“I would like to get rid of the damn drugs,” Pete Doherty says as he reflects on a decade and more of substance abuse which has left his undoubted talents painfully unfulfilled.
“It’s no longer fun,” the Daily Star quotes Doherty as saying on his drug use. “On the contrary, it’s just shit and kills all my creativity, but it’s difficult to stop. My past life is a mess, a real mess.”
Doherty’s heroin addiction was the primary catalyst for The Libertines coming to a premature end in 2004 not long after the release of their second album, and when they looked destined to unequivocally take their rightful place as one of the biggest, and best British bands of recent times.
However, the band will make a live return for a second time at London’s Hyde Park next month – something Doherty is set to relish. “I sat down with the guitar in a corner and played for a few pounds until the police chased me out of the park,” he remembers of his experiences in Hyde Park.
“So from that to playing a show we could only dream of when we started The Libertines. Everything has come full circle.”
The Libertines play Hyde Park on July 5th as headliners of this year’s British Summer Time festival.
