Pete Doherty: 'Talking'

By Dave Black

Pete Doherty's short but explosive career has embraced all the classic rock 'n' roll cliches: a wildly exciting band - The Libertines - hailed as saviours of rock, a bitter fall out with a musical partner, drug problems leading to prison, an affair with a world-famous model, and sufficient tabloid headlines to paper the side of a house. How did it all happen? Here in his own words, spiced with wit and candour is Pete's side of the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Omnibus Press
• Release date: Jun 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9780857123657

Dave Black

Dave Black is an internationally recognized consultant in emergency planning and disaster response. With nearly twenty years of experience in search and rescue and as a wilderness and urban first responder, he has served as a consultant and architect of community disaster response and management systems both in the United States and abroad.

Book preview

Growing Up

I had a crush on one of my teachers at school. I was about eight and she took advantage of it actually. It’s a bit dark, really. She stole my innocence. She taught me to read and write, amongst other things! In fact that’s probably the most rock ‘n’ roll thing I’ve ever done, snogging my science teacher when I was eight!

PETE (2002)

(Dad) was a grafter, really. After 36 years he’s managed to climb through the ranks from Private Doherty to Major Doherty. But he’s still like a soldier’s man. I idolised him as a kid. I’ve got good memories of him taking me to football. He took me to Queens Park Rangers, all over the place. PETE (2005)

The British army is a very masculine environment. It was a bit of a shock to my dad to get a son who immersed himself in books, and flowers and petals. PETE (2005)

The only life I knew was moving on, changing schools. Rootless? Particularly from 13 to 16 I was pretty much alone, living dreams, kicking footballs against walls all day long. There was no nest to fly but wandering was my nature. I was a fanatical journeyman -devoured literature, lived inside books and so on. PETE (2005)

I think I took a couple of bad blows to the head, and ever since I’ve suffered bad hallucinations from an early age. PETE (2005)

My Dad told me I’d broken my Mum’s heart. He said I represented everything he hated about humanity: a liar, a thief and a junkie. That really got to me. But after five minutes - five days, maybe -I cut myself off from him completely. We hadn’t spoken for years anyway. PETE (2004)

Describing the demons in his head:

Digits in the face. Horrible. I’m shivering now, thinking about it. It like distorts your relationship with the walls. Colours and numbers crawling up in your skin, and stretching you and crushing you. They’re the things that were haunting me since I was a kid. Hallucinations or something. Long before I took drugs. I didn’t take drugs till I was quite old. I used to get nightmares. Christmas nightmare, I used to call it. Not a nice feeling.

PETE (2005)

(My father’s disowned me. He’s not having any of it. PETE (2005)

I used to steal Django Reinhardt records from the local library when I lived in Finsbury Park. PETE (2005)

The idea of being on stage playing guitar just never seemed possible. I was never a bedroom guitarist. I learned to play on the kerb, while trying to chat up birds, eating bad speed. PETE (2005)

I was working in a bar, selling drugs, working on a building site. Writing poetry in the graveyard shift at the Kings Head.

PETE (2005)

I never had guitar lessons but I used to learn a lot from other people, just sit and watch them play. PETE (2005)

(Dad) was away a lot… he was in the Gulf and Bosnia. PETE (2005)

My Mum would probably want me to be, I don’t know, on a desert island wrapped up in cotton wool. She says she blames the parents. PETE (2005)

When I was a little kid I chewed the vacuum cleaner cable. That’s why I’ve got this grey hair. I don’t remember things cos of what happened then and subsequent hospitalisations and shit. Between the ages of two and 11 is a blank. PETE (2005)

The fascination for London did extend to Liverpool as well, spending summers up there with my Nan. PETE (2005)

It was weird, I was on the dole and I got to go to Russia to do this performance poetry thing, at their millennium festival. You know when you go to the Job Centre, and they look on the computer for relevant employment. Cos I was quite happy claiming the dole money, I said ‘poet’, knowing they’d be nothing for me. And he tapped it in and went, Oh, I think we’re in luck’. PETE (2005)

I think my Mum’s ambition for me would probably have been to be someone like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. I was dressing up in Brownie uniforms when I was young. I went pretending to be my sister’s cousin - I got the uniform and everything. PETE (2005)

I fell in love with a girl called Emma Frogg with two g’s. I was in Liverpool and I used to play football with her all day - she was wicked but she had no teeth. PETE (2002)

When I was 12 years old I was coming home from a school disco, a real innocent school disco, drinking lemonade. And when I got in, (Dad) followed me into the kitchen and I was drinking water really fast because I was so thirsty. And he said, ‘You’ve been drinking.’ And I literally didn’t even know what he meant. I said, ‘Yeah, I’m drinking water.’ And he said, ‘You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?’ And I was completely paralysed, completely in awe, and I started crying. And he stands me in the middle of the room and tells me to walk in a straight line. And I can’t. PETE (2005)

Family Matters

It’s bizarre - I look at his body and wonder where did my little boy go? He’s not my Pete - my son wouldn’t do anything like taking drugs. MUM - JACQUELINE DOHERTY (2004)

I don’t fear death for him. At least he wouldn’t be in this living heroin hell he is now. I’ll always be there for my son, but he’s broken my heart. JACQUELINE DOHERTY (2004)

(Sister Amy Jo) is great. She respects me and understands me better than anyone. She knows that a lot of things reported about me are exaggerated. She’s very protective of me. PETE (2002)

Between me, Banny (Poostchi, former Libertines manager) and Pete’s sister Amy, we called his Mum over and I drove her to that little hotel in Paddington where he always stays. We’d slowly been trying to talk him round into getting some sort of treatment, which he seemed to be going for - that was two weeks before I was due to have our baby. Ex-Partner LISA MOORISH (2005)

I’m more terrified for others - my mum and friends who are worrying themselves over me. Sometimes I’m convinced I do want to be free from the drugs - but I don’t feel a lot of people’s worries justify it. I know people who take more drugs than me and they’re still here. PETE (2004)

"I am his biggest fan and watch him everywhere. He’s absolutely top class but it’s a real shame he’s living with that bird (Dot Allison) these days. She’s definitely not the best influence on him." UNCLE PHIL (2004)

" I nearly lost everything - my parents, my son, my life. Something Mick Jones told me, it’s about self-control. You can’t play Russian roulette with yourself. With needles. Stop all that." PETE (2005)

I’m well into my drugs and music, and that, but - then, at 15 -I wasn’t… I had no interest in it. I was from a working-class family, but not a working-class family that was into drugs. Well, apart from the Liverpool side of them. PETE (2002)

Peter called me after he walked out of the Priory to tell me he was on his way to Thailand, I hoped the Thai clinic could help him, but again it was for all the wrong reasons - he was trying to please me. JACQUELINE DOHERTY (2004)

On being in Pentonville Prison:

I’m determined to stay clean. Six days without heroin hasn’t been as bad as I expected. I’ve been through the worst of the detox and I want to prove to my mum above anybody else I can do this. I also need to stay clean for the sake of my band mates and all my fans. PETE (2005)

"Pete told me they are still very much an