Oh, dear, what can the mutter be?
Pete Paphides retunes his ears to catch Carl Barat's plans for a Dirty Pretty future
"The mumble? Don't you know about the mumble?" As Carl Barat splashes about in the Ibiza shallows, one of his road crew sees fit to offer a little advice. After seven years, first alongside Pete Doherty in the Libertines, then more latterly as a Dirty Pretty Thing, Barat has had plenty of opportunities to practise his social skills. But mastering the art of talking as if he isn't trying to simultaneously break the world record for having the largest amount of mashed potato in his mouth isn't one of them. "He's a laid-back sort of bloke," continues the crew member, "but he doesn't much like it if you ask him to say something again. He gets that a lot."
It doesn't take long to see what he means. As he and the band's American guitarist Anthony Rossomando dry themselves, Barat introduces himself and mutters something which sounds like: "More temporary bear napalm." After a closer listen to the mini-disc, it turns out that Barat was pointing out that a July dip in the Med is "more temperate than Hampstead men's bathing pond".
As a resident of nearby Muswell Hill, in North London, Barat would be in a position to draw such a conclusion. After a few minutes, you're relieved to find your ears tuning to his low mutter. "The thing about mumblers," says another friend, "is that they lack confidence, although most of the time Carl hides it pretty well."
Though the 28-year-old frontman has been on Ibiza for only a few hours, the trip must already be having a restorative effect on his self-esteem. On first inspection, the shapely young women bounding across the sand in pursuit of his autograph don't look like Dirty Pretty Things fans. But then, no-one looks like a Dirty Pretty Things fan with their clothes off. Chatting to one, Barat alludes to the season of beach-side shows which, tonight, will feature his band. "Are you here for Ibiza Rocks?" "We're here for you!" exclaims one, before ambling over to one of several bars where holidaymakers while away the afternoon dancing around a live DJ. In six hours Ibiza may well rock. Right now, though, the beach is the last place you'd expect to see a band such as Dirty Pretty Things.
Nonetheless, such encounters are welcomed as a good thing. Carl Barat is a man emerging from the other side of a long, difficult transition. Six months ago, more people knew Barat for the fact that he made two acclaimed albums in a band with Pete Doherty. As Doherty learns that notoriety doesn't necessarily lead to record sales, the encouraging reception given Dirty Pretty Things' swiftly recorded debut album Waterloo to Anywhere has moderated his pledge not to talk to Doherty unless he cleaned up. Two nights previously, the estranged allies met for the first time in nearly two years.
Barat would rather not talk about it, but his fellow musicians are nowhere near as coy. On the tour bus, later that afternoon, Rossomando reads The Sun's account of the "emotional reunion to discuss getting the Libertines back together".
"Hey, looks like they got the exclusive," he exclaims ironically, continuing to read from the report: " 'If all goes well, the pair may look for a deal next year.' No s***!" Barat stares into the middle distance, determined not to pass comment, although a member of the crew says that, within his immediate circle, the singer has strenuously denied the contents of the piece.
Rossomando goes on to the next page, where he alights on a picture of an inebri- ated Lily Allen. Barat seizes the chance to change the subject. "She said I was shallow, didn't she? For not making eye contact with her at some TV show. But if she didn't have the charm to catch my eye, it's nothing to keep babbling on about, is it?" As the newspaper is passed on I suggest that - given his reticence to discuss his fallout with Doherty - it might have been naive for the two of them to meet at the bustling Camden indie-hole the Dublin Castle.
Barat does a convincing impersonation of someone to whom this had never occurred. "It didn't seem that odd to me, no. We managed to get a good couple of hours' conversation out of it."
The creators of an intense interior universe they called Arcadia, the mumbler and the metaphysician were reunited. Apparently they talked about "all sorts of different things", but the catch-up didn't quite extend to thoughts on each other's post-Libs projects.
"In any case," offers Barat, lighting the first of several cigarettes, "I've only heard the singles off his album. Thankfully, we're not in competition with each other. But maybe that's not what people want to hear. If Sparks had written a song called Actually, This Town is Big Enough for the Both of Us, it probably wouldn't have been a hit, would it?" If Barat has a point here, it's one that he has struggled to assert over the past couple of years. Over the course of a day, his reluctance to be cornered alone becomes conspicuous. A brief period when he was signed to Rough Trade as a solo artist seems only to have entrenched his belief that he needed to recede into the anonymity of a band.
In stark contrast to Doherty, who posted songs on the Babyshambles website as and when they occurred to him - some of them addressing his old sidekick's "betrayal" - Barat kept his journals private (though he says they're the first thing he would rescue from a house fire).
Seeing Doherty - by now a convicted heroin user - on the cover of NME's annual "Cool" issue at the end of 2004 had a negative effect both on Barat's mood and his songwriting. "Having a legal obligation to fight the fight, tour with the Libertines while Pete was getting to do something new - and yet still being perceived in some quarters as the bad guy - all intensified the depression," he says. "Staying in a lot seemed like less hassle, but it also made me very lazy. From Thomas De Quincey to reruns of Quincy in two years. Go on. Test me. Any episode."
Whatever its causes, the fallout of the Libertines' dissolution seemed to exact a physical toll. Barat is keen to stress that a lump removed from behind his ear last year was not malignant. Nonetheless, if left to grow for any longer, it would have paralysed half of his face. "Not a good look," he adds, drily.
By the time he recovered, Dirty Pretty Things were racing to meet deadlines for their first album. That might account for the breathless delivery of standout tracks such as the debut single Bang Bang You're Dead, the scuffed raggamuffin punk of The Gentry Cove and the album's one indisputable classic - a splendidly tetchy love song called If You're Wondering.
"Some of the best songs were recorded at the end of the sessions," says bassist Didz Hammond. "Typically, we would be groping around with an idea for half a song, and Carl would casually reel off an ace melody over the top to make the whole thing work."
"And invariably," adds Rossomando, "you would have to tell him that it was good."
Asked to name one record he might be most likely to play in a 4am music session, Barat refrains from nominating records by favourite bands such as the Doors and the Clash. Instead, he plumps for Waterloo to Anywhere. "Not at any other time, you understand, but at 4am. Does that sound sad?" It sounds rather sweet, I suggest, as though he is still coming to terms with his survival in a post-Libertines world.
"I think he's always wanted to be in a gang," ponders Rossomando after that night's adrenalised headlining set. "Maybe he wanted that gang to be the Libertines, and when that was no longer possible he reconfigured it. The nature of being solo is that sometimes it's lonely. But when you share a little history with a bunch of musicians you're bound together by unique experiences."
And it just so happens that, as Rossomando finishes talking, we find ourselves in the middle of such an experience. As Dirty Pretty Things' crew clear the last of the equipment, the Manumission DJ hits his stride just in time for some more of the venue's employees to make their entrance. There's a saxophonist whose job is to wander among the revellers and play live "solos" over the existing music. Onstage, a bevy of semi-naked women show off their full repertoire of saucy dances.
"Do you see what I mean? We were asked if we wanted to have a couple of them on stage with us," says Rosso-mando. "It was tempting, wasn't it, Carl?" Deploying the considered manner of someone who has already pondered the matter, Barat nods in agreement. "Well, it would have been nice to have a little bit of Ibiza on stage with us," he says.
"But our music is quite fast - and, amply endowed as they are, those women couldn't have danced to it without getting two black eyes. So, in the end, we refused. On compassionate grounds."
Source:
The Times
