The Libertines talk being clean and connected: “We just want to write beautiful songs in the moment”

nme.com:

The Libertines have spoken to NME about how a sense of sobriety, togetherness and the desire “to write beautiful songs” helped shape their long-awaited new album.

Watch our video interview with the band above.Announced last week with the launch of the single ‘Run Run Run’, ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ arrives in March as the long-mooted follow-up to 2015’s ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’.With the opening lyrics of ‘Run Run Run’ describing “a lifelong project of a life on the lash“, singer Carl Barat described the track as a somewhat “self-referential” statement about where The Libertines are today, ahead of their fourth LP.“I was trying to work out if it’s a song of hope or a song of fear,” Barat told NME. “I think it’s a song of hope.

It’s saying that even though time has moved on and this person has stayed in the same place, he’s still able to do what he does and he’s going to be who he is regardless of times changing.

I don’t know if that’s a sad thing or a good thing.”Asked if he feels more hope or fear now, Barat replied: “I’m eternally hopeful, and eternally afraid.”NME sat down with Barat and co-frontman Pete Doherty to talk about being drug-free, becoming the band they are meant to be, who’d play who in a biopic, and penning an album inspired by Margate, war, the refugee crisis, dead birds, and Queen Elizabeth.Barat: “Yes, we’ve got a reason to be here now!