After a pretty terrible end to the 80s, David Bowie set about getting his creative mojo back in the following decade. Alongside the fact he started making really interesting – and challenging – records again, his revitalised approach also seemed to manifest in Bowie befriending and mentoring artists he saw as continuing his lineage.
Take one look at the bands he invited to play his 50th birthday party at Madison Square Garden in 1997 and you get a sense that Bowie, who’d already toured with Nine Inch Nails earlier in the decade, was in a big rock vibe – Billy Corgan, Foo Fighters, Black Francis and Sonic Youth were amongst the artists performing alongside Bowie that night.
Whilst those bands were a little more established, it was the opening act that night that underlined just how much Bowie would fly the flag for new artists when he really believed in them. Placebo were the support act that night, the British-based trio (as they were then) already a firm favourite of Bowie’s. His fandom began before they had even released their self-titled 1996 debut – they had even already spent a spell on the road supporting Bowie, as they regularly did throughout the campaigns for 1995’s Outside and 1997 follow-up Earthling.
In their androgynous stylings and rattling mix of glam and punk, Bowie saw something he liked a lot. “I spotted them and I thought they were a really terrific band,” he said, being interviewed alongside them backstage at a Placebo show in New York in 1999. His fandom began when a friend at Virgin passed on some of their earliest recordings, he revealed, including a demo version of Nancy Boy. “I thought, ‘That’s a terrific song for a bunch of chaps to sing',” Bowie said. “I think they’ll probably be huge.”
Bowie says that he was the driving force behind the decision to release Nancy Boy as a single. The song would become Brian Molko & co.’s big breakthrough. “I kept on at them like a dog with a bone to put out Nancy Boy,” he states.
“Thank you for giving us our first big gigs,” interjects Molko. “It’s been a consistent relationship. I think we’ve worked together quite a lot.”
“It’s been great, it’s been a very good relationship, I’ve enjoyed it a lot, watching you grow,” replies Bowie. “Hopefully I shall watch them grow into old age as well, because I am never going to die.”
Obviously, that sadly proved to not be the case. But Bowie left Placebo’s members with memories for a lifetime with his mentorship culminating in a guest spot on their 1999 single Without You I’m Nothing. The title track of their 1998 second record, the original was the highlight on a mixed bag of an album, its slow, forlorn dirge unfurling into an epic rocker at its conclusion. That the single added a Bowie vocal into the mix was a bonus and then some.
The team-up came about when Bowie called the band and said he wanted to collaborate, Placebo’s Stefan Olsdal told NME a few years ago. “I don’t know what he saw in us; maybe something of himself as a younger Bowie,” the bassist said. “Maybe there was an outsider element to a lot of what we were doing. Maybe it was the romanticism. Maybe it was the stubbornness of not wanting to fit in.”
Olsdal said that Bowie passed on some excellent advice to the band. “We were very young when we met him,” he said. “Bowie told us to never rest on our laurels in your creative space.”
In celebration of the man and the song they recorded with him, Placebo flashed up images of Bowie whilst playing Without You I’m Nothing on recent tours, a poignant salute to the icon who took them under his wing in their early days.
Watch Bowie and Placebo performing a live version of Without You I'm Nothing below:
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