phew....got it all typed up! this is from the Metro Life mag in todays evening standard. pls excuse any typos. some nice parts in it about him and his son:
As little as six months ago, things were looking bleak for Pete Doherty. The 25-year-old singer, recently name Cool Icon Of 2004 by NME and whose group the Libertines have been feted for continuing the classic English underdog tradition of the Clash and the Smiths, had failed to kick his addiction to crack and heroin during a rehab session in The Priory and was fired from his own band by songwriting partner Carl Barat. Determined to clean himself up, Doherty signed up for rehab at Thailand’s notoriously strict Thamkrabok Monastery, but lasted for a mere three days, before absconding to Bangkok to resume his habit. Even though the Libertines would later score a No. 1 album, Doherty wasn’t expected to see out the year.
“I don’t want to die”, Doherty says, taking occasional sips from a vodka and lemonade in Soho’s Colony Room. “ And I’ll take every precaution to avoid death. Probably, for the way I am and my state of mind and the state of my life, it’s best to avoid heroin. And it’s certainly best to avoid crack cocaine. It’s having the right people around me and the love of my family and the people I’m closest to”.
And the strength to finally give up everything? “I’ve got that strength. I’ve got to find it yet, but I’ve got it. It’s like having an untidy room. It’s there somewhere”
“At first, Doherty’s naïve ability to find romance in the seediest parts of London life was central to his appeal. Like Colony Room legend Francis Bacon before them, the Libertines celebrated cultured hedonism, spinning yarns of an idealised England they called Arcadia and telling whatever lies necessary to further their own myth. Drugs, it appeared back then, were just part of the theatre. But when Doherty was arrested in 2003, and subsequently imprisoned for two months for burgling Barat’s flat to fund his heroin addiction, the so-called Arcadian Dream suddenly seemed very rotten indeed.
A short spell in prison for drugs offences was said to cleaned out Doherty’s system, but he now admits that wasn’t true. “I didn’t have any crack, but most other things were pushed under the cell door.”
At this time, Nuneaton-born Doherty fell out with his parents, who have both served in the army. “My mum and dad disowned me. My mum was heartbroken and didn’t understand it and my dad said I was everything he hated most about humanity. He said, if he had his way, he’d string crack dealers up from the nearest lamppost. But we’ve mended a few bridges. It takes time to heal and you realise you’re fighting the wrong people for the wrong reasons”.
Surprisingly, Doherty believes that his attitude started to change during his brief stint at Thamkrabok. “It was a wake-up call. It was getting stronger and learning how to deal with something that had overtaken me at the time. I discovered things about myself that I didn’t like. It was part of the process of spewing up poison. One of the monks was convinced that the demons coming out of me were the scariest he’d seen. It frightened the f*** out of me. But it let me know that that dark energy is there and when I’ve developed as a human being I’ll try and confront that dark side.”
After returning from Thailand, Doherty was arrested for possessing a flick knife. At the hearing, it initially appeared he was retuning to jail. “I was going to jump out of the box and make a dash down the Mile End Road. And then I looked at my mum and I thought, “No, they’ll catch me”. In the end, he received a four-month suspended sentence. But the shock was enough. Did he really think he was headed for jail? “Yeah,” the singer shudders. “Horror show.”
Doherty still has some way to go when it comes to drugs, but he’s trying. “It’s like you’re in love with someone”, he says of his addiction. “You never really stop loving that person.” And of crack specifically: “It’s like a family member who’s a bit troublesome but you love them anyway because you know they’re all right. Even if the rest of the world can see the truth, i.e. they’re not all right. But they’ve in you’re blood.”
It’s definitely been a rocky road. Doherty had to cancel a show in Aberdeen with his new band Babyshambles – who he views as being “one and the same” as the Libertines in terms of his songwriting – because of drugs. “I had an overdose on the bus”, he admits. But things are looking up. Right now, he’s clean. “I don’t take crack. I say that, I haven’t taken it for the past 14 days. I know I won’t take any tonight because I’m rehearsing and they [Babyshambles] won’t stand for it.” Another positive move is his involvement with the Strummerville charity, set up to help poor young musicians, “I can’t put my hand on heart and say I won’t have another pipe. But I think I’ve taken it as far as it will go.”
Most importantly, he’s grown up to realise he has the best reason to be clean now: his son. “I’ve got a one-year-old son, Astile, who I love,” Doherty says. “I wanted to call him Peter because I thought I was going to cark it round about then. I thought keep the name Peter going. But she [mother Lisa Moorish] wasn’t having any of it.” Has fatherhood changed him? “Not really. I don’t have a close relationship with his mother. But my family’s been amazing. I need to buck up my ideas there. But when I can claim to have any sort of control over my life, I’m going to take some responsibility for Astile. I love the little fella.” With a bit of luck, this father and son story will have a happy ending.
By Ian Watson.
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Thanks for transcribing that. It's interesting. I don't really agree with whether he's given up drugs. Just compare the way he looks on the NME cover with the old promo photos. There's no doubt that he needs a break.
Narcissists: Oxford
www.narcissists.co.uk
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it's funny, sometimes you forget he has a son. people should always be there for their children. maybe it's just me, but i've always thought that someone that you brought into the world should be your number one because unlike that (wonderful) vincent vincent song, you're not really on your own are you? i don't know what i'm trying to say, and it's good that he's doing better, but your offspring didn't ask to come into this world and even though it's not always like that one should be supported by two parents after it takes two to make a baby. but who i'm i to talk, i don't have kids.
and that my Southern Baptist moral comment for the day.
Homer: Kids, kids. I'm not going to die. That only happens to bad people.
Bart: What about Abraham Lincoln?
Homer: Uh, he sold poison milk to school children.
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