THE LIBERTINE

Pete Doherty on his new album, Grace/Wastelands... and all the other stuff.

There's been no dearth of coverage for Pete Doherty, but most of it's been through Court TV.  After a series of very public, and very failed, rehab attempts, the singer seems - finally - to have it together, just in time for a new album.  NYLON Guys spoke with the rock idol last month in London.

On his newly clean routine:
“I’m not just staggering around… I haven’t just thrown it out there and hoped for the best.  I’m following it really closely.”

On the new album, Grace / Wastelands:
“There’s more effort gone into making them complete as songs, rather than just knocking out streams of consciousness that might sound intriguing or happen to rhyme… I wasn’t hiding behind dirty guitars.”

The best part of going to jail:
“The only good thing about going to prison last April was that I didn’t have to do the Royal Albert Hall gig.  Even as the sentence was passed, and [the judge] said ‘two months’ or whatever it was, I was thinking, Thank God, I don’t have to do that.  Obviously when I came out, it had been rescheduled.”

And about that infamous gig:
“I had it in my head that I was going to be playing to stately families in boxes, staring at me down opera glasses, saying ‘Oh dear, what is that young man blabbering about?’… No [it wasn’t like that], there was a bloody stage invasion.  I had to disguise myself in a fireman’s hat, or else I was going to get squished.”
--INTERVIEW BY REBECCA NICHOLSON;
SEE THE FULL STORY IN NYLON GUYS MAGAZINE, ON STANDS NOW



This story was published on April 14, 2009.