ON a cool early spring Tuesday afternoon, all is quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, Margate.
Just past Superior Slots and Bugsy’s Tenpin Bowling, I arrive at an imposing terrace of five-storey townhouses in varying states of repair.
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Most retain their original red-brick outlook, but my destination, No31, is painted top-to-bottom in black with dull gold metalwork.
One of the establishment’s owners, Carl Barât of The Libertines, likens it to a “decaying tooth in the Victorian facade”.
Above the ground-floor bay window is a red neon sign, styled in scribbled handwriting, that reads “The Albion Rooms”.
After I push open the heavy front door and venture inside this glorious study in mock-Gothic decadence, I’m introduced to the genial Barât, who is a picture of health.
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Yes, he who formed rock ’n’ roll rabble rousers The Libertines with a certain Pete Doherty more than a quarter of a century ago.
I’m meeting Barât to mark the band’s fourth studio album (and first in nine years), the wildly entertaining, fittingly titled All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade.
He tells me that the band bought the building in 2017 and spent the next four years turning it into a guest house complete with indoor and outdoor bars and a state-of-the-art studio.
‘We had to buy bricks and mortar’
“If this place was in the West End of London, it would be four or five million, maybe more,” he says. “But it was on for £500,000 and we managed to haggle it down to £460,000, which was pretty good haggling.”
Forget the sleazy Camden dives of The Libertines’ turbulent past, The Albion Rooms has become their new spiritual home.
It’s also another sign that Margate, perched on the Kent coastline’s north-eastern tip, is morphing from faded seaside resort into cultural mecca — a process enhanced by the artist who grew up there, Tracey Emin.
Explaining their choice of location, Barât says: “I cast the net far and wide, everywhere from Thailand to Scotland, and it came down to property prices.
“The whole point was that we wanted our own Xanadu or Shangri-La, but we’d already spent most of our money.
“We knew we had good earning potential, that a record deal was coming up, so we needed to buy bricks and mortar — rather than letting it go in fees or tax and ending up with nothing.”
Before we get stuck into the new album, The Libertines’ 45-year-old co-frontman gives me a guided tour of the premises.
We visit the seven guest rooms designed by Rhiannon Sussex, including the first-floor suite Barât helped style in the familiar black and gold. It has a balcony, sea views and is named the “William Blake” after the poet, painter and figurehead of the Romantic Age.
Next we have a peek into the room immediately above — the “Emily Dickinson”, in honour of the 19th Century American poet — which has Doherty’s influence all over it.
The focus was to buy and build this place — and then anoint it with our blood, sweat and tears.
Carl Barat
More black and gold, a vast vintage brass bed, bespoke wallpaper depicting a scantily clad pre-Raphaelite maiden and a love heart painting by Pete himself.
Elsewhere, on the stairs, in the bars and washrooms, there’s plenty of Libertines memorabilia in the form of old gig posters, photos and artwork.
In the downstairs loo, the white-tiled floor has the words “YOU PISSED IT ALL UP THE WALL” picked out in black capitals — a line from The Libertines’ first single, What A Waster.
And, finally, Barât leads me through the well-appointed studio, today occupied by singer-songwriter Amy Studt, where he, Doherty, bassist John Hassall and drummer Gary Powell convened to record All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade.
“The focus was to buy and build this place — and then anoint it with our blood, sweat and tears,” says Barât.
“We had to keep the energy flowing, beyond just emailing song ideas to each other.”
‘We suffered personal trauma’
With Barât moving his family down to another place in Margate, Doherty living in France with his partner and baby daughter, Hassell in Denmark and only Powell remaining in London, The Libertines seem to be scattered to the four winds.
With the birth of The Albion Rooms, however, they have a cast-iron HQ for the first time in their rollercoaster career.
I suggest that it offers them the possibility of a future they can all enjoy.
“I hope so,” muses Barât, before choosing his next words carefully.
“Thinking back, it is very apparent that we suffered personal trauma in our early years — through the drugs, obviously, and the lifestyle that followed.”
Somewhat ruefully, he continues: “People started believing we were only capable of creating art through perpetuating that lifestyle.
“It was our ball and chain and it has also been the death knell of many a good artist because they carried on down that road.”
During their wild days, Barât suspected that The Libertines’ insane live shows were populated by “people who just wanted to come and see a car crash”.
“But, having clung on to one another for dear life through the turbulence, we’ve finally found some semblance of togetherness.”
In 2024, he can report: “There’s so much genuine friendship and positivity between us that the car crash is not on the bill any more.”
Talking to Barât, the word Albion, an ancient, romanticised alternative word for Britain, crops up a lot. It will forever link him to Doherty, who has also repeatedly embraced it.
After signing with Rough Trade Records in 2001, they rented a flat together in Bethnal Green, which they dubbed The Albion Rooms.
Barât once squatted in an disused factory on Albion Road, Stoke Newington, which was “run like a concentration camp by a guy called Denzil The Wizard, who tapped into street lighting for electricity”.
Later, he lived “legitimately” on the same street in a house that he painted black.
It’s only fitting, therefore, that The Libertines’ new seaside venture keeps the Albion flag flying in a building of the same dark hue.
Looking out over a Victorian bandstand to the English Channel, Barât says: “It feels as if The Good Ship Albion, which is how we think of ourselves, may have docked forever.
“Maybe we’ll discover it hasn’t, but we’re finding things calm at the moment.”
Though the new album was recorded at their studio on the lower ground floor of The Albion Rooms, the seeds were sown on Barât and Doherty’s songwriting trip to Jamaica in September 2022.
I ask what prompted their brainstorm. “When we’re alone together, our chemistry is unique,” replies Barât.
“In this case, we thought, ‘S**t, we need a record, do we have it in us? Let’s find out’.”
Their first day in Jamaica coincided with the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, a cathartic moment for the two bandmates.
Barât says: “We were sitting at the top of a mountain in this glass building watching the funeral, being brought endless trays of jerk chicken.
“We had a bit of Wray & Nephews [rum], some Red Stripes and it seemed as if our past came back to life.
“We put a few demons and taboos to bed and, after all the bulls**t was out of the way, we realised we still had work to do and we still had a lot of love for each other.”
Returning to England with four tracks in various stages of completion, the whole band got together in Margate with producer Dimitri Tikovoi and, four weeks later, the 11-track All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade was in the can.
We must have been 18 or 19 and those unfulfilled ideas are like birds that peck at your window in the night.
Carl Barat
The cover shows The Albion Rooms and what Barât describes as “a motley crew of characters from the songs” including “the day-drinking mum with the Juicy Couture tracksuit” from Mustang.
The frontmen share most of the writing duties, while bassist Hassell deserves a shoutout for his sublime, er, melody on Man With The Melody.
The album kicks off in boisterous style with Run Run Run, a call to arms suggesting The Libertines fully intend to escape their chequered past.
But it also includes a song by Doherty and Barât, the airy Shiver, which began life 25 years ago.
“At our first writing sessions, we came up with the line, ‘The last dream of every dying soldier’,” says Barât.
“We must have been 18 or 19 and those unfulfilled ideas are like birds that peck at your window in the night.”
Without getting too political, the album reflects on our uncertain world with the riotous, ska-inflected Be Young voicing environmental concerns.
“When you’re one degree from total and utter f***ing annihilation,” it cries.
Lurid headlines
With towns like Margate on the frontline of the small boats crisis, Merry Old England — “with her chalk cliffs, once white, greying in the sodium light” — poses the question: What sort of country are migrants actually arriving in?
Barât says: “Peter and I both put our views into that song. We slightly differ in our opinions, but we didn’t go too far down any one road.”
He adds that the shores of Kent have been “the doorstep for everybody back to Julius Caesar and The Vikings, creating wave upon wave of the mongrel race that is the English”.
Elsewhere, this vividly realised album evokes British B-movie horror on Baron’s Claw, includes a shouty punk singalong, Oh S**t, and ends with teary ballad, Songs They Never Play On The Radio.
Before our chat wraps up, I ask Barât for his hindsight on the three previous Libertines albums, starting with their debut, 2002’s Up The Bracket, regarded as a classic and the best thing since Britpop.
He says: “That album represents bright lights, ambition, happy-go-lucky mentality — and disbelief at finding ourselves in that position at that time.
“We felt we were standing in the pantheon of our idols. I bought a picture of James Dean in Camden Market and we added little pictures of John Lennon, Groucho Marx, Ian Brown and Morrissey.
“We named it The Anxiety Of Influence. These were our heroes and we thought we could get a step closer to their world.”
Next up is the self-titled second Libertines album, released in 2004 as the wheels fell off in a cloud of lurid headlines, mostly surrounding Doherty’s drug addiction and wayward behaviour.
Despite huge public appetite for the band and critical acclaim for songs such as Can’t Stand Me Now and What Became Of The Likely Lads, the record summons bad memories for Barât.
“It was all about fallout, heartbreak, chaos, exhaustion,” he says. “I find it hard to celebrate that awful time.
“We aired our dirty laundry in public, which seemed to capture the imagination of those around us.”
For his part, Barât feared he was “contributing to the size of the monster” and he admits: “All the ongoing shenanigans raised the profile till it became an inferno.”
By the end of 2004, The Libertines split for more than five years, the co-frontmen plunging into other projects, but Barât knew he and Doherty had unfinished business.
We don’t know what we’re worth ticket wise — it could be Madison Square Garden or a local bar.
Carl Barat
“I tried to tell myself that a reunion was never going to happen so I could move on,” he says. “I was looking for closure everywhere, but never finding it.”
Back together for a headline slot at the 2010 Reading and Leeds Festivals, followed by rounds of touring, they finally delivered album No3, 2015’s Anthems For Doomed Youth.
Recorded at a sweaty studio in Thailand with the odd praying mantis for company, the record was well received.
Barât sees it as a crucial stepping stone to the happy place they find themselves in today. He says: “Even though we still had a lot of unresolved issues between us, we knew we intended to have a future.”
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With The Albion Rooms, Margate, providing them with a home and a cracking new album, we now know what became of the likely lads from The Libertines.
One remaining ambition is to crack America. “Trouble is, Pete’s been banned there for the past 20 years,” laughs Barât.
“We don’t know what we’re worth ticket wise — it could be Madison Square Garden or a local bar.
“But we’re hoping, especially with Pete’s progress, to get there and find out.”
THE LIBERTINES
All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade
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