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The Lost Art of Murder is the sole track that Pete Doherty plays without the band; we tried to embellish it but it didn’t work. Instead it’s stripped right down, it’s just him, with Bert Jansch on steel-string guitar. It would probably surprise people that there are lots of diverse influences in the band. Most people expect us to be a second-rate Sex Pistols, but we’ve got a warm, sensitive, skiffle-based sound.

Pete wrote the majority of the songs on the album, but there are a few band co-writes, and of course Kate co-wrote the lyrics on several tracks.

There is a lot of expectation with this album, but that is nothing new – we had that with the first one, Down With Albion. People criticised that one for being underproduced but Mick Jones did a sterling job. At the time Pete was on the verge of going to prison, Pat’s [Walden, the band’s then guitarist] father passed away and so did my mother. With anyone else, we would have crumbled. It was underdeveloped but it captured how we were then. It’s honest. This time we wanted more structure, someone to take the reins more. Which Stephen Street did. Shotter’s Nation is a more ambitious record, whisper it, a “crossover” record. The songs are all really strong and it’s not genre-specific like most indie stuff, there are surprises on there. Yes, there is that English Sixties sound, but there’s also a touch of Britpop and Stone Roses.

Babyshambles has been a long journey with lots of stops and starts. But we all knew what Pete was like when we joined the band, and we stand by him because we believe in him as an artist. Fundamentally, when you know that everything written about someone is half truths, it makes you want to stick by them with even more conviction.

The Lost Art of Murder is taken from the highly anticipated forthcoming Babyshambles album, Shotter’s Nation, not due to be released until October 1.

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