The Strokes’ Nick Valensi talks ‘sexual undertones’ at first meeting Pete Doherty

Guitarist recalls meeting Libertines frontman before his band made it big

The Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi has detailed first meeting The Libertines frontman Pete Doherty, recalling that he thought the singer was “fucking crazy” and claiming that there were “sexual undertones” to the encounter.

Valensi’s comments come in a new book by Lizzy Goodman called Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001–2011, which documents the rise of 2000s NYC indie bands such as the Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol and Vampire Weekend.

As Consequence Of Sound reports, Valensi remembers in the book of meeting a man that later turned out to be a pre-fame Doherty: “We were in the loudest club in the world, and there was this guy sitting in the corner of the club, surrounded by kind of slutty-looking girls, and he was playing the acoustic guitar in this super-loud club. He wanted to talk to me, show me songs he had written, telling me he’s starting a band. He was with this Italian girl, and the whole thing felt like there was sexual undertones. They were obviously together, but there was kind of insinuations of ‘Well, maybe we’ll all get together tonight,’ that kind of thing. He wanted to come back to my hotel with me, and I was like, ‘No man, I’m sorry, I have to go.’ I remember leaving, thinking, ‘That guy was fucking crazy.'”

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Valensi adds: “We get to the venue, the first gig of the tour, and who is the who who’s fucking singing in the band but that crazy guy with the acoustic guitar from the night at that club. It was Pete Doherty! He remember me very clearly. He knew who I was the first time I met him.”

Doherty has not yet responded to the comments.

The Libertines recently added dates to their upcoming tour during September and October.

The stint will see the band play three Scottish shows before a series of gigs in English coastal towns.

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