Interview - Carl Barât: At liberty to reflect on the highs and lows

CARL Bart knows all about rock bottom. He watched his best friend, Pete Doherty, succumb to crack and heroin addiction during the turbulent life of their iconic rock band, The Libertines, and he himself has struggled with depression, heavy drinking and drug use for much of the past decade.

Things reached their lowest ebb a year ago, when Bart was spending days on end alone in a dark room, plying himself with drugs.

Not that you'd know it to look at the songwriter and musician now. Over the past 12 months Bart has completely turned his life around, and it really has been an astonishing year for the 32-year-old.

He's made his professional stage debut, The Libertines reunited for a memorable, triumphant gig at Leeds Festival in August, and he's recently brought out his first solo album and an eloquently written, captivating autobiography.

If that weren't already enough, he's also expecting his first child with girlfriend Edie Langley in December.

"Becoming a father is a wonderful thing," he smiles. "It's given me a lot of hope and optimism. It's already changed my outlook in a lot of ways.

"I feel more in control of my life these days. I don't take drugs, and I don't drink on my own in a maudlin way. I've got a new life, and I'm in a brighter place now."

It's certainly a world away from Bart's chaotic life as co-frontman of The Libertines. In his extraordinarily candid autobiography, Threepenny Memoir, there are countless jaw-dropping tales of life on the road, such as the time he was sprayed in the face with CS gas by a girl he'd slept with, or the tour where he spent 14,000 on cocaine.

"It was hard to decide what to put in," he says. "I could have filled the book ten times over.

"There were lots of things I worried about including. The day after it went to print I sort of broke out in a cold sweat, thinking: 'Christ, I can't believe I put that in!'."

The Libertines gave off a distinct impression of confident, youthful swagger – the very epitome of defiant rock 'n' roll pin-ups – yet the Bart described in Threepenny Memoir is a quiet young man plagued by self-doubt and stage-fright, the wild exploits covering up a plague of insecurities.

In conversation, the singer is well-spoken and painfully polite, and blurts his words out at great speed, coming across as endearingly neurotic. Bart admits he's always been "a manic person, and a worrier", and even reprimands himself at one point for talking in clichs.

The story of how this shy country boy rose to rock stardom is revealed with flair in Threepenny Memoir.

Originally from Whitchurch, near Basingstoke in Hampshire, a shy Bart felt straitjacketed in the small town, and was elated when he set off to study drama at Brunel University in 1996. It was there that he met Pete Doherty after befriending his sister, Amy Jo, and the two forged a close bond over a mutual love of music.

Soon it was a wild life in the bohemian scene of London: parties, squats and thoroughly strange friends. It was Doherty who helped Bart battle his stage-fright, and together they formed a band which would become both compelling and notorious.

Ostensibly, it was Bart and Doherty's romantic anthems that saw The Libertines become NME darlings and acquire a die-hard fanbase.

But what truly captivated their audience – and later, the tabloids – was the gleefully chaotic performances, the shambolic exploits, and Bart's intense, volatile love-hate relationship with Doherty – whose well-documented battle with crack and heroin has repeatedly complicated a fraught friendship between the pair.

Back in 2003, long before his troubled behaviour and relationship with Kate Moss made him a red-top regular, Doherty was jailed for burgling Bart's flat.

Asked how he would sum-up his friendship with Doherty, Bart ponders a few moments before replying.

"It's as wonderful and horrible as it ever was. There have been so many highs and lows, and it's been both beautiful and tragic. For the longest time we were bound together. It's as complete a friendship as it's possible to have."

It was precisely because of this complicated history that Bart was so petrified immediately before stepping out on stage with the reunited Libertines at this year's Leeds Festival. After all, eight years earlier he and Doherty had come to blows at the event, when Bart received a Charlie Chaplin-style kick up the backside while the show was in full-swing.

"I was thinking more about something going wrong than about going out there and playing," recalls Bart. "It was a happy surprise when it went off without a hitch.

"Being on that stage at that moment was pretty extraordinary. It was a very powerful thing."

Bart has had a mixed history with Leeds though. His treasured leather jacket, which belonged to his father, was stolen there some time ago, and at his solo show in the city this month, touring his new "introspective and reflective" album, he'll be keeping his eyes peeled for it.

"It would be amazing if it did reappear. I could offer an amnesty, but I'm not going to plead. If it comes back it's meant to be."

When he isn't so rushed off his feet, he'd like to do something with The Libertines again further down the line. And though the hard-partying days are behind him for the most part, a recent outing for Russell Brand's stag night suggests that Bart hasn't completely retired from the wild life yet.

"It was quite a night," he laughs. "He keeps some interesting company. There was Noel Gallagher, Jonathan Ross and David Baddiel there. It was like Madame Tussauds come to life."

Threepenny Memoir: The Lives of a Libertine published by Harper Collins, out now 14.99.

Carl Bart plays The Cockpit in Leeds on October 22. 0113 243 6743.