| Steve's interview:
Formed in London in 1994, Placebo recently released their sixth album Battle For The Sun. Having caught up with Stefan Olsdal and Steve Forrest in early 2009, I Like Music were lucky enough to catch up with new drummer Steve for a quick chat once again! Having joined Placebo in 2008, replacing former drummer Steve Hewitt, the band now admit to being happier than ever before. A gruelling tour schedule recently saw dynamic front man Brian Moloko collapse on stage during a Placebo concert in Japan, their first show there for nine years.
I Like Music caught up with Steve to chat about the health of the band, their musical plans for the future and his experiences within the group so far.
"I Like Music because… it allows you to be everything you're not supposed to be." STEVE FORREST, PLACEBO
ILM: What's the story behind your latest single The Never Ending Why? How did it come to be?
Steve: Steph brought it to the table originally, then we just Placebo-ised it. It's a great tune and we all enjoy playing it live. From beginning to end it's just this choppy rock song. When we sit down, we don't try to write a certain type of song. We just write what we enjoy! Everyone else seems to enjopy it too!
ILM: You have SO many live dates coming up! What do you look forward to about playing live?
Steve: Being able to play live nearly every night is great. You never know what's going to happen. Not just with us, but with the crowd and their reaction, that's part of the excitement! The thing I look forward to most is four or five songs into the set when I'm properly warmed up and I can just lay into my kit! Playing music for a living, playing on stage with your best friends every night, is what keeps you from going insane. Especially with all the travelling. That moment where we get to go up on stage is our therapy.
ILM: What have been some of your most memorable live moments since joining the band?
Steve: There are a lot! The first festival we did together was pretty memorable! That was Pinkpop. There was a crowd of 60,000 people! It was the biggest crowd I'd played to at that point. We went on for two encores. We were supposed to walk on, play the songs, walk off, walk back on, then play Taste The Men finally. So everyone walks off. I go to throw my drumstick into the crowd and Brian shouts "Go on! Do it!" I thought he meant 'jump into the crowd!' so that's what I did! I jumped in, then ran along giving everyone high fives! I jumped back on stage, walked off and the looks on everyone's faces backstage! My first festival date with them and I just stay on stage, get over excited and jump into the crowd! Haha! I felt like an idiot!
ILM: Haha! I'm sure everyone enjoyed it...
Steve: Haha! Well, I still get laughed at a lot for that one! At least there was something that happened to make it more memorable! Although saying that, every show has been memorable for me, they really really have!
ILM: You must have visited a lot of places. Which have you found the most inspiring?
Steve: We spent a week in Athens, Greece. The show there was incredible. But there was one point where we were on this big yacht and we were sailing round the Greek islands with a friend of ours. That was a real moment where you look at your life and just think, hmm, things aren't too bad! Spain was beautiful too. That was a spiritual moment. Well, that sounds cheesey, but I was affected by my surroundings a lot there. I think though, out of all of them it was Cambodia. We spent a week and a half there. That is the most impacting place I've been so far.
ILM: All the live shows and travelling must take their toll. Brian recently collapsed on stage in Japan, perhaps as a result of such an intense schedule? It must have been a scary experience for you. How is he now?
Steve: The relationships with everyone in the band are better than they ever have been. And Brian....yeah. That was pretty bad when that happened. It was sort of scary, seeing him fall. Then afterwards when he got taken off. It was a bad moment. It was sad to cancel that gig, it had been nine years since Placebo had played Japan. It was a bad incident. He is doing much better now. He just has to take it easy. It's the reason we had to post-pone our North American tour until next year. He is feeling much better. You're right, we've been touring pretty hard. It's been a much needed break for a few weeks, then we'll be back on it. He's doing good though.
ILM: We spoke at the start of 2009, around the release of Battle For The Sun. Since then, how has the Placebo live show changed and developed?
Steve: We've just got tighter and tighter as the months have gone by. We've added a couple of new tracks into the set too. It's just getting better and better. We're starting to mess around with different things now, tweaking things and messing with original arrangements. But really, we just go out there and do our thing!
ILM: In terms of the future progression of Placebo's music, what can we expect? Is there any new material underway?
Steve: Yeah! We've jammed out quite a bit and started writing some new songs. There's been a few we've jammed out in the studio. It's sad, we don't have much time to write new songs at the moment! We have done some on the road though. We've been playing with Battle For The Sun for so long now, we keep joking around saying "I wanna make another record now!" There's always going to be material as long as we're still together, as long as we're still inspired by life's little moments you'll always have a Placebo song!
ILM: In terms of inspirations, what music have you been listening to recently?
Steve: I've been getting into a lot of old stuff that I haven't heard for a long time. Stuff I heard between the ages of 12 and 17! I recently got my Weezer collection out! Haha! My girlfriend showed me the band Bombay Bicycle Club a few months ago too, I've been really getting into them. They're really young, it's a great sound. I listen to a lot of that, plus Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros...as much as I can really.
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