Wessexcene Article 2002
“I’m just jealous because he gets Sadie Frost down his trousers,” Pete adds, “and I just get random birds. From Norwich.”
wessexscene.co.uk "Statute of Libertines" - 11th October 2002
http://libertines.twinkling-star.com/wessexsceneoct02.html
The Libertines’ tourbus is a pokey little thing, consumed by smoke residue, but this is where Carl Barât and Pete Doherty have spent their day so far.
They’ve only just arrived at The Joiners, after travelling down from Southend-on Sea from the previous night’s gig. What was that like?
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Pete begins. “They decided to build a town and fill it full of arseholes.”
“The gig was good though,” adds Carl.
“Yeah, the gig was good. The crowd at the gig were good, but there were lots of muscle vests though; the kind of people that if they were in Soho in London you’d keep your backs to the wall.”
“Not in that sense.”
“But you can always get misconceptions and misconceive. Like there were these huge four fellas who were quite old really but were all massive. You wouldn’t want to step on their shoes. I was just getting a really bad vibe off them, but then one came over was really nice, even though through the gig they’d just stood there staring at us evilly.”
In retrospect this all seems too media-savvy. After all, I’m being told to forget my misconceptions before I’ve had the chance to warm the seat but, then again, it’s understandable as The Libertines are a much-misunderstood band. On record and on stage they’re foul-mouthed Union Jack toting Cockernee patriots, but in interviews they come across as pretentious wannabe philosophers as much due to journalistic misrepresentation (and probably laziness) as Pete’s wild tangentialism. And then again they’re the band that has a bust-up or a fall-out every other week, but are any of these the ‘real Libertines’? First, the patriotism question; when all of the most-hyped bands are foreign, do they feel the need to represent Britain? “I think we should turn the world into a big game of Risk,” says Carl. “If you’re going to think of it like that then yeah, we’ll take the English crown, but I don’t think anyone cares that much.” “We’re in a band to get away from those kind of schoolyard things,” confirms Pete. But Englishness is a big part of your image. “Oh yeah,” says Carl, “but it’s just who you are. It doesn’t really matter. I mean, we’re patriotic about some things...” “We’re patriotic to an idealised view of the nation, but not one that exists where I live. It’s a spiritual nation...”
So they’re only such an archetypally ‘English’ band because of both an accident of birth and something that has been forced upon them by a lack of fashionable young English bands. It’s about representing who they are rather than the whole nation. They are, however, idealistic which is how we come to the much talked about(in their interviews at least) Arcadian Dream, but what is it? “It’s in your heart,” begins Pete, the band’s in-house philosopher. “It’s in whatever vision you have of it. I don’t want to sound like a religious cult or anything, because it’s not about worship. It’s about freedom and release.”
But what is it? “It was the last refuge of two dreamers. It was the only alternative to the bottom of a canal at one point. It was all that was left.”
Okay, so that’s the abridged version but, as far as I understand it, they are striving to reach their Arcadia (a.k.a. total freedom and purity) through music. It’s their guiding principle, and has been since their lowest moments together. It’s thought-provoking stuff, far away from the pretentious pseudo-hippy art school drivel that it can often appear to be. You just know that they take this seriously but, then again, you have to experience it: “You know when you’ve got this family secret or this distant auntie that sounds really incredible but no-one feels the need to talk about it because everyone just knows it,” Pete says. “Like, you marry into someone else’s family and the best things for them to do is meet the auntie themselves and say, “Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?” and you say, “Well now you’ve met her and found out for yourself.””
So that’s the Arcadian Dream, as far as I understand it. It’s what guides The Libertines, and it’s what inspires them to create and find fulfilment in their music, but that’s enough philosophy. Except to say that on their journey to Arcadia they’re keeping a set of journals, the Albion logbooks. But how much of their influence comes from art and literature? “Unintentionally and subconsciously I think a lot of it must do,” Pete replies. “It’s not like we sit down and think, “Well, this dead poet has inspired the whole of the band” but maybe an author or filmmaker. Anything that can inspire you, or just tantalise you, and make you think, “Sh*t, how did I ever live before hearing that sentence?””
Okay, moving on. Every other week the NME reports another Libertines-related argument, but is life like that? “If you spend two and a half months on tour and play together and live together and have spent every day together for the last seven years it’s going to get a bit tense sometimes, isn’t it? I don’t like all of this stuff about us fighting all the time. I mean, do they want to see a f*cking bunch of people having a scrap? If you want to see a scrap go and watch ultimate fighting.”
And it’s true, through the course of the interview they have two mini-’arguments’, but they’re just brotherly-style things. The first is because, err, Carl went to the bank and Pete thought that there was money that Carl was hiding in their joint bank account... “It’ll probably be in the NME next week that there was a bit of a fight at the bank,” Pete says. “You could probably send this to the NME actually,” Carl later confirms.
And the second? It’s about Carl, apparently, blagging his way into gigs.
“I just wanna have a good knees-up,” says Carl, “and I can do this at a gig, but Pete knows this and accuses me of being a f*cking Hello! Magazine reader, which is just bollocks.”
“I’m just jealous because he gets Sadie Frost down his trousers,” Pete adds, “and I just get random birds. From Norwich.”
“She just asked to come into my trousers. It’s not like I said, “Hey, I’m a ligger. Come down my trousers.””
What’s clear is that they aren’t going to break up soon and that it’s all being blown out of proportion.
“Yeah. Old proportion’s coming in for a hard time,” says Carl.
Yet even though, at the moment, there seems little chance that they’ll be splitting up. But if it came to that then they wouldn’t have trouble walking away from the band (“There’s no shackles,” says Pete). But they’ve got what many groups crave; a shared vision and a tight family-like structure. After all, pre-gig preparation consists of trying to “achieve a sense of togetherness” (Carl), which may explain why, during gigs, they don’t talk to the audience in case it interferes, but that’s just speculation.
But at this point Pete’s been called away to do a Swedish phone interview, so lets have a chat about him and, more precisely, his psycho ex that’s now suing for the lyrics to a song (The Horror Show):
“Basically, we just found a scrap of paper on the floor... and the first line was really good... and we asked her if we could use it and she was like, “Yeah. Whatever.” And then we started to get famous and... she decided that she wanted a piece of the pie.”
What’s the current situation with that?
“We put her on the T-shirts. She’ll probably... show her face again. She can have some money if she really wants. She can have one line’s worth.”
So is it important for them to make a load of money, then?
“Well, I can fall into a cliché with that can’t I? We’re in it for the music, man! I don’t know. As something to put the bread on the table then good, but the aim has always been to write good songs.”
Okay, so it may be cliché but, quite frankly, they’re allowed one. After all, they’ve got a collective vision that inspires life in the band and, through my limited experience, are a unique proposition. They’re not the Strokes bandwagon jumpers that the 70s sound, black leather jackets and Rough Trade recording contract would suggest and are, in fact, just individuals trying to find fulfilment. And, as far as I’m concerned, we can only wish them well with that, though we don’t need to actually like what they’re doing as well. But with a live performance as good as theirs, it’ll be hard not to like them as well.
(by Rich Heap for wessexscene.co.uk)
wessexscene.co.uk "Statute of Libertines" - 11th October 2002
http://libertines.twinkling-star.com/wessexsceneoct02.html
The Libertines’ tourbus is a pokey little thing, consumed by smoke residue, but this is where Carl Barât and Pete Doherty have spent their day so far.
They’ve only just arrived at The Joiners, after travelling down from Southend-on Sea from the previous night’s gig. What was that like?
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Pete begins. “They decided to build a town and fill it full of arseholes.”
“The gig was good though,” adds Carl.
“Yeah, the gig was good. The crowd at the gig were good, but there were lots of muscle vests though; the kind of people that if they were in Soho in London you’d keep your backs to the wall.”
“Not in that sense.”
“But you can always get misconceptions and misconceive. Like there were these huge four fellas who were quite old really but were all massive. You wouldn’t want to step on their shoes. I was just getting a really bad vibe off them, but then one came over was really nice, even though through the gig they’d just stood there staring at us evilly.”
In retrospect this all seems too media-savvy. After all, I’m being told to forget my misconceptions before I’ve had the chance to warm the seat but, then again, it’s understandable as The Libertines are a much-misunderstood band. On record and on stage they’re foul-mouthed Union Jack toting Cockernee patriots, but in interviews they come across as pretentious wannabe philosophers as much due to journalistic misrepresentation (and probably laziness) as Pete’s wild tangentialism. And then again they’re the band that has a bust-up or a fall-out every other week, but are any of these the ‘real Libertines’? First, the patriotism question; when all of the most-hyped bands are foreign, do they feel the need to represent Britain? “I think we should turn the world into a big game of Risk,” says Carl. “If you’re going to think of it like that then yeah, we’ll take the English crown, but I don’t think anyone cares that much.” “We’re in a band to get away from those kind of schoolyard things,” confirms Pete. But Englishness is a big part of your image. “Oh yeah,” says Carl, “but it’s just who you are. It doesn’t really matter. I mean, we’re patriotic about some things...” “We’re patriotic to an idealised view of the nation, but not one that exists where I live. It’s a spiritual nation...”
So they’re only such an archetypally ‘English’ band because of both an accident of birth and something that has been forced upon them by a lack of fashionable young English bands. It’s about representing who they are rather than the whole nation. They are, however, idealistic which is how we come to the much talked about(in their interviews at least) Arcadian Dream, but what is it? “It’s in your heart,” begins Pete, the band’s in-house philosopher. “It’s in whatever vision you have of it. I don’t want to sound like a religious cult or anything, because it’s not about worship. It’s about freedom and release.”
But what is it? “It was the last refuge of two dreamers. It was the only alternative to the bottom of a canal at one point. It was all that was left.”
Okay, so that’s the abridged version but, as far as I understand it, they are striving to reach their Arcadia (a.k.a. total freedom and purity) through music. It’s their guiding principle, and has been since their lowest moments together. It’s thought-provoking stuff, far away from the pretentious pseudo-hippy art school drivel that it can often appear to be. You just know that they take this seriously but, then again, you have to experience it: “You know when you’ve got this family secret or this distant auntie that sounds really incredible but no-one feels the need to talk about it because everyone just knows it,” Pete says. “Like, you marry into someone else’s family and the best things for them to do is meet the auntie themselves and say, “Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?” and you say, “Well now you’ve met her and found out for yourself.””
So that’s the Arcadian Dream, as far as I understand it. It’s what guides The Libertines, and it’s what inspires them to create and find fulfilment in their music, but that’s enough philosophy. Except to say that on their journey to Arcadia they’re keeping a set of journals, the Albion logbooks. But how much of their influence comes from art and literature? “Unintentionally and subconsciously I think a lot of it must do,” Pete replies. “It’s not like we sit down and think, “Well, this dead poet has inspired the whole of the band” but maybe an author or filmmaker. Anything that can inspire you, or just tantalise you, and make you think, “Sh*t, how did I ever live before hearing that sentence?””
Okay, moving on. Every other week the NME reports another Libertines-related argument, but is life like that? “If you spend two and a half months on tour and play together and live together and have spent every day together for the last seven years it’s going to get a bit tense sometimes, isn’t it? I don’t like all of this stuff about us fighting all the time. I mean, do they want to see a f*cking bunch of people having a scrap? If you want to see a scrap go and watch ultimate fighting.”
And it’s true, through the course of the interview they have two mini-’arguments’, but they’re just brotherly-style things. The first is because, err, Carl went to the bank and Pete thought that there was money that Carl was hiding in their joint bank account... “It’ll probably be in the NME next week that there was a bit of a fight at the bank,” Pete says. “You could probably send this to the NME actually,” Carl later confirms.
And the second? It’s about Carl, apparently, blagging his way into gigs.
“I just wanna have a good knees-up,” says Carl, “and I can do this at a gig, but Pete knows this and accuses me of being a f*cking Hello! Magazine reader, which is just bollocks.”
“I’m just jealous because he gets Sadie Frost down his trousers,” Pete adds, “and I just get random birds. From Norwich.”
“She just asked to come into my trousers. It’s not like I said, “Hey, I’m a ligger. Come down my trousers.””
What’s clear is that they aren’t going to break up soon and that it’s all being blown out of proportion.
“Yeah. Old proportion’s coming in for a hard time,” says Carl.
Yet even though, at the moment, there seems little chance that they’ll be splitting up. But if it came to that then they wouldn’t have trouble walking away from the band (“There’s no shackles,” says Pete). But they’ve got what many groups crave; a shared vision and a tight family-like structure. After all, pre-gig preparation consists of trying to “achieve a sense of togetherness” (Carl), which may explain why, during gigs, they don’t talk to the audience in case it interferes, but that’s just speculation.
But at this point Pete’s been called away to do a Swedish phone interview, so lets have a chat about him and, more precisely, his psycho ex that’s now suing for the lyrics to a song (The Horror Show):
“Basically, we just found a scrap of paper on the floor... and the first line was really good... and we asked her if we could use it and she was like, “Yeah. Whatever.” And then we started to get famous and... she decided that she wanted a piece of the pie.”
What’s the current situation with that?
“We put her on the T-shirts. She’ll probably... show her face again. She can have some money if she really wants. She can have one line’s worth.”
So is it important for them to make a load of money, then?
“Well, I can fall into a cliché with that can’t I? We’re in it for the music, man! I don’t know. As something to put the bread on the table then good, but the aim has always been to write good songs.”
Okay, so it may be cliché but, quite frankly, they’re allowed one. After all, they’ve got a collective vision that inspires life in the band and, through my limited experience, are a unique proposition. They’re not the Strokes bandwagon jumpers that the 70s sound, black leather jackets and Rough Trade recording contract would suggest and are, in fact, just individuals trying to find fulfilment. And, as far as I’m concerned, we can only wish them well with that, though we don’t need to actually like what they’re doing as well. But with a live performance as good as theirs, it’ll be hard not to like them as well.
(by Rich Heap for wessexscene.co.uk)