Barat's hard road from Libertines
CARL Barat is doing his best to keep a low profile, sequestering himself in the darkest recess of a New York pub as overhead televisions broadcast the day's World Cup game, England vs. Trinidad and Tobago.
But it isn't easy when flashes keep exploding in his face. Just as the ex-leader of U.K. rock phenoms the Libertines - and now frontman for the new Dirty Pretty Things - sinks comfortably back into his chair, he's startled by another burst.
It's not like any of this was Barat's idea. Rolling Stone had assigned a photographer to track his reactions to the match, which, at halftime, were somber. Britain had yet to notch a goal.
The mostly-expat clientele was far from pleased with the arrangement, though. "Oi, mate. You set off that flash one more time and I'll smash it!" snarls one burly lout. But there's one more requisite shot. Barat leaping to his feet with the crowd and shouting wildly as England finally scores.
Oddly, nobody recognizes him, save Bauhaus bassist David J, who also dropped by. It's all about football and Guinness, and that's a welcome respite for Barat, one of the most media-hounded musicians in his homeland.
On an average day, Barat scowls, "I feel a bit like Prometheus, really. The guy who got chained to a rock in hell and was fated to have his guts pecked out by a vulture every day. And every morning when he wakes up, he's back to normal. So he has to wait for the vulture all over again. And again and again."
Once the photographer disappears, Barat seems at ease, and it's understandable. Overseas, there's a bestselling book that's documented his life in detail, "The Libertines - Bound Together; The Definitive Story of Peter Doherty and Carl Barat and How They Changed British Music."
A whopper of an assertion, but it's true. The Libertines - only two albums old when they disbanded a year ago - had ushered in a riotous new streak of garage-greasy rock'n' roll, and become the U.K. equivalent of stateside firebrands the Strokes and the White Stripes.
Produced by the Clash's Mick Jones, those discs were transcendent affairs, firing on the punk-edged pistons of Barat and Doherty, who traded jagged guitar licks and spat lead vocals.
To hear the Libs, as they came to be known, was to intuitively understand just how great rock music could sound when it came straight from two true-blue hearts. Unfortunately, the group also gained prominence for far seedier reasons.
Four years ago, Barat sat inside a London rehearsal studio, mulling over surreal past events. After temporarily banishing Doherty from the band for his increasing drug use, he'd just returned from a Libs tour of Japan to a burglarized house. Everything had been taken, even his guitars.
During the interview, he started putting two and two together, but couldn't bring himself to believe the obvious answer: Indeed, his own bandmate and best friend had robbed him. And that was only the beginning of his Pete Doherty troubles.
Two years ago, Barat was in the back of his tourbus at Reading, literally choked up over how bad things had gotten. The Libertines - with American replacement guitarist Anthony Rossomando - were soldiering on, but Doherty (who'd formed his own outfit Babyshambles) had been banned from Barat's life until he got clean.
Ironically, fans were angry with the singer for not allowing his wayward chum back in, but his decision was a moral one. Doherty would only get worse, bouncing in and out of jail, court-appointed rehabs, and dragging anyone close enough - like then-galpal Kate Moss, caught in a cocaine-sniffing snafu that nearly destroyed her career - down in his wake.
Barat tried everything to save his friend. But he was wise to step back.
After several Libs reunion attempts fell flat, courtesy of Doherty's antics, Barat made the tough, but necessary, call: It was time to carry on with a new outfit.
So with Rossomando, Libs drummer Gary Powell and former Cooper Temple Clause bassist Didz Hammond, he rechristened his combo Dirty Pretty Things (a literally hat-chosen name they all voted for) and said it all in their raucous first single, "Bang Bang You're Dead."
While Babyshambles' full-length debut was a sloppy failure, Barat's/DPT's "Waterloo to Anywhere" (Interscope) is on the money. In power chord blasts, Barat buries the past with "Deadwood," "The Enemy," "Doctors & Dealers" and "Blood Thirsty Bastards."
The launch of DPT was a no-brainer, Barat says.
"I had nothing else to do than just keep going, really. I had no choice. You end up in a bad situation, you have no choice but to turn'round and figure out a way to break through it." Which wasn't easy, he adds, when outside sources were screaming for a Doherty reconciliation.
"I still knew at heart what it was I did as a musician, but it got clouded. I definitely went through a period of self-doubt."
At Barat's side sits Rossomando. Both wear beat-up black leather jackets and faded jeans; they look like they've just rumbled in with some '60s motorcycle gang. And the guitarist happily picks up Barat's story: "But after paddling around for awhile, the only way for Carl to put those things behind him was through writing songs and starting something new. It was a way to adapt to change and move on. He was really bogged down, but last year I saw a lot of confidence grow as he started to put a couple of songs together for the new band, and this was even before he had Didz. And on the strength of those songs, Didz joined the band and Carl's confidence grew even more. And now he's turned all that negative stuff into a record and gotten it out of his system."
"But I didn't want to write a selfish record," Barat clarifies, downing his third Guinness.
"And the songs are about more than my personal laments - I've got other irons in the fire. Like 'Bang Bang' - there's a lot more going on there than the Pete thing. It's about putting everything to bed and taking stock, focusing on the phoenix rising from the ashes. Because there was more going on in my life than just that. There were family problems, health problems, all kinds of stuff ... So for me, this was like a new start, a rebirth. But a kind of rebirth without a death."
Yet. If Doherty keeps spiraling downward, there's inevitable fatality at the end of such a descent. It's the lesson every rehab hammers into its patients: You use, you die.
Barat still parties a little himself. He sports a bandaged shoulder from a recent drunken escapade, falling into a river at 4 in the morning. And he left a "Happy New Year" message on Doherty's answering machine at Christmas, he says, with no response.
Will there be a happy ending to the cautionary Libertines tale? (Reportedly, Barat and Doherty did hook up for a few friendly pints in a Camden pub only last week; what they discussed is anybody's guess.)
Truth be told, smiles Barat, "I feel pretty sane after all of this. And there's no bad will between me and Pete. We're just into different things right now, and our paths aren't ever really crossing. So for me right now, there's only one minor problem. Now I've got to figure out what to do next. I guess I'll just make another album ..."
By Tom Lanham
Source:
Inside Bay Area
