![]() A zillion copycat bands mushroomed in their wake, but none came close to the Libertines. And the music! No other band better captured what it felt like to feel young and stupid and glorious in Britain at the beginning of this century. But initially, at least, it meant treating the fans as part of the band, pulling us on stage and inviting us to after-parties. That dream fell apart when Doherty decided it should mean hanging out with packs of fellow drug addicts, much to the chagrin of the more business-minded Barât, which led to Doherty being chucked out of the band several times. He and his on-again, off-again best friend Carl Barât founded their band, the Libertines, on their vision of Arcadia, which was all about communality, a world built on art and creativity. We stalked the pubs he hung out at, joined message boards to know when the next gig would be, copied his style. Never before had a musician seemed so charismatic, so romantic, and yet so accessible. ![]() So many men and women of my generation were in love with Doherty. ‘It’s been three years now since the end, of – or at least a long pause in – this mission of mine to constantly get obliterated on crack, heroin and ketamine.’ Photograph: Laura Stevens/The Guardian I tell him the plan: I’ll interview him here, then Laura will take his photo in the garden, and then I’ll catch my train. Instead, he confounds our expectations and reappears within 30 seconds, dressed in a black T-shirt, shorts and slides, cap on his head, looking if not fresh then at least awake. Will he give us the slip? Or fall back to sleep? Laura, the Guardian’s photographer, and I wait nervously. “Oh, hey! OK, just give me a minute, I’ll get some clothes on,” he says in his fey and gravelly voice, and disappears. No one expects an interview with Doherty to start on time, but my train back to Paris leaves in three hours, so I give his shoulder a gentle tap. But here he is now, having a mid-morning snooze in the home he shares with his wife, Katia de Vidas his Siberian husky, Zeus, at his feet. To his fans, it looked as if he was lost in his own poetic world (his critics sneered that he was lost in crack and heroin). Back in the 2000s, I frequently used to see him around east London, trailed by acolytes and hangers-on, but I never once saw him asleep or even at rest. H igh up on a Normandy clifftop, in a house overlooking the sea, the man I once considered to be the most beautiful musician in the world, Pete Doherty, is asleep on a sofa in a pair of black underpants.
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