How PJ Harvey made Placebo’s Brian Molko want to start a band
PJ Harvey inspired a generation with sultry gothic tones. When she appeared alongside Nick Cave, a generation of youths swooned. They were the poster couple on every young goth’s bedroom wall when they burst onto MTV 2 with ‘Henry Lee’ and the besuited Polly Jean crooned to her vampiric-looking lover, “You won’t find a girl in this goddamn world that will compare with me.”
Aside from the allure of the Alaskan ghost complexion, opened necked perfection of their matching outfits, and a gaze that couldn’t be broken by the sight of the Queen in her damned undies as the fella says, there was a song of sultry, dramatic magnificence. Thereafter, you were forced to delve into the velvet depths of PJ Harvey’s back catalogue. The treasures therein were bountiful and life-affirming for any outsider.
Placebo’s Brian Molko isn’t alone in finding inspiration in it. Courtney Barnett also had that moment when you’re in your teens and the saloon door swings open and in strolls the future. “At that time, it had a huge impact on me,” Barnett said of her teenage love affair, “and as a guitarist and songwriter. Even the lyrics on this album [Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea] are amazing as well. It just captures everything.”
Molko was equally influenced. When discussing the song that made him want to perform with NME, Molko went for PJ Harvey’s ‘Sheela-Na-Gig’ from 1992’s Dry. “It came when I was leaving university,” he recalled. “It felt kind of raw and visceral. The record itself sounds so unproduced and so real. I fell completely in love with Polly Harvey and became obsessed with her music.”
The appeal of Harvey, and the reason she has inspired so many artists, is that her unbridled profundity is tempered with something very human and vulnerable. She applies her trade with absolute sincerity and humility and that has prompted Molko and many others to follow suit. During a period when he transitioned from “Backstreet Boys, Oasis and Nirvana” to “David Bowie, PJ Harvey and Nick Cave,” she was the one who showed Molko that it was possible to transcendent on your own terms.
As he once proclaimed: “Steve [Hewitt] introduced me to PJ Harvey when we were at university. Her songwriting instantly became a big influence on me. I was struck by how individual her voice was and then by how taut and nervous the instrumentation was.
Concluding: “It was so expressive of internal torment, desire, lust and rejection. She’s always been very brave, she’s not afraid to make a record that sounds like someone bleeding on you.”
