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The Libertines rigged up a studio alarm so they wouldn’t miss Eastenders
Carl Barât had never heard of The Clash, Pete Doherty is scared of the internet, and other gems from the band’s new podcast.
The Libertines are celebrating 20 years of Up The Bracket by launching a new podcast of exclusive interviews. The seven-episode series, hosted by Radio X’s Sunta Templeman, brings the band together to chat through their memories of recording their 2002 debut.
Featuring Pete Doherty, Carl Barât, John Hassell and Gary Powell, the podcast covers the formation of the band and the whole infamous recording session – as well as some of the weirder revelations that really feel like they should have come out by now.
For example, the band are obsessed with Eastenders. “One thing that was a bit of a pain is occasionally you’d be getting into it. And you’d go ‘I’m just finding my flow now’…”, remembers Barât. “Then this big light started flashing, this blue light, and everything had to stop. Everything stopped for Eastenders.”
And when they weren’t watching soaps, they were stealing their own records from shops (“in hindsight, it’s a bit of a d*ckish thing to do, but that was our thing…”, says Doherty), falling asleep during their guitar solos and getting scared of MSN Chat (“I’d always said there’s two things I’d never try: incest and the internet…”).
Weirder still, Barât now admits that he had no idea who The Clash were, despite recording The Libertines’ first two albums with Mick Jones.
“I didn’t really know who Mick was,” he says. “Even to the point where when I was in the studio occasionally Mick would play me his latest project after hours and occasionally would play some Clash. And I thought ‘The Guns Of Brixton’ was one of his new ones. I told him to take that poing sound out. I said ‘it’s good, but you wanna lose the poing noise.’”
Up The Bracket – 20 Years of The Libertines is out today, available to listen to here.
