We need to talk about Pete: Carl Barat on the Tragedy of Doherty For me and Pete, it wasn't too different to falling in love. It's grotesque now. I said to him 'Heroin and crack are bigger than you, mate. You'll die or live the rest of your life like Gollum.' But Pete never wanted to listen. And then the tragedy began... Right now, if Pete walked in, I'd like just to sit down and have a normal conversation with him, and not have to talk about the Libertines and all the other messy stuff. But I suppose that's impossible now. It's a long time since anything has been normal in Pete's life. It's a complete horror show. 'It stopped being about rock 'n' roll ages ago. It's about newspaper headlines, and he's good at that game. Pete is very good at knowing just how much to give away and how to push the boundaries. Or at least he thinks he's good at it. Maybe he doesn't realise that the most dangerous part of that game is that if you're not careful the people you think you're playing are going to own you. Maybe he's at that stage already.' It's been more than three years since Carl Barat and Pete Doherty disbanded the Libertines and went their separate ways. At the time of the split, the smart money was on Doherty to emerge as the greater star. While Doherty has become more renowned for his hellraising antics and his arrests,