Pop Quiz
He survived being in a band with Pete Doherty (who at one point broke into his flat and stole from him), battled drug-induced depression and has found himself an unsuspecting mark for the British tabloids. How has former Libertines member and current Dirty Pretty Things front man Carl Barat managed to keep it together? Rather nicely, judging from his new group's spiky debut album, "Waterloo to Anywhere." But that doesn't mean he's in the clear yet. Speaking on the phone from the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, Barat talked about how the past just won't let him go. Dirty Pretty Things play Wednesday at Slim's.
How does it feel to receive a phone call from the future?
I think I'm in the future. Do you want me to tell you what's happening in Lebanon in the future?
No, I'm going to tell you what's happening in Lebanon in the future.
No, no, no, buddy. Who's in the future? You or me? I'm 12 hours ahead of you.
Wait, you're 12 hours ahead of me? I thought I was 12 hours behind you.
I guess. I don't know.
Let me pull out my globe. You're right! What's tomorrow like?
Well, it's rainy here. What's the future like in San Francisco?
Foggy and depressing.
Yeah? Yesterday, when we were in Portugal, there was a bridge that looked like the Golden Gate, built by the same fellow. It looked the same, only smaller. That was foggy, too.
You're a regular jet-setter.
I feel more like a jet-lagger.
Do you think people have forgiven you for getting on with your life instead of killing yourself after the Libertines broke up?
I think people started to go, "Hang on, let's check this out and stop whining." If they thought (the Dirty Pretty Things album) was complete s -- , then they would still be pissed off, but they seem to be moving with us.
Is the worst part of your job having to answer a million questions about the Libertines?
Not really. I'm still proud of the Libertines. It's a big part of my life.
There was a picture of you with Pete Doherty that appeared last week. Are you thinking of re-forming the band?
It's just a mate, you know. I'm as committed to this band as I was to the Libertines. Right now this band is everything.
You're not just doing this because the band you really wanted to be in broke up under tragic circumstances?
No, that's not the case. It's a continuation for me, just with different body parts. It's something different from the Libertines. For me, this goes a little deeper. It deals with some kind of darkness that I was never able to fit into Libertines songs.
Do you think it's a good thing the way it all happened?
I guess so. I can't really imagine any other way, to be honest.
Well, minus all the tabloid drama.
It's just one lousy picture in three years, so it's all good on my part. Although it's a bit depressing that that photograph is once again casting a shadow over what I'm doing.
Haven't you learned to live with it?
I thought I was getting out of that shadow and I could meet my mate down at the pub again.
Here's what the caption said: "Former bandmates Pete Doherty and Carl Barat have reunited to discuss re-forming the Libertines, two years after Barat kicked Doherty out of the British group. The pair met in the Dublin Castle pub in Camden, London, on Tuesday evening after mutual friends Kate Moss and singer Lisa Moorish encouraged them to put their troubled past behind them."
Hell.
How many factual inaccuracies are in that?
All of them, I think. I just went to meet him in a pub, as friends do. Just to allay all the bull -- that different camps are trying to make between us. It just gives us a green light with our different projects, really. It gives us a green light if we ever do want to work together again, but neither of us has decided that's what we're going to do. We're both quite happy doing what we're doing. But it's nice to get the support of your old friend. It's weird about Kate Moss organizing it. Thanks, Kate.
At least by going through everything you went through you got a lot of fodder for your songs.
Yeah, it was quite hard times, but I think you are right. You are right.
You can say if I'm wrong.
No, no. With the passage of time, a good song is worth it.
By Aidin Vaziri
Source:
SF Gate
