Pete Doherty: Man Out of Time

Photo by Hedi Slimane

But Shotters Nation also reveals a singer sounding more focused than he has been in years, due in no small part to influential Britpop producer Stephen Street, who's overseen albums by the Smiths and Blur. A fan of Doherty's former band, the Libertines, he only accepted the job on the proviso that the singer would be in a healthy state.

"I love his ramshackle style," Street says. "I even loved a lot of Down in Albion. But despite assurances to the contrary, it became evident in our very first week that he wasn't well at all. I made him go home and work on lyrics, which was difficult, because he has a horrible group hanging around him, trying to make money off him."

The recording sessions lasted six weeks and were punctuated by arguments, recriminations, and tears. Street was so continually exasperated by Doherty's addled state that he often threatened to walk, endeavoring to capture the singer's creative bursts as and when they occurred, later relying on the rest of the band to give these ramblings shape and context. Consequently, the album offers a better image of the man than he perhaps deserves.

"Pete is incredibly frustrating, yet you can't help but like him. The trouble is, he knows it," Street says. "He was challenging, but so was Morrissey, and sometimes you get the best out of people in difficult situations."

For all the struggle, Shotters Nation is a critical success in England, the Daily Telegraph newspaper calling it "probably the best English rock album anyone is going to make [in 2007]." Even his detractors might allow that Doherty is an uncommonly gifted songwriter, capable of penning the kind of songs whose firework momentum can spawn entire movements, romanticizing working-class England in a way that inspired like-minded, hyperverbal young bands like Arctic Monkeys, the View, Razorlight, the Fratellis, and the Cribs. "[The Libertines] galvanized the DIY mind-set," says the Cribs' Ryan Jarman. "It's a shame -- he'll never shed that public-enemy-number-one image and his music winds up being a shadow of the fact."

Certainly, in America, where Shotters Nation had at press time sold just 5,000 copies since its October release, he is still little more than the junkie fuckup who almost destroyed Kate Moss's career -- hence the urgency to turn things around. Videos for the singles "You Talk" and "French Dog Blues" impressed even the most cynical of bloginistas, but without the ability to tour the U.S., thanks to no fewer than 18 arrests in the past five years, Doherty is not likely to gain entry anytime soon. As a result, he still seems an imaginary figure, like some nihilist Easter Bunny. His American label, though, is poised with a contingency plan.

"This is an area where the Internet can lessen how severe a situation like this is," says Glenn Mendlinger, general manager at Astralwerks. "People can see live footage of a band in real time after a gig now. It might not be ideal, but we want to build Doherty's profile here in any way we can. I was always a big fan of the Libertines, and this new record is a bold step forward. With Pete, you really have to separate the tabloid sensationalism from his music."