A Quick Chat with Placement

Congrats on the release of ‘More a Curse’! Can you tell us a bit more about what the song means to you?
It’s about the intersection of all of these fucked up things going on in our world at the moment (free Palestine!) and how we perceive them through our personal networks as well as how they are presented through social media. Look, Trump is back in and that says it all really.
– Alex

All these disparate awful and good and banal things come at you throughout life. Sometimes it feels like the horrible things like surprising new diseases, the return of authoritarian politics, the extreme prevalence of war and conflict, as well as just the noisy stuff that's more nuanced but still gets in the way, cancel culture, cost of living pressures, etc, are all that you have time to think about. It can become overwhelming and all-consuming and sometimes it just feels like we’re living under some grand, evil curse, but it’s of our making. We go from one disaster to the next, out of the fry pan and into the sink, is it a deadly disease or is it just a cold? Really, it’s more a curse.
– Malia

Where did the name Placement originate from?
I think everyone who plays music has a constantly changing mental list of band names. Alex let us see his list of band name ideas and we just chatted about them til we got to a name that resonated with us all. We loved how Placement is such a simple word that does so much, what's more important than blanket placement, product placement. I’m sure there’s more.
– Malia

I was inspired by the somewhat redundant argument of form and composition vs. intention in the study of visual art. I was in a lecture and the word placement came up again and again during discussions of how the form and composition of visual materials can evoke an emotional response without there being a specific intention beyond aesthetics. It just kept rolling over and over in my brain so I wrote it down!
– Alex

What’s your favourite show you’ve played so far?
This is such a tough question but I think OK Motels! It's our most recent show, but it’s not just that it's top of mind, it was seriously such a good show! Such a well organised festival, the organisers, audiences, other bands and the whole town of Charlton where it took place were all incredible. Regional festivals are some of my most memorable gigs, there’s just such a special feeling when a whole town opens its arms to you and lets you fill it with noise and good times.
– Malia

Which artists are on your high rotation playlist right now?
Cindy Lee, The Genevieve’s, Tropical Fuck Storm, Twine, Unwound, Dutch Interior, Serge Gainsbourg, Special Features, Autolux, MJ Lenderman and Dirty Three to name a few.
– Alex

What TV show are you bingeing at the moment?
Not really a TV show, but have been stuck into a series of VHS Sonic Youth performances from the 80’s and 90’s someone uploaded on YouTube. Have been loving that. Stu loves the Alone series shot in NZ.
– Alex

I am obsessed with reality shows where people make stuff, especially British ones. Right now I can’t get enough of Portrait Artist of the Year. It's making me crave picking up a paintbrush again. I'm trying hard to resist cos I have too many projects happening but the pull is strong!!
– Malia

What was the first gig / concert you ever went to?
Someone’s driveway in my late teens. They had taped down keys on an old Casio synth in the key of the song and scrappily played a bunch of noisy pop songs to 30 people on their guitar. Retrospectively, it was pretty sick.
– Alex

My mates and I saw Metallica with Lamb of God back in 2010, must've been 14 yrs old (so not in the mosh). I had just started drumming the year before so I was fixated on Lars. I don’t care what people say, the man's a beast!
– Giuseppe

Plans for 2025?
Our debut album is coming out this year so that is our main big plan. We’ve been working towards it for several years so we’re really excited to share the songs with everyone. It includes a really good overview of our band so far with songs right from the start to songs we just wrote a few weeks before recording. Our new release More a Curse has existed in our set for quite a long time, and it always has great energy and is really fun to play live so it's really exciting to have the recorded version out to share with everyone now! We’ve got a tour coming alongside that too, more details on that soon.
– Malia