Best known as co-frontman of The Libertines, as well as former frontman of Dirty Pretty Things, Carl Barât is getting ready to properly launch his solo career, despite his original band having only just reformed. His eponymous first solo album, recorded in London and New York, is out on 4 Oct, with first single ‘Run With The Boys’ out the same week. Barât also has a book coming out, too. Called ‘Threepenny Memoir’ and published by Harper Collins on 30 Sep, it’s a collection of stories and reminisces from his life. With all this in mind, now seemed like a very good time to ask Mr Barât our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
If it can be classed as music, probably the noises I used to make playing my father’s guitar (which I wasn’t allowed to play) in the dead of night. I spent six months learning to play ‘Imagine’ only to find the chords were wrong but, rather than admit defeat, I used it as a song of my own.
Q2 What inspired your latest single?
‘Run With The Boys’ was mostly inspired by a life time of running with the boys. It is kind of a farewell and a doffing of the cap to that way of life, whilst also celebrating it riotously.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
The first thing is to have something enter my head which won’t leave again and, usually, I don’t know where it comes from. A sort of pesky visitation. And then I guess by virtue of that it is expanded upon. Usually a random piece of music will be playing at the time. I only ever seem to write things instantly and then I labour over gelling them.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
The Velvet Underground, Charlie Chaplin, William Blake, Kandinsky (but not the sculptures). I guess I would say that all art influences me on a day to day level. All these influences give energy and a culminate in a certain vocabulary to and from the artist…
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I’d have to say that I really hope you realise a connection with it and, if you don’t, so be it. If I was drunk, I’d probably be slurring “you were talking over that last bit… play it again”.
Q6 What are your ambitions for you latest album, and for the future?
Foremost, nothing more than for it to reach people who can use it as a scaffold for their own emotions, and for it to tell the truth.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/carlbarat
Sections: Q&A C | Tags: Carl Barat
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