Former Libertines manager Alan McGee has recalled being “instantly stunned” by a fight between Pete Doherty and Carl Barât.
READ MORE: Alan McGee: “The music industry doesn’t want young indie rock’n’roll. The culture is so different”
The music exec recounted the row in his new book Alan McGee: How to Run an Indie Label, which occurred when he was managing the band around their self-titled 2004 album.
At the time he started managing them, relations between frontmen Doherty and Barat were “very messy” due to Doherty facing charges for burgling Barât’s home in retaliation for being kicked out of the band. Doherty would eventually plead guilty to the charges and spend six months in prison.
To patch things up, McGee sent the co-frontment to his house in Wales, as that strategy had worked for former clients Primal Scream and Oasis: “The other bands always loved that s***, getting out to the big house in the country. So I send The Libertines down there to get to know them and make a plan.”
However, McGee’s plan went awry when he woke up early the next day to the sound of Barât coming down the stairs: “I look at him in my peripheral vision and I’m instantly stunned.
“It looks like someone has poured tomato ketchup over his head and he is wearing a spooky mask,” McGee continued. “His eye is also hanging out of his head. For two seconds I’m in disbelief. ‘That’s a mask…’ I mutter to myself.”
However, McGee went on to say Barât’s eye was actually hanging out his head, explaining: “[Barât] mumbled that during the night he had self-harmed after an argument with Pete and head-butted the sink 10 times and his eye is now hanging out.
“I get one of my new baby Charlie’s wipes and I put the eye back into his head. I’m now thinking, what the fuck, I only signed this band three days ago and now I got this mad kid holding his eye into his head.”
With the help of a local farmer who drove the “still-pissed” Barât to hospital, doctors were just able to save his eye. However, “Typically of The Libertines, it’s still not really sorted because they have sewn it the wrong way round,” McGee said.
“So then I have to take him to Portland Street hospital in London and it costs eight grand to get it done properly. And that was my first week of managing The Libertines.”
McGee has spoken about the difficulties of managing The Libertines before, calling them “completely out of control” and the toughest act he had ever worked with.
“I couldn’t control it,” he said of the band. “Everything else, I’ve been able to control the scenarios. The Libertines were completely out of control.”
Referencing the incident in Wales, he recounted then: “I was instated as the Libertines’ manager and by the Monday or Tuesday we were in Wales, hence that whole bit of madness in the book. That was totally true, [Carl Barât’s] eye was hanging out of his head. There was so much blood it was unbelievable. He managed to do £400-worth of damage to a big marble sink.”
NME spoke to McGee himself in 2020, where he spoke about the shift in music culture and signing new acts: “You’ve got to accept that the music industry and media don’t want young, punky indie rock n’ roll bands. They just don’t. That makes it easier for me, as the quality I’m signing up is incredible.
“I don’t know if it will ever change, because the culture is just so different now,” he continued. “There are other people doing great stuff. The new bands network This Feeling is wonderful. I don’t know if there’s a happy ending for the industry if it stops putting out records by hungry indie punk rock ‘n’ roll bands. But I’m not trying to change anything, I’m just doing it because I like doing it.”
In other news, Alan McGee has shared story behind the legendary photo with Liam Gallagher.
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