The Libertines

This article covers the band. For the music album see The Libertines (album) .

The Libertines
Carl Barât
General information
origin	London , England
Genre (s)	Indie rock , Britpop , Garage Rock , Post-Punk
founding	1997, 2010
resolution	2004
Current occupation
Singing , rhythm guitar	Pete Doherty
Vocals, lead guitar	Carl Barât
bass	John Hassall
Drums	Gary Powell
former members
bass	Johnny Borrell
Drums	Paul DuFour

The Libertines (in German "Wüstlinge", "Freigeister", "Freethinker") is a four-piece English rock band from London .

history

The Libertines at Leeds Festival 2010

Carl Barât made his first acquaintance with his future bandmate Pete Doherty in 1997 . Barât shared an apartment with Doherty's sister Anni Öu. They started writing songs and later decided to form a band. Both dropped out of their studies at the University of London and moved to a shared apartment on Camden Road.

Together with their neighbor there Steve Bedlow , sometimes called Scarborough Steve , they founded The Libertines. Through Steve they also met their future bassist John Hassall .

Within a few weeks the band recorded three songs in the Odessa Studios. Paul DuFour took part as the drummer, who also played a few smaller concerts.

When Roger Morton, a journalist for the British music magazine New Musical Express , saw The Libertines at a concert in Islington , he offered them to manage them. Although they got an offer from John Waller at the same time, they chose Roger. After six unsuccessful months, he split from the band.

In mid-March 2000, The Libertines met Banny Poostchi, a lawyer for the Warner Music Group who managed the musicians from then on. "Legs 11", a collection of eight songs, was created under Banny's guidance. In December of the same year, after a number of unsuccessful attempts to get them a record deal, she decided to stop working as a manager for the Libertines. Hassall and DuFour also joined her and left the band.

Banny Poostchi later tried again to get a record deal with Rough Trade Records . In December 2001 they signed the contract. The free positions of drummer and bassist were filled with Gary Powell and Johnny Borrell , respectively .

When Johnny Borrell left shortly afterwards and founded the band Razorlight , John Hassall stepped in again as bassist. Pete Doherty and Carl Barât rented a joint apartment in London, which later became a popular venue for numerous “guerrilla gigs”.

In this line-up you appeared as the opening act for The Strokes and The Vines .

The descent

At the time of the recordings for Up the Bracket and the corresponding tour, Pete Doherty's drug addiction increased dramatically, which distanced him from the rest of the band.

Carl was upset with the people Pete surrounded himself with and their drug use. Tensions increased when Doherty regularly did "guerrilla gigs" without the rest of the band, which also complicated the recording for the second album. During this time Pete Doherty began his first drug withdrawal, which he broke off immediately.

Pete planned a secret concert for Carl Barâts birthday with the intention of easing tension. However, his band mate preferred a party in a different company. Confused and upset, Doherty broke into his apartment and was jailed for two months.

After Doherty's release, the Libertines played a reunion concert at the Tap'n'Tin Pub that same day, which was attended by Hassall and Powell. The gig was named "NME Gig of The Year". The band tried to leave their problems behind and played in mid-December 2003 three times in front of a sold-out hall in the London Forum. These concerts came in 19th place in Q Magazine's “Top 100 Gigs of All Time” . The Libertines also went on a tour of Great Britain in March 2004 and played three sold-out concerts at the Brixton Academy.

Manageress Banny Poostchi was replaced by Alan McGee , who had previously worked for Oasis and later became the manager of Dirty Pretty Things . The band continued to give concerts and worked on their second album. In 2004 they won the NME Award for Best Band, although Don't Look Back into the Sun was their only official release that year.

The end

Due to the bad relationship between Pete Doherty and the producer Bernard Butler , Mick Jones was hired for this task again , but he also had his problems with Doherty. On May 14, he started a second attempt to combat his drug addiction, but gave up three weeks later, exasperated.

In the meantime, Carl Barât had already arranged a weekly evening at the Infinity Club in the West End . The evening after his escape from rehab, Doherty showed up and announced to his bandmates that he was trying to get clean in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. That night the Libertines had their last appearance in the presence of all members.

Doherty's withdrawal was again unsuccessful. The remaining line-up of the Libertines gave a few more concerts to market the album, and most importantly, to ease the disappointment of the fans. After further drug escapades, the band refused to go on stage with Doherty until he finally renounced his addiction.

The Libertines gave their last concert in Paris on December 17th, 2004, still without Doherty. Barât decided to let the band rest. There was never an official resolution.

After the libertines

Pete Doherty

Doherty dedicated himself to the band Babyshambles, which he founded. Her debut album Down in Albion contains three top 10 singles and was produced by Mick Jones.

See also : Pete Doherty  and Babyshambles

Carl Barât

Carl Barât founded Dirty Pretty Things , supported by Gary Powell as a drummer. The band released the single Bang Bang You're Dead in late April 2006, their first album Waterloo to Anywhere in May 2006 and toured extensively before that. After the release of the second album Romance at Short Notice , the band split up in autumn 2008 without giving any specific reasons.

John Hassall

Hassall joined the band Yeti. Their first single Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder hit stores in March 2006 and peaked at number 36 on the UK charts. After an EP and an album, the group broke up in 2009. Hassall's new band is the Danish group The April Rainers.

Gary Powell

Powell was a member of the Dirty Pretty Things.

Reunion

After there were repeated speculations that the band would soon return to the stage, not least due to some, often spontaneous joint appearances by Dohertys and Barâts, The Libertines announced at a press conference at the end of March 2010, at least for two appearances at the festivals in Reading and Leeds to perform again in summer 2010. The Libertines received £ 1.2 million for this company. According to Carl Barât, it is still unclear whether and when the reunion will continue. Four years later, the band confirmed an official live reunion on July 5, 2014 in London's Hyde Park. Due to the enthusiastic onslaught of fans, however, there were security problems, panic and, at times, musical dropouts, as the masses of spectators could hardly be kept under control. A short European tour followed in autumn 2014. a. to Berlin and Düsseldorf.

On September 11, 2015, The Libertines released their third studio album, Anthems for Doomed Youth, on Universal / EMI. It was recorded at Karma Sound Studios in Thailand after Pete Doherty had previously attended rehab there. He and Barât wrote the lyrics for the album, Jake Gosling was involved as producer.

• The Libertines Live @ Lollapalooza 2015
• 

  Pete Doherty

• 

  Carl Barât

• 

  John Hassall

• 

  Pete Doherty & Carl Barât

style

music

The Libertines played a rather idiosyncratic garage rock. Stylistically, he always oscillates between anthemic Britpop and boisterous 1970s punk.

One of the most important influences of the libertines is The Clash . The former Clash guitarist Mick Jones already produced the debut Up the Bracket and later the second, nameless album of the Libertines and has already played live with the Libertines at one of their concerts.

Besides The Clash, The Beatles , The Cure , The Jam , The Who , The Smiths and Blur also had an influence on the music of the Libertines. According to lead guitarist and singer Carl Barât , his role models include The Velvet Underground . Razorlight, on the other hand, the band of one of their former bassists, Johnny Borrell, were in turn influenced by the Libertines.

Texts

In contrast to The Strokes, who processed their influences from The Velvet Underground to the Voidoids into stylish pop numbers , the Libertines have more depth and a lot of irony. With their song The Boy Looked at Johnny they alluded to the book of the same name by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons ( Boy Looked at Johnny ), which was often referred to as the Manifesto of Punk , and tried to re-establish the old feud between New York and London artists to stir up.

Christian Buß regarding the band: “Punk is the denial of any proportionality, which is why the Libertines are a big punk band. They smash the rock and roll sanctuaries to build new cathedrals from the rubble. The Sex Pistols did it that way, too. And because they are now considered shrines themselves, the Sex Pistols have to smash themselves from time to time. ”Buß quotes Doherty and states:“ ' Johnny Rotten is a modern myth. Like Elvis . I think it's good when a myth like this dismantles itself from time to time. ' Those who deal with the libertines always end up with self-destruction [...]. "

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2002	Up the bracket	-	-	-	UK35 platinum (14 weeks)UK	-
2004	The Libertines	DE20 (5 weeks) DE	AT31 (5 weeks) AT	CH51 (3 weeks) CH	UK1 platinum (28 weeks)UK	US111 (1 week) US
2007	The Best Of - Time for Heroes	-	-	-	UK23 gold (4 weeks)UK	-
2015	Anthems for Doomed Youth	DE9 (3 weeks) DE	AT9 (4 weeks) AT	CH11 (4 weeks) CH	UK3 silver (6 weeks)UK	-

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2002	What a Waster	-	-	-	UK37 (2 weeks) UK	-
	Up the bracket Up the bracket	-	-	-	UK29 (4 weeks) UK	-
2003	Time for Heroes Up the Bracket	-	-	-	UK20 (5 weeks) UK	-
	Don't look back into the sun	-	-	-	UK11 gold (4 weeks)UK	-
2004	I Get Along Up the Bracket	-	-	-	UK99 (1 week) UK	-
	Can't Stand Me Now The Libertines	-	-	-	UK2 gold (6 weeks)UK	-
	What Became of the Likely Lads The Libertines	-	-	-	UK9 (7 weeks) UK	-

More singles

• Gunga Din (2015)
• Heart of the Matter (2015)

Awards

• 2003: MTV Europe Music Awards "Best British Act" and NME Awards "Best New Band"
• 2004: NME Awards "Best UK Band"
• 2005: NME Awards "Best British Band"

swell

1. ↑ Million pay : The Libertines celebrate reunion. In: laut.de. March 29, 2010.
2. ↑ http://www.music-news.com/shownews.asp?H=The-Libertines-reunion-to-continue-says-Carl&nItemID=37750
3. ↑ http://www.musikexpress.de/news/mektiven/article580415/vor-live-reunion-im-londoner-hyde-park-the-libertines-kuendigen-fuer-29-juni-warm-up-gig-in -glasgow-an.html
4. ↑ http://www.musikexpress.de/news/mektiven/article602593/sicherheitsprobleme-und-panik-bei-the-libertines-im-hyde-park.html
5. ↑ Lisa Schneider: Anthem For Doomed Youth. In: The Gap . September 3, 2015. Accessed September 11, 2015.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Quoted from Christian Buß : I like violence and chaos . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 9, 2002. Also: Same day print edition, p. 16. Accessed on May 25, 2015.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
8. ↑ ^{a b} Gold / Platinum awards UK (database search, BPI)

Web links

Commons : The Libertines  - Collection of Images

• Official website
• The Libertines at laut.de
• The Libertines at Discogs (English)