And talking of former Libertines, Carl Barat has spoken to NME about life after The Libertines. The singer, who signed a solo deal with Vertigo earlier in the year, has been avoiding the distractions of London in an effort to make time to work on that solo material. He said: "I've been going back and forth to Wales and various outposts in the country getting my head out of London, away from the various distractions and re-establishing what it is I'm writing about."
Barat also rejected suggestions that he might worry about living up to people's expectations, saying: "I get worried by things like my milkman getting paid on time! I can only do what I do and I always do my best - so it's kind of pointless worrying.
But there's a lot of freedom just writing for yourself. I can write about beautiful things or I can get out some of that angst that I've always wanted to hide in the past. There's a lot of honest self reflection going on."
He continued: "I've had to retune myself, the past three years has been whirlwind, a real battle," he explained. "I found it hard to write on the road and balancing out so much politics, so many worries about what Pete's doing and I've spent the last three years tearing my hair out. What I did in Wales was get back in tune with myself. I was writing because I wanted to write rather than because people were asking me if I've got any good new songs yet."
On the new album: "It's possible that the album might be out by the end of the year, it's important for me to not to brood for too long. Inevitably I'm going to start playing what I've got at some little secret gigs here and there. I want to meet lots of musicians. I want to be around people and play for the sake of playing."