MF: The album is out next month. Are you looking forward to taking it on the road?
SF: We spent the better part of a year making this record. Part of that was because we had to take a break halfway through the process to do a tour for a couple of months. There was so much hard work, so much put into the record and promoting this record, that all I want to do now is just get on a bus or a plane, and just tour the shit out of it. I cannot wait. Right now we are playing a couple of tracks from the new album live, but I can’t wait to play all the others, man.
MF: Do any of the new tracks work particularly well live?
SF: Most of them, actually. It depends on the show, though. If it’s a kind of intimate show, where it’s just us, we might do a few slower numbers and make a big thing of it. Festivals, obviously, you want your rock songs, your get-up-and-go songs. When we come and do Soundwave in February, usually in that one you’re playing 45 minutes or something like that. You want all your kick-ass heavy shit… But, yeah, they all work really well live. We sort of set ourselves up for that, before we even recorded it. Me, Stefan and Brian, we played these songs live before we even recorded them to make sure they sound good.
MF: You will be coming to Australia next year to play some shows as part of Soundwave 2014. What are you looking forward to?
SF: (Laughs) I cannot wait. On the last world tour we did, Australia was by far my favorite place that I went. Not to say the rest of the world wasn’t amazing, it was, but Aussies, man, you guys have so much fun. I think with me being from California, it’s quite relatable. All my Aussie mates, we’re quite similar. I had so much fun. The gigs themselves were really fuckin’ hot, but amazing. The fans, everyone was so awesome.
Not only that, but with all these other bands you travel to all the same places, airports and motels, so it’s like some big rock ’n’ roll summer camp. I went surfing last time, I was swimming with sharks and shit. I fed a crocodile in Perth. It was the most amazing time. We are going to be really excited and really energetic, I can’t wait, man. I love enthusiasm.
The other thing – Green Day’s going to be on the bill. Now, when I was growing up in the ’90s, one of my favorite bands in the whole world was Green Day and I used to write them fan mail and shit like that when I was 12. I’m a full geek, I learnt every one of Tre Cool’s beats for every record until American Idiot. Now we are gonna be headlining with them and travelling for a few weeks, so that’s going to be really surreal for me.
Placebo will be touring as part of Soundwave 2014 in February and March next year. Their new album, ‘Loud Like Love’, is out Friday, 13th September.
