Pete Doherty and Carl Barat used to have drunken “vocabulary battles” at 4am.
The 43-year-old singer and Carl, 44, founded The Libertines in 1997, and Pete has recalled the early years of their successful partnership.
He shared: “Carl used to go out on these drinking missions, who could get the most f***** up and I used to question this and the lack of artistic pursuit, and Carl would always rise to the challenge and be like, ‘I can drink anyone at the table and still be a poet’ and all this.
“So we’d have these strange vocabulary battles. It’d be four in the morning and we’d have a dictionary each and then we’d throw words at each other to see who had the greatest vocabulary.”
Pete was also inspired by what Carl could do while he was drunk.
Speaking on the ‘Up The Bracket – 20 Years of The Libertines’ podcast, Pete explained: “Sometimes you bring the guitar out and it’s like a sacred moment for me to see someone who could play the guitar so naturally. I learned a lot just watching him, I’d go away and practise like mad.”
The Libertines are currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, ‘Up the Bracket’.
And Carl can finally appreciate the success they managed to achieve together.
He said: “I’m more blessed now than I’ve ever been by it all. I’m starting to finally … I think I spent so much of my time doing it thinking it’s gonna get taken away. I always thought it’s gonna get taken away from me.
“I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can look at the body of work that we’ve done together and I can go ‘It didn’t get taken away’. That’s there now, that’s locked in.”