(Disorder Magazine, Issue 001 - September 2004)
We’ve secured a big name for the first front cover, they said. And you’re conducting the interview, they added. 2000 words by Monday, then? Not that they were throwing me in the deep end or anything.
There were many reasons why I feared that this meeting would never take place. Not least of all because he was splashed across the front page of The Sun that very morning as the subject of a sort of kiss-and-tell type scenario, plus the fact that Pete wasn’t exactly the runaway recipient of awards for reliability or punctuality at this time. However, after spending six hours waiting around Whitechapel, it was officially on. I need not have been quite so pessimistic. Far from being apprehensive about talking to the press, the Pete we met was affable, articulate, remarkably healthy looking and full of sound-bites. What follows is a slightly re-worked version of events from Issue 1 in September 2004.
In the shadow of East London’s grimiest estates lies The Rhythm Factory and, following a recent spate of low-key spontaneous performances across the capital, tonight the venue has played host to ubiquitous Libertine Pete Doherty. Freed from his more restrictive duties on guitar, a sharp-suited Doherty paced the stage, hung from the lighting rig and leered into the front row. Meanwhile his band fashioned taut, ska-tinged tunes and came across like a more wired version of The Specials. Doherty may have been in front of his own fanatical constituency, but frenetic renditions of new songs became vibrantly alive, elevated by the spirit and energy of the exultant crowd.
“Down in the bowels of The Rhythm Factory we find… dripping sweat and god knows what toxins seeping from their pores… the Babyshambles.”
It’s 2am and we are crammed into a tiny storage room underneath the venue with the members of Babyshambles. Typically exuberant, Pete has already snatched hold of Disorder’s tape recorder and seems content to provide the running commentary.
“I think it’s haunted you know, this place,” whispers Pete. “Ghosts of The Libertines past.”
Of course it’s been a relatively short period of time since Carl Barat and Pete quit university, relocated to Camden and were discovered strumming away in Filthy MacNasty’s and hitching a ride on the renewed appetite for garage rock, spearheaded by the success of The Strokes. Pete is referring of course to the fact that the venue has previously played host to many an emotional and impromptu Libertines performance.
“You see all the shadows. I’m paralleled in infinity.”
The band is in a buoyant mood. Even though this was only the fourth gig for this line-up of the band, the crowd were singing every word back at them.
“It was musically tight and it was a good vibe,” offers guitarist Patrick Walden. “I think it’s genuine love, and people are inspired by the music and the words. But I can only speak for myself.”
“There’s a lot of energy coming off the stage and they just feed off it,” reckons drummer Gemma Clarke.
Pete: “When we sense that kind of energy from the crowd, that moves us as well and everything kicks in. We planned to do an acoustic set tonight, but… I think an acoustic guitar might have just ended up getting trashed.”
Comfortable enough with his new gang, he has already expressed a desire to release a single every month. So Pete, is this band now a full-time commitment?
“Yeah. Commitment? It’s like a full time war.”
He pulls down his t-shirt to reveal the words Baby Shambles elegantly tattooed above his right nipple.
“Writing and singing and prancing about the stage in whatever form it takes is, and always has been, and always will be it. But there’s so many obstacles in our way, you wouldn’t credit.”
These hindrances largely stem from his sudden ousting from The Libertines, and it’s immediately clear that Pete’s frustration at this expulsion is exacerbated by being unable to release his new songs. So far the release of Babyshambles material has been confined to limited edition pressings and internet downloads. The band all agree that they’d love to record an album and have it distributed in a more conventional manner, but there seems to be some confusion over who will release any future recordings.
“Well,” Pete replies whilst offering round a box of unfiltered cigarettes, “there’s a little label called 1234. They’ve got an agreement whereby they can release stuff on vinyl and Rough Trade get to release the CD. But then as soon as the first single started selling Rough Trade decided that they were going to release it. So it’s all quite confusing for me. I don’t know… I always end up on my arse… eating chalk.”
Would you like to have hit records as Babyshambles?
“That’s the thing. If we had our way we’d sell as many as we could. Babyshambles’ first single could have easily got into the Top 10. It got to 24 even on the limited amount. It sold out before it was pressed. We could’ve sold double that amount.”
His new band’s original choice of moniker was equally as contentious, to say the least.
“Well, originally it was me and three Yorkshiremen actually,” Pete says of his band’s seemingly fluid line-up so far. “Originally we (Babyshambles) called ourselves The Libertines, but no one would book us as The Libertines for some reason. I’ve just as much right to call myself The Libertines, which is what we should be called. Someone just whacked up Babyshambles on a poster ‘cos that was always the first song in the set, so we just called ourselves that and we like the name don’t we?”
So when can we expect some newly recorded Babyshambles material?
Pete, impetuously chewing the tobacco he’s found clinging to his lower lip, shrugs.
“Whenever you want.”
For now though, Pete has returned to his optimum environment – a troubadour playing his songs wherever and whenever he chooses, away from the rigid conformities of the record industry.
“You know what I mean? Record this and then promote it for this amount of time… whereas in my mind, the artist would have freedom, and we’d be recording and releasing stuff as we wanted, which would be an ideal situation.”
One way in which Pete has managed to avoid the trappings of strategic record release schedules is by releasing demos and works in progress online. A visit to babyshambles.net reveals a batch of mp3’s mostly featuring Pete alone on acoustic guitar. These whimsical yet compelling pieces of work are slightly reminiscent of Syd Barrett’s solo records, whilst the lyrics describe the futile struggles of various dysfunctional relationships.
“I think the songs seem to be the only places I can be honest and to make sense to myself or anyone else. It’s hard… what’s that they say? It’s like dancing to architecture (talking about music). If I had a guitar I’d probably be able to explain myself. You’re capturing a moment just purely and properly and sharing it with people ‘cos you never know when you’re going to get a chance to release something.”
A lot of them are quite bittersweet love songs. Do your lyrics usually stem from personal experience?
“Bittersweet? Yeah… there’s a lot of sadness in the songs. “I think it is blindingly, crushingly, tragically all too biographical,” he explains of one song we’ve heard. “And then again anyone who has ever been that held down and that locked up, or people who have tried to destroy themselves.”
Doherty is often credited with breaking down the barrier between artist and audience, not least of all by establishing an online community of friends via the message boards and chat rooms he frequents. His posts are often unpredictable, at times distressing but, you suspect, bluntly honest.
“Yeah… I mean, that’s the thing. I never used to understand the internet, but then that forum appeared and I got into it and that was the first time I started using the internet and did post on there quite regularly.”
Of late there has been a lot of passionate debate on The Libertines forum, particularly when it transpired that Pete would not be making any forthcoming appearances with The Libertines.
“Generally I’m on it all the time and I’m still reeling I think, a little bit, from all of a sudden not being allowed to play. It hit me quite hard. It really shook me and I have just been out… not just the internet, but of everything. I’m just numb. I just sit and stare at the sky.”
He’s posted some poignant entries, including some harrowing accounts from his time at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand (from where he abandoned treatment and fled to Bangkok, allegedly to score drugs). Do you use the Babyshambles forum as your venting place?
“Yeah… (starts singing) sometimes I get a little lonely… yeah, that’s why I haven’t been on the net recently cos I’ve just been concentrating solely on my writing. But yeah, it’s a place where I keep a lot of my diary entries.”
Are you keen to elucidate your state of mind to the fans as well?
“Well I’m communicating not just with fans, but friends. A lot of kids are into the band, but also they do their own bands and they write poetry and fiction. We just write to each other of any ideas we have. We entertain and inspire each other.”
Is it a place where you write the things you can’t say verbally?
“Yeah, a lot of it is stream of consciousness as well so you wouldn’t be able to say it verbally. You’d just fall over yourself. It’s a place to be open and honest and I think I need to get on there actually quite soon and straighten a few things out.”
Whilst the sagas surrounding The Libertines have always been a mesh of rumours and self-fabricated myths, there is little doubt that Pete has devoured his self-destructive rock n roll fantasies. His deteriorating partnership with Barat led to the fractious state of the band last year and resulted in Pete being charged for burgling Carl’s flat and being sent to serve his sentence in Wandsworth nick. A high-spirited reunion followed at the Tap ’N’ Tin in Chatham, where the visible tensions between the pair appeared to have been resolved. Since then he’s become a father, failed at least two attempts at rehab in The Priory, and now there’s another court case looming after being arrested for procession of a flick knife. It’s also led to this current state of turmoil in The Libertines where, effectively, Pete is banned from playing. It’s as if he’s packed a career’s worth of debauchery into just two turbulent years. Inevitably the question arises – despite all of this, is there any likelihood of a reconciliation with The Libertines at some point?
“I can’t really rejoin as I haven’t left. Obviously in their world and in their heads, Pete’s in and out of the band as they choose but they can’t actually kick me out of my own band so I just let them get on with their little delusional fantasy, where I’m ill and I’ve been kicked out of the band. I can’t actually be kicked out of the band you know what I mean? I don’t want to have to go through the embarrassment of having to sue them all.”
A mischievous grin flashes across his face.
“I’ll let them get on with it and just have them shot one by one.”
He might be joking but with The Libertines continuing to promote the forthcoming album by playing high-profile gigs like T In The Park, how does that make him feel emotionally?
There was an extremely long and uncomfortable pause at this point.
“If I was to get that door and go… AAAAARRGGGHH! Or get my head out…”
At this point he stood up calmly and head butted a nearby cupboard.
“It feels a bit like that… I can’t really explain it any other way.”
Obviously emotions were still running high and I was aware that we were in shaky territory, but Pete then proceeded to punches down a shelf with his bare fist.
“ That’s how it feels. Hurts.”
The Libertines themselves had at this stage become a seemingly never-ending soap opera played out daily in the pages of the gutter press. As a magazine we wanted to avoid being sensationalist about drug use and concentrate on the music, but of course the subject was naturally unavoidable altogether.
“The tabloids are so fucking annoying, man. They always get it wrong. They say I spend a grand a day on heroin. As if anyone could ever spend a thousand pounds on heroin!”
Are you saying you’re being misquoted?
“No. They’re just making things up. Yeah, I’ve rung them. A couple of people knocked on my door. I invited them in, made them a cup of tea and we had a chat. Foolish me, thinking that they’d love to talk about Babyshambles, which is what I’m dying to talk to people about. Then they never mention Babyshambles, they just talk complete shite.”
This assumption that the dailies would actually want to write about his unreleased music seemed rather naïve of Pete. Of course, the journalistic instinct in me wanted to pursue this line of questioning, but the overwhelming feeling was that it was perhaps wiser to lighten the mood and call it a night.
So then, would does the future hold for Pete Doherty?
“I want to get a dragon tattooed on my chest and I was going to get a girl’s name on my arm. But I don’t want to say any names right now.”
And for Babyshambles?
“A right fucking shambles. But there’ll be love and devotion and I’m sure there’ll be tragedy. But ultimately there’ll be melody… and revelry… and Arcadian bliss.”
