Throughout it all, Doherty is always writing music. His relationship with his parents, meanwhile – his father refused to talk to him at the peak of his addictions a decade ago – has improved tenfold. “I think I’ve probably slept 27 of the last 30 nights” is his way of telling me he thinks he’s doing OK. While his battle with addictions has been well-documented, he says he now has regular bursts where he’s able to manage them. But with over a decade of tabloid headlines about him, it’s easy to forget just how adept and vibrant a songwriter the 37-year-old is. Tracks like ‘Time For Heroes’ (written about the May Day riots in London in 2000) and ‘Albion’ (which he wrote as a teenager obsessed with William Blake, Oscar Wilde and the idea of total, unabridged escapism from all mainstream realities) stand the test of time not just because they’re indie classics, but because they say something meaningful. If he nails the recording properly, ‘Hell To Pay At The Gates Of Heaven’ has the potential to rival Doherty’s greatest songs. So the lyric is, ‘ Come on boys, choose your weapons / J-45 or an AK-47?’ Both take dedication and belief. When you’ve got the faith and belief, you’ll put as much into it as a lad who’s obsessed with guitars. At that age, when you’re desperate to fight for something it can catch you off balance. “It’s about the f**king Bataclan,” Doherty says of the track. Although he debuted eight unreleased tracks in total at the Hackney Empire show (all are vying for inclusion on his forthcoming second solo album), there was something bigger about this song, a three-chord, whiskey-drenched waltz complete with impassioned vocals and a brilliant line about John Lennon’s favourite acoustic guitar, the iconic Gibson J-45. It’s so simple and immediate that I recognise it straight away from the gig Doherty played with his new solo band a few hours previously, where it had cut through instantly. “Anyway,” he says, “Let me play you this… It came out of nowhere, bang.” Onto the stereo comes a jaunty, Pogues-esque demo of a track called ‘Hell To Pay At The Gates Of Heaven’. They just believe that Satan controls our politicians, our production and the decisions that are made by people in power. Katia lost about five people she was at school with.” He wonders if the French government should have paid for the attackers’ funerals (he can’t decide), and berates the fact that it was young people who committed the atrocities.“They’re declaring war on their idea they’ve got of the decadent West, and Satan. I went down there and just sat outside with my guitar. Given his ties to the city, that must have been a no-brainer when the offer came in? “Well, yeah. I just need somewhere I can live affordably.”ĭoherty was in the French capital during the terrorist attacks last November, and was the first artist announced to play the soon-to-reopen Bataclan theatre, where 89 died, a year on from the tragedy. When I’m here I live like I do at home, really. Then he drove all the way home again.“I could be anywhere,” he says when I ask why he doesn’t settle. When he arrived, he simply tooted his horn, drove in, parked up next to the stage and played the biggest gig of his life. This includes the middle of Hyde Park: when The Libertines played there to 65,000 people two years ago, Doherty shunned the offer of a tour bus, instead making the journey himself from France via Glasgow, where the band had played a warm-up gig. But he’s set up shop anywhere and everywhere over the past few years, thanks to his and girlfriend Katia’s beaten-up ’80s camper van, which they drive everywhere. Something of a nomad since leaving London in 2009 in a bid to kick drugs, technically Doherty splits his time between Paris and the UK. He only checked into the hotel two days ago, but this has been his way of living for many years now. The entire room, watching open-mouthed, suddenly erupts with him.īut right now, with his post-show adrenalin rush fast subsiding, he’s knackered.
Sargent snaps away while Doherty, much like a naughty, drunk schoolboy, cackles maniacally. At one point during our shoot, without direction, he suddenly beckons Sargent into the backstage toilets, turns on the showers and strips butt-naked, hat aside. He’s just played a solo gig at London’s Hackney Empire, larking about in front of the cameras beforehand for NME photographer (and long-time Libertines cohort) Roger Sargent. Opposite me, Doherty is leaning on an ironing board that has a pressed shirt draped valiantly off it – a singular piece of perfection among an Aladdin’s cave of disjointed personal artefacts.
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