Libertines Article Q 03/2008

From Libertines Wiki

[edit] Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads?

They revitalized a generation with their vision of an Arcadian Britain—a dream scuppered by jealousy, heroin and jail. This is the story of the glorious rise and torturous fall of the Libertines.

Words: Simon Goddard
Quotes from Pete Doherty, Carl Barat and Alex Turner courtesy of Channel 4, BBC, MOJO and Babyshambles.com

Four years after their turbulent career skidded to a halt, The Libertines remain arguably the most influential UK guitar band of the ‘00s. They came to prominence in 2002 to reclaim British guitar music with rakish charm and a thrilling immediacy. Through their example the likes of Artic Monkeys and Razorlight followed, just as their fan community of web forums and guerilla gig postings set a precedent for the decade’s MySpace generation. Theirs was a self-created universe of poetry and squalor, in which they were adventurers on the good ship "Albion", sailing to the mythical idyll of “Arcadia”. That voyage began in 1997 when 18-year-old Brunel University drama student Carl Barat began dating fellow pupil Amy-Jo Doherty. During the early months of their courtship Barat met Doherty’s younger brother, Peter, a 17-year-old aspirant singer obsessed with The Smiths. They had much in common. Doherty had grown up an army brat, moving wherever his major father, Peter Snr, was stationed. Barat’s childhood was equally nomadic, traveling between various communes with his hippy mother, Chrissie. Crucially, both savoured English cultural history, lapping up everything from Wilfred Owen to Tony Hancock and David Niven. By 1998, Barat’s relationship with Amy-Jo had ended, but his friendship with Peter had deepened. Together, they made a pact to quit their respective college courses, rent a flat together in London and start a band. Obsessed with the mythology of William Blake, Doherty briefly considered calling them The Albion. Instead, they sought inspiration in a synopsis of the Marquis de Sade’s paean to debauchery, The 120 Days Of Sodom. Its title: The Lusts Of The Libertines.

John Hassall (Libertines bassist): We had a mutual friend, Scarborough Steve, who kept telling me about these guys Pete and Carl. Straight away I could see they were really into each other. I was mates with Johnny Borrell so the four of us started hanging out in the pub.

Paul Dufour (aka Mr Razzcocks, Libertines drummer, 1998-2000): I had a studio, Odessa, and they turned up one night to do a demo and needed a drummer. I was born in 1948 and started drumming in Great Yarmouth in the ‘60s, playing with bands like The Hollies. Listening to them, I could hear a bit of Kinks, a bit of Beatles. So I joined.

Andy Fraser (Libertines co-manager, 1999-2000): It was the strangest combination. Three teenagers and this guy in his 50s. I first saw them in October 1999 at this Saturday evening gig at the Prince Charles Cinema in Soho. They were wearing suits. It was almost skiffle, sharing one microphone for vocal harmonies, but with this girl, Vicky, playing mad cello as well. She left soon after.

Banny Poostchi (Libertines manager, 2000-2003): Peter worked behind the bar at [famously rock ‘n roll North London pub] Filthy MacNasty's and had moved in upstairs. They were like the house band, surrounded by these funny characters: Rabbi, Terry the Perv, Mick The Ex-Con. The oddest collection of misfits, but then they were misfits: Carl comes from French Huguenot/Gypsy stock, Peter’s got Jewish roots but his dad’s Irish Catholic. They were exiles in their own country, trying to create their own utopia.

Paul Dufour: They christened me “Mr Razzcocks”, as they thought it would be funny to do a gig sounding like a firm of solicitors. Pete and Carl called each other Mr. Spaniel. John was Mr. Lombard. We became Spaniel, Spaniel, Lombard & Razzcocks.

Banny Poostchi: Peter and Carl would babble to each other in this strange fantasy world of nicknames. Peter was Bilo, because his father used to call him “Billy Bilo”. Carl was Biggles, and sometimes Pigman. They were like brothers. Each one fulfilled what the other lacked. Carl’s very gregarious and very sociable. Peter’s more introverted and sensitive. They really loved each other. When he was living above Filthy MacNasty's, Peter was selling speed he got from some Hell’s Angel in Tottenham. Peter’s a very strange mix of real innocence, like a cherub that’s fallen from heaven, but also very worldy. He has no fears. There were rent boy rumours. I don’t know if they were true but they had absolutely no money and I wouldn’t put it past Peter. It would have been part of his armoury of myth. He lives like a character from a novel.

Unable to stir record company interest, The Libertines Mk I became disillusioned. When Hassall and Dufour quit at the end of 2000, Doherty and Barat were back to square one: a skint songwriting duo with no rhythm section. It wasn’t until the arrival of The Stokes in the summer of 2001 that Banny Poostchi saw her chance to jumpstart their dream. Convinced Doherty and Barat could succeed by mixing their Arcadian vision with The Strokes’ energy, Poostchi ordered them to write "five killer songs". Out of this intense incubation period came such definitive Libertines songs as Time For Heroes, and What a Waster, knocked into shape over three months of rehearsals with session drummer Gary Powell. Poostchi’s objective was to clinch a deal with UK indie flagship Rough Trade, The Smiths’ former label, now home to The Strokes. Still lacking a bassist, Doherty and Barat asked Hassall’s old friend Johnny Borrell to fill in for a make-or-break audition for the label. Borrell agreed.

James Endeacott (Rough Trade A&R man, 1996-2005): Banny turned up to meet me in a limo with loads of crisps and nuts in the back and cans of beer and pop. She kept saying I was going to meet the new Lennon and McCartney. I though she was mad.

Banny Poostchi: On the day of the audition, Johnny Borrell fucked off to Wales with Alabama 3. Johnny had his own agenda from day one. His ego was always too big to be a bass player. I just said, “Well, we’ve got to go ahead because lightning doesn’t strike twice.”

James Endeacott: So Pete and Carl were swapping bass the whole time. They played about four songs and it blew my mind. I said to [label boss] Geoff Travis, “I need some money to demo this band.” I was so excitable he gave me the money to shut me up.

Banny Poostchi: Geoff came down to a showcase gig. All I remember him saying is, “Peter’s very tall, isn’t he?” That was his only comment until the end when he said, “We only like to work with the best at Rough Trade and we think you’re the best.”

James Endeacott: Rough Trade never signed The Libertines, they signed Peter and Carl. Gary hadn’t fully committed because he was drumming in other bands [Powell eventually signed up full-time in spring 2002] and they still hadn’t found a new bassist. They were reminiscing about John, saying, “He’s a true Libertine!” So we said, “Get him back in, then!”

John Hassall: Carl told me they’d got a record deal, so I was feeling left out and sorry for myself. It was weird rejoining. Definitely a different dynamic. Now it was strictly Pete and Carl’s thing. But I was glad to be part of it.

Banny Poostchi: It was when they got an advance from Rough Trade that Peter and Carl rented a maisonette at 112a Teesdale Street, Bethnal Green. The Albion Rooms.

Tony Linkin (Libertines press officer, 2002-2004): The Albion Rooms was very Withnail & I. You didn’t really want to touch anything. Nothing was ever washed up. The fridge was never emptied. They had the water cut off. They flushed the toilet with Evian.

Kirsty Want (Libertines co-webmistress): They invited fans to a gig round there once and the police sent a riot van. It was hilarious. All these officers were lined in the street below looking up at the window, petrified. They had no idea it was just skinny boys with guitars.

James Endeacott: We all fell under Pete and Carl’s spell. Like any relationship, it was up and down. Pete was maybe jealous of Carl because he played better guitar. Carl was maybe jealous of Peter because he could write slightly better lyrics. But there was no leader. It really was a joint thing.

John Hassall: We did the first single, What A Waster, with [ex-Suede guitarist] Bernard Butler, all playing separately with a click track on the drums. There was a lot of pressure for us to be more polished, but that’s not how Peter works. So they brought in [former Clash man] Mick Jones to do our debut album. He’s all about vibe and takes.

Russell Warby (Libertines booking agent 2002-2004): Pete always seemed introverted, and I suspected from the outset that he used drugs of some description. But it was confirmed when I managed to get them a show supporting Morrissey at Brixton Academy in 2002. We’re backstage and Pete doesn’t look good. He says to me, I need £20 for a cab. I held out the money and it disappeared more quickly than any cash I’d ever known. Without a “Thank you”, he just left the room. I remember thinking there and then, “Oh shit. It’s crack.”

Even before they’d released their debut album, Up The Bracket, in October 2002, Barat had moved out of the Albion rooms and into a flat in Harley Street, Central London. He reluctantly confided in Poostchi that Doherty was developing a herion and crack addiction. As the band’s stature grew, nudging into the Top 20 with January 2003 single Time For Heroes and reaping critical acclaim as the most exciting young British band of the day, Doherty’s drug dependency deepened.

Carl Barat (Libertines singer/guitarist): I tried to address it with him but I’m sure he convinced me it was within his stride. I do believe I tried everything to stop it taking hold, but for better or worse, it didn’t work.

Banny Poostchi: Carl loved taking drugs. But he’d grown up in a traveling community, he’d seen people on heroin, whereas Peter hadn’t. We hoped that by talking to Peter very gently he’d get the message, but he was very withering. He’d say, “Oh what do you think ‘The horse is brown’ [from Horrow show] is about?”

James Endeacott: I first realized there was a problem when we went to New York in April 2003. Pete had made loads of new friends, crack dealers who he invited to a session we’d booked. We were supposed to do gigs in Boston and Philadelphia but he didn’t want to leave his new mates so he ran off. Carl had to find him and convince him to come back. That’s when they got the Libertines tattoos on their arms. Maybe it was Carl’s way of reassuring Pete they were still brothers.

Tony Linkin: They came back from New York and recorded [2003 single] Don't Look Back Into The Sun with Bernard Butler. Pete wouldn’t show up to the studio but then we heard he was doing his own squat gigs, advertising them on the internet. That’s when the whole Babyshambles thing started. The crunch came with Carl’s birthday in June. Pete was doing a solo gig in Whitechapel and asked Carl to come along. Carl was having a birthday bash with friends and family so he said he’d come to Pete’s gig afterwards. And he nearly did. Carl was pretty much out the door, getting into a cab when we all persuaded him to stay. It didn’t seem right him leaving his own birthday party just to please Pete.

Kirsty Want: Pete was playing to fans on the roof of this flat in Whitechapel. He was saying, “Carl will be here soon,” over and over. It was very late when we realized he wasn’t going to come. Pete looked totally dejected. He stopped playing, kind of panicked and ran off.

Russell Warby: Pete used Carl not turning up as an excuse for not going to Germany with them the next day, but it’s not the real reason. Pete didn’t go because he couldn’t leave the temptations of London.

Kirsty Ridout (Libertines co-webmistress): They were supposed to be touring Germany, but instead Peter got on the first train out of St Pancras, which was to Leicester. He went to an internet café and started posting, not making too much sense. We tried to coax him back but someone posted online saying, “Come and stay with me, Pete.” So he got on a train, turned up and the guy was, like, 12 and hadn’t asked his parents’ permission. It was ridiculous.

Tony Linkin: They weren’t able to patch up things easily because of drugs. It fell into two camps: Pete vs Carl. Pete felt betrayed. None of them wanted to tour without him but they were committed to dates, so to keep the whole thing alive Carl had to play without Pete.

Banny Poostchi: Pete looked atrocious. He was hanging out in a crack den in Kentish Town. We seriously looked into having Pete sectioned, but it was impossible. You can’t section an addict, because it’s a voluntary illness. Unless we could prove he had mental psychosis, we couldn’t do anything.

Kirsty Ridout: It was July 2003 and Peter had advertised another secret gig on the internet. A load of us were waiting in a pub beforehand when someone came in and told us he’d been arrested for stealing a harmonica. Which he had. We just didn’t know until the next day whose harmonica.

The harmonica was Carl Barat’s. On the night of 25 July, 2003, while Barat and the other Libertines were fulfilling Japanese dates with stand-in guitarist Anthony Rossomando, Doherty had burgled his bandmate’s flat. He was arrested after confessing the crime to Lisa Moorish—peripheral ‘90s chart star and mother of Doherty’s newborn baby son, Astile—who decided, for his sake, to phone the police. On 8 September, Doherty was sentenced to six months in Wandsworth prison, subsequently reduced to two months on appeal. On 8 October, an emotional Barat waited to greet him outside the prison gates.

Tony Linkin: Carl seriously considered dropping the charges. He never wanted Pete to go to prison, he just wanted him to get help. It was hard for Carl to go down and meet him because none of us knew how Pete was going to react. But they hugged each other. Then Pete asked him to come to a “Freedom Gig” he’d arranged that night, at a pub in Chatham, Kent, called The Tap ‘N Tin.

James Endeacott: John and Gary turned up at The Tap ‘N Tin to see Pete. He’d arranged to do the gig as himself and it just ended up being a Libertines gig.

Kirsty Want: It was so emotional. Grown men were crying. Pete said to me, “I haven’t had crack for 35 days.” He was so proud.

James Endeacott: After the gig, Carl jumped over a bollard, fell and hurt himself. Immediately, Pete grabbed somebody’s mobile phone and rang an ambulance. It was such a tender moment. After everything that had happened, they still loved each other. It felt like a new beginning. But, really, it was the beginning of the end.

Russell Warby: Around then Banny stepped down as manger and [ex-Creation Records boss] Alan McGee came in. I told him straight away, “The Libertines are already over.” It’s astonishing they made that second album.

Alan McGee (Libertines manager, 2003-2004): [email reply to request for interview] Regarding The Libertines, I had my most depressing time in my musical life managing the band. I will never do an interview on The Libertines ever again.

James Endeacott: The second album [2004’s The Libertines] wouldn’t have happened without McGee. Fuck knows how it got made. Pete went to rehab three times during the making of that record. We’d be biking rough mixes to The Priory so he could hear them.

John Hassall: The resentment between Carl and Pete boiled over. It was the first day of recording and they had a fight, knocking the shit out of each other.

Tony Linkin: Bodyguards were bought in to make sure Pete got to the studio and to keep certain characters away. But crack and heroin were not part of the package. Everyone knew that to get that album finished, there’d be stuff going on in the studio.

John Hassall: The song that stands out is Can't Stand Me Now. Maybe the only thing Pete and Carl could honestly sing about was the situation, what they felt about each other. Almost a sort of therapy in itself.

The recording of The Libertines’ second album had tested Barat and Doherty’s relationship to its limits. With concerns about Doherty’ addiction and its impact on the band’s future still at crisis point, he acquiesced to an extreme detox treatment at Thailand’s Wat Tham Krabok monastery where Buddhist monks induced patients to vomit with a secret herbal mixture and maintained discipline with bamboo-rod beatings. His unlikely guardian angel was actress June Brown, EastEnder’s Dot Cotton, who’d contacted the singer after the monks cured her godson of similar crack addiction. On 8 June 2004, Doherty boarded a plane to Thailand under the supervision of a minder.

Kirsty Ridout: We’d heard he’d got to the monastery so everything was fine. Then he appeared online. That’s when everybody started panicking because we knew he’d walked out of rehab and gone to Bangkok. We had visions of him being arrested, thrown in a Thai prison. It was a nightmare.

Russell Warby: Pete was in Bangkok and went on a local radio station and advertised for a “Thai Libertines”. It was obvious he wasn’t taking these rehab efforts seriously. The rest of the band were pissed off, understandably so.

Kirsty Want: They managed to bring him back to London and called a crisis meeting. But instead of going to the meeting, Pete went to a Babyshambles rehearsal. Alan McGee was trying to track him down. Then at 5:30am the next day, Pete comes to our flat, really agitated. He turned on his mobile phone—he’d turned it off because he was avoiding Alan—and straight away it rang. It was Alan. After he hung up, Pete just said, “They’ve kicked me out of the band.” Then he started smoking his crack pipe. Then he left.

Tony Linkin: Pete wasn’t sacked. Carl had a choice of either stopping there and then, or going out and promoting the second album and then stopping. So Carl toured as The Libertines without Pete.

Pete Doherty (Libertines singer/ guitarist): [post on babyshambles.com, 12 August 2004[1]] Dear Carl...WE are The Libertines and you are abusing the strength of your position within the realm of “intimacy and mechanization”. Do not fool yourself into fooling yourself. You are not The Libertines now. Peter x

James Endeacott: I think the band should have stopped and waited for him. But I respect Carl for carrying on. He had to do what he had to do.

Tony Linkin: We knew it was over. The last Libertines gig was supporting PJ Harvey in Paris [17 December 2004]. It wasn’t the finale they deserved.

Kirsty Ridout: For a lot of us it had died a long time before. The Paris gig wasn’t a fitting end. I remember Carl afterwards, sitting outside the Sacre Coeur watching the sun come up. Then everybody just went quietly back to their hotel. That was the end.

Barat declared The Libertines over in December 2004, two months after Rough Trade released the band’s final single, What Became of the Likely Lads?. Its lyrics were a fitting epitaph: “What became of the dreams we had?/Oh, what became of forever?/We’ll never know...”

Russell Warby: They were like Robin Hood and his merry men—modern-day folk heroes. In 2003 they played Sheffield. Alex Turner saw the show with his friends and decided to form the Artic Monkeys.

Alex Turner (Artic Monkeys frontman): We’d seen The Libertines at The Leadmill. Then we saw Pete and Carl at The Strokes at Alexandra Palace [in December 2003]. We were like, “Can we take a picture?” I’ve still got [the photo] in my bedroom.

Banny Poostchi: The Libertines were a lost cause, the three-legged dog running the race. If you’re a teenager and you’re fragile, you idolize lost causes. That’s why they affected so many people. It would be amazing if one day Peter and Carl wrote together again. They’re fantastic together. But they should only do it if they want to, not to live out a past regret.

Peter Doherty: I can say this forever I suppose and people might laugh at it, but I don’t think I ever really left The Libertines. Nor can I ever leave The Libertines.

Carl Barat: I’ll always be a Libertine. I’ve got it [tattooed] on my arm, so I haven’t got much choice.