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Sodajerker On Songwriting

Episode 290 - Pete Doherty

Sodajerker On Songwriting

Sodajerker

Sodajerker, Barber, Simon, Music Interviews, Liverpool, Songwriters, Musicians, Oconnor, Songwriting, Interviews, Music, Podcast, Brian

4.9885 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Peter Doherty sits down with Simon and Brian to talk about his latest solo record, Felt Better Alive. From tales of rural French life to reflections on identity and memory, the ex-Libertines and Babyshambles figurehead discusses the balance of humour and melancholy in his work and the playful storytelling woven throughout his songs.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome everyone to Sode the Jerker on songwriting. This is Simon, accompanied by Brian,

0:23.7

and with us for episode 290 is an English singer-songwriter, considered by many to be one of the

0:28.9

finest wordsmiths of his generation. He first found fame in the early 2000s as a founder-member

0:34.1

and principal songwriter of The Libertines and as this episode lands in your feeds,

0:38.3

he's just released his fifth solo album,

0:40.4

felt better alive via his own strap originals label.

0:43.7

We're delighted to welcome the brilliant Pete Doherty to the show.

0:47.1

Pete was born in Hexham, Northumberland in 1979, to a military family.

0:51.8

His dad, Peter was a major, and his mum, Jackie,

0:56.0

who hails from our neck of the woods, by the way,

0:58.2

was a lance corporal in the nursing corps.

1:02.2

His was an itinerant childhood, the family moving around Britain and Europe,

1:05.4

and living at various army barracks wherever his parents were stationed.

1:11.1

Legend has it, he first picked up the guitar around the age of 11 to win the favour of a female classmate. An intelligence and literate child, he excelled at school and at 16 won a poetry competition.

1:16.2

In 1997, after completing his A-levels, he moved to London where he lived with his grandmother,

1:20.8

brushed up on his guitar playing and studied English literature at Queen Mary in Westfield

1:24.6

College. This same period marked the beginnings of Pete's close friendship with Carl Barat,

1:29.3

then a drama student at Brunel University who'd been sharing a flat with Pete's elder

1:33.0

sister, Amy Jo.

1:34.5

Pete and Carl later moved into their own flat in North London, which they christened the

1:38.2

Albion rooms, where they wrote songs together, founded the Libertines and even played

1:42.3

some of their first gigs.

...

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