"Riot starting new LP"

Jul 15, 2000

Placebo have revealed that their as-yes-untitled third album will be "harder, darker, rockier and more energetic" than the platinum-selling 'Without You I'm Nothing' album.

Singer Brian Molko tells Kerrang!: "This album rocks harder then the first two albums put together. It deals with violence quite a lot. We've one song called 'Haemoglobin' which is like our version of (jazz singer) Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' in that it deals with lynching, racism and prejudice breeding prejudice. We've another song called 'Spite And Malice' which is like Sonic Youth going rap. That one deals with those anti-capitalist May day riots in London and youth becoming politicised.

"It's like Public Image Ltd song 'Rise'," he adds. "'Anger is an energy'. As you approach your 30s you start to look around and get more interested in politics and the world makes you angry. We've still got heartbreaking love songs on the album and full-on old school Placebo punk but rock is getting extremely pedestrian. I think kids are gagging for albums that will piss their parents off again. John Lydon said that rock music is about creating generation gaps and we believe in that. There's still so much to get angry about."

Molko has also apologised for comments he made at last year's Big Day Out festival in Milton Keynes, when he dedicated songs to "50,000 crimes against fashion". Molko admits: "That was probably one of the least diplomatic moments of my career. I got a lot of stick for that and it was very much warranted.

Sometimes my sense of humour gets misconstrued as arrogance or insults. I was in a bit of a mood that day and at that point in our tour we probably didn't want to be there. I'm sorry"