

I love being a freak. It's great!

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

I like the fact that people either think I'm incredibly gorgeous or flippin ugly.