We all know what happened to Pete Doherty when The Libertines broke up. But what about his friend and partner Carl Barat? He tells Simon Hattenstone about romance, betrayal and an evil alter ego
There was a time when Carl Barat and Peter Doherty were equal partners. If anything, Barat was slightly more equal than Doherty - Barat was the musician and taught Doherty to play guitar when they formed The Libertines. They were punks, they were poets, and if they could only hang around long enough, a great future was predicted for them. And then, after two inspirationally chaotic albums, they split.
We know the sordid details of Doherty's path. He talked himself into crack houses and courthouses and jailhouses and into the headlines with a high-profile relationship with Kate Moss. The lowest point was when he broke into and stole from Barat's flat and ended up in prison for his troubles. When Barat told him he was unfit to tour, Doherty formed a new band, Babyshambles, and put out a record. There were rumours that some of the songs had been co-written by Barat for The Libertines and that he wasn't best pleased. But Barat himself kept quiet.
Of the two, Barat was always regarded as the sensible one, the together one, but this might be a simplification. Since The Libertines split, he has had a tumour on his neck operated on, and suffered severe depression and writer's block.
In a white-walled studio in northeast London, Barat and his new band, Dirty Pretty Things, are playing at rock stars - all black jeans, shades and tiny rock'n'roll bottoms. Barat is miming guitar for photographs, while drummer Gary Powell (another Libertine stalwart) is trying to catch up on lost sleep. Bassist Didz Hammond is checking the lyric sheet for the new album, while guitarist Anthony Rossomando is reading a magazine.
Powell tells me how things have changed. "A lot of the hype created about The Libertines was very much the stance of Pete and Carl together as a unit, and there was undeniably a chemistry between the two of them. But it created a feeling of distance between us. Especially with Pete. He really got off on the fact that the press wanted to talk to him more than they wanted to talk to the others. Carl was like Pete's shadow, and it wasn't really a role he wanted."
WE FIND OURSELVES a quiet bar, where Barat warms his hands on a Coke and double Jack Daniel's and orders a burger and chips. He talks quickly, nervously, the way he sings, like somebody who has learned to overcome a stammer.
I ask him if the past year has been awful. "No," he says, "the last year's been good. There's been a lot more clarity in the last year, and a lot less feeling crappy about myself. I'm suddenly starting to feel worthy of life again." And what about the tumour? "Oh, it wasn't a cancer thing," he says quietly, lightly, as if brushing it off, but later he shows me a scar by his ear and says the tumour left him largely deaf in one ear.
If he's relatively good now, when was he at his worst? "Ever since the break-up of The Libertines . . . We all set out together, and we were focused and there was this romance."
They were convinced that nobody did what they were doing until The Strokes came along, and played fast, hedonistic punk rock, and made a huge success of it. "That did smart a little. And then our band fell apart and we thought, 'If we can't get by doing that, then let's give them a bit of the anger we've really f**king got.' "
Had that anger built up over the years? "I think I always had it, actually," Barat replies. "I was just an angry young man in denial." What was he angry about? "Just the knocks of life, really. I don't really want to go into the personal stuff. I had quite a hard childhood, etc."
CARL BARAT GREW up on a Basingstoke council estate. His mum was a hippy, his dad was an artist who dabbled in writing and photography. His mother was a CND activist and took Barat on demonstrations. When his father decided to get himself a job in an arms factory, it unsurprisingly caused conflict on the domestic front. Barat's parents split up, and went on to have more children with other partners. Was he happy as a child? "No, never. I'm not complaining. Everybody's got a sob story."Why was he so unhappy? "I started taking drugs when I was about 10, and that didn't help. I smoked weed for years and years, which I now attribute to my depression . . . I was doing acid at 14. Some people never come back from the first trip."
Somehow, he managed to leave school with 11 GCSEs. Barat went to Brunel University, where he studied drama and befriended Doherty's sister. After two years, he quit the course to form a band with Doherty.
He dabbled with heroin - and didn't like that much, either. "I was lucky I didn't like it. If I had, I'd be dead without doubt."
Did he find romance? "Yeah, that's why I left early. I met Peter. He's a romancer. And we did have some level of romance." On stage, they shared mics and couldn't have stood closer. Was it a physical relationship? He bursts out laughing, and feigns outrage. "Obviously not physical, you mutt."
By the time he and Doherty got together, he'd as good as done with drugs and Doherty hadn't even started. These days, he says, he's sticking with the JD - and he orders another double. Doherty is only a year younger than Barat, but Doherty idolised him. Did he perhaps turn to drugs to emulate Barat? "No, I don't think so. I think whatever happened he would have done - he must have a lot of demons in his head."
How hard was it to kick him out of the band? "I never kicked him out of the band," Barat says wearily. "I said to Pete, 'You're in a state, you're not turning up for things, you're doing terrible things, which we won't go into - don't come to play this gig . . . I don't think you're well enough.' He took that as a massive 'up yours', got angry about it and rather than rectify the problems he went and formed a band that would put up with his problems."
We change the subject, and I ask him what makes him happiest. "Loyalty and love," he says instantly. Did The Libertines betray his trust? "Possibly," he says. Would you say the biggest betrayal of trust was when Doherty stole from you? " 'Possibly' is the best you're going to get on that one," he says again. "I'm not going to sit here and diss The Libertines. I'm talking about trust and loyalty. I'm not going to sit here bitching."
Dirty Pretty Things' album is called Waterloo To Anywhere. The prevailing mood is of somebody who has just escaped a passionate but abusive relationship and is learning to live again. "Maybe it does feel a bit like that," Barat says. "I didn't want to write about that, though. I made a point about no specifics regarding the past."
THE MUSIC PRESS has suggested that the song Bang Bang You're Dead is dedicated to Doherty. Barat laughs, and asks why he would do that if he'd just spent two years refusing to bitch about Doherty. If he'd wanted to do that, he would have called the song Bang Bang Pete's Dead. So what is the song about? He looks embarrassed. "It's about me - shooting the Evil Carl and getting on with it." Evil Carl? "Yeah, it sounds a bit schiz, but part of it was that." What's Evil Carl like? "Just a depressive f**k." How does the depression express itself? "Dejected and indecisive. I just sit there, and everything's wrong, and it really hurts. And not having the will to do anything. Paralysed completely."
We talk about the future - that of Dirty Pretty Things and how he'd like to have kids and his obsession with causality and time travel. And he tells me that he's now taking the natural antidepressant St John's wort - three times the recommended dosage naturally - and that it seems to be taking the edge off things, and how he's enjoying the vibe of the new band, and how with a bit of luck he might have finally managed to bury Evil Carl.
What is his favourite song on the album? "It varies from day to day. Currently, Good Carl's having a relationship with BURMA. It's code from the war for Be Upstairs Ready My Angel .. . it is quite a romantic song," he says, and for a second he sounds almost content.
Waterloo to Anywhere by Dirty Pretty Things is out on Mercury on May 8