The Libertines - Gary Powell

A couple of months ago, I caught up with Gary Powell of the Libertines. It was intended to be printed ahead of the now-cancelled Sunday Sessions. Gary talks about the new Libertines material, some of his favourite new artists and how we can perhaps be hopeful despite the insurmountable challenges facing the music industry.

How has the band been working since the reunion?

It’s been going extremely well. After we played our last show in Margate, December 23rd. Carl and I went to Tokyo, I wouldn’t call it a solo show, but I joined in on it. I had some meetings regarding another project, I can’t talk much about it, but hopefully that’ll become a lot more transparent in the up-and-coming future.
There’s been a lot writing and getting new material ready for the new album. Pete’s been in France, and he’s been convalescing over there. Carl’s been overseeing everything that’s been going on in the studio. It’s been a very positive and prolific period of time.

Are the new things any different from before, can you tell us anything?

Let’s face it, we are who we are, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. But within that, you can change the dimensions of that wheel a little bit. I don’t wanna give too much away, we’re trying new things in reference to writing, new partnerships so it’s not specifically just Peter and Carl. Along with that, it’s not just about the writing but the presentation as well. One of things with us as well is when we first started, we got frontcover of the NME without any material out. We were doing things different, playing at house parties and communicating the band through social networking. I think in this age of technological advancement, there’s so many different approaches we could utilise for our benefit in order for people to think about us slightly differently. Maybe more positively, maybe create new talking points on how we do things. I would prefer to be that band than one who just writes new material, makes a new album and then goes on the road, that’s fucking boring.

Speaking of doing things differently, are there any bands which excite you right now?

Fontaines D.C.. Idles, not particularly that new, but I like them. Britney Howard’s new material, The Murder Capital, and Steve Lacy. I like King Krule’s new stuff as well. In my mind, he is almost like a modern-day David Bowie in that he is constantly recreating who he is. That’s what true creatives are, you don’t create off the basis of other creations.

You’ve mentioned a few of those newer angry bands – is there a reason that there’s a lot of newer bands are angrier, and more angular? Or am I reading too much into it?

Look at the socioeconomic situation right now, of course it’s going to be angry! Like if you look at some of the things people are saying about Greta Thunberg online, it’s depraved! These are people of my generation who are being fucking dickheads, of course the youngsters are gonna be a heck of a lot more angry. Us old people fuck up everything, and in turn we’re fucking up the young.

You’ve recently setup a HQ (and studio!) in Margate? What was the seaside town’s draw?

It was Carl’s project and the idea came before the location. There was an idea of a base, of somewhere to call home. It doesn’t sound very Libertines-like, but we want to try and do something with some longevity and something beneficial to a larger community. It kinda put all of the eggs in one basket in reference to what we were trying to do. Now we’re in a position where we have a base of our own, where we can do our recording, or demoing there. What we’re hoping to do is try to develop our communication with the community.

It’s definitely a really interesting place – there’s a real juxtaposition of it at times isn’t there?

It is almost a paradox – the brutalist building and the modernist building that is the Turner Contemporary – first you’ve got the brutalist tower, and the economic strife brought on by the Thatcherite government, and then the modernistic Turner gallery helping bring about a new phase of life that is a Margate we know now. It’s a great place, especially the summer. Not so much the winter months. Once it’s the summer and it’s a nice day and all the kids are playing on the beach, all the bars and pubs are open, there’s events happening, it’s great.

The Libertines have been characterised by the press in a certain way over the years? Do you care and has it affected you personally – it was a difficult time for you when you were performing with the specials – is that related at all?

There was a fallacy of a curse of being within the Libertines that was created by the British press. [But] because we had been associated with that line of reporting from the very beginning, it didn’t really create much of a problem. If anything, it was something we took in our stride. For a period of time we tried to do our best to buck the system as much as we could. We could either be what they were saying about us, or we could prove them completely wrong.
For me, and hopefully for the rest of us, it was more about what was going on with the internal goings on of the band. We cared more about Pete’s health and how Carl was doing at that particular point in time. Once we got our act together there was no real animosity between us. The press created this image of self-loathing between us. But Pete never got kicked out of the band, albeit he said so much himself. All we ever did was do our best to look out for one another. In reference to reports about us, I think hopefully we all stopped paying too much attention to it. It’d be a lot more predominant for us now because we are trying to rewrite the script on who we are.

Do you find the more recent shows are calmer, or does it retain a lot of the energy of before?

I think the energy has been pushed in another direction. Before the energy was quite frenetic, I remember having a conversation with somebody in Margate where their comments were that the shows weren’t as good as they were beforehand. But my point was that it has been replaced by a refine in musical approach. Anybody who actually likes the music gets to properly hear it as opposed to seeing what just happened on stage. When you listen back to recordings of shows gone by, sometimes you have no idea what we’re playing, it may look a lot of fun but it’s like ‘what isthat’. Pete and Carl’s lyrics are all very emotionally charged and have a lot of substance, so for us to be charging around being dickheads on stage we’re missing the opportunity to really connect with the viewing audience.

Have you seen that being interpreted by the audience?

We’ve definitely seen their reactions change, there’s more of a chance for the audience members to hang onto every word by Pete and Carl. Whereas beforehand they couldn’t, what they could do was wait and see what was gonna happen next. And it’s not about what’s gonna happen next, it’s about what’s happening now. And everybody being able to grab hold of that.

What do you make of the effect of the Coronavirus on the music industry and the country as a whole, do you think it’ll cause any permanent changes? (Remember this interview was done a couple of months ago)

I actually think it’s going to change the country dramatically. I don’t think it’s so much the coronavirus itself, I think that it’s more the approach taken by the government and its attitude to the disease right now. I think the fact that they haven’t taken stronger, stringent and drastic measures: mainly because of the financial implications of what might happen. Because the government was willing to put its fiscal budget ahead of lives, it will have a drastic effect on the way the country approaches itself. Plus, we’ve already seen businesses going under and this is not going to stop. The government has left [the policies] as open as possible so these businesses have to look after themselves. It's going to affect a massive amount of music venues; let alone the emotional turmoil it’s going to cause as well.

What is the biggest challenge for guitar-based rock bands at the moment? Other than the Coronavirus?

The reason rock ‘n’ roll bands came back around is you can hire studio space for cheap, you can get a guitar for cheap and now everything’s a lot more expensive. You look at the artists who are being really really creative right now, it’s one man and a computer – it’s two people and a computer. Kids can buy their own computer, steal a few plugins and upload their music online, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper. Economies of scale have a lot to do with it. Major record labels have a lot do with it too. But credit to them, they’re doing more development deals – working with artists over the gestation period. As opposed to the time [before] when you formed a band, you got signed, you went on the road and signed a two-year deal and next thing you know you’re dropped by your label. There needs to be further development done and more opportunities. And also, all that nonsense, your amazons and your spotify taking 40% of earnings so they can increase their bottom end. The relationship between artists and the industry need to be completely re-evaluated. Say for instance you’re a pop singer and you are the top line, you’re going to get an absolute fortune, if you’re a drummer in a band, and you write a chorus, you’re gonna be lucky to get 7%. That’s bullshit! That’s not looking after the artist. The old boys network needs to be shut, or heads cut off just like the French did! They all need to get to fuck and the new blood needs to be brought in that places the artist at the forefront of it.

In the face of all the negativity, is there a track that could help cheer you or other people up?

I just started doing a radio show – Boogaloo radio, it’s a community radio and I’m doing it for the fun on a Thursday afternoon. Last week I played a plethora of different tracks, as I’m relatively genre nonspecific in reference to my musical palette. I listened to the likes of Britney Howard, Fela Kuti, I ended the show on some Jamiroquai– there’s plenty of stuff. I’m loving Liberty Belle by Fontaines D.C., that track really perks me up.

What other reasons to be cheerful could people look at globally?

That we’re not dickheads, generally speaking – the advent of the internet has pretty much made us stupider and we believe – to quote public enemy – we started to believe the hype. I think right now there is a good time, where we will actually see humanity being indebted to one another and realising the people making decisions, we put them there -your Trumps, your Johnsons, they work for us because we put them in that position. And sooner or later they’re going to be held to account for fucking things up and hopefully we’ll all be standing shoulder to shoulder when that happens. Coronavirus is a problem, but it can be made a bigger problem by the powers at be not looking out for the people concerned.