PETER DOHERTY + Vona Vella + Amy-Jo Doh & The Spangles

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PETER DOHERTY

I’m glad things worked out this way, y’know? This is how it should be.” So says Peter Doherty in considerable understatement, dog Gladys at his feet, two-year-old daughter Billie-May and wife Katia nearby, a songwriter who regained his No.1 album status with The Libertines’ fourth studio album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade in 2024. The timing was serendipitous, the album’s No.1 triumph coming twenty years after The Libertines No.1 album, way back in the mayhem of 2004.

“The album was received very well, commercially and critically and more importantly they were new songs we couldn’t wait to play live,” says Peter. The 2024 UK Libertines tour was also a rollicking triumph, completely sold out, with demand for extra dates. No wonder, throughout the Libertines camp, the mood was, and remains, chipper.

“Definitely,” says Peter. “I was just happy with the album really but all the people around me, managerially, all the lads in the band, there’s a lot of comfort, a lot of happiness, a feeling of success.”

It’s this buoyant spirit which permeates Peter Doherty’s fifth solo album, Felt Better Alive, a gorgeous collection of poetic vignettes, both acoustic and orchestral, indie-folk and country, poignant and outright comic.

“They’re not necessarily happy songs but there’s something uplifting about them, even when they’re about something melancholy,” notes Peter. “It’s a group of songs that I really love, and, you never know, the world might agree!”

The world will definitely agree. Felt Better Alive is his most confident solo collection yet, sprinkled with radiant playfulness, almost innocence at times, shot through with Peter Doherty’s signature melodic nous, quirky poetic realism and visual storytelling gifts. The songs emerged in a time of profound creativity: when Katia was pregnant with Billie-May.

“Around the time that Billie-May was in the belly and around the time she was born I had a very creative spurt,” says Pete. “I wrote four or five of these songs in that time, at home, while we were putting together The Libertines album. A couple I would’ve taken to Carl – what about this? – and they just didn’t seem right for the Libs album. And they just kept stacking up.”

They began in an idyllic rural setting, the Normandy village where Peter and his family live, in a home once owned by Katia’s Grandad, “in the main room, with a spectacular view down onto the sea, and the cliffs, it’s epic”. Encouraged, he enlisted friend and producer/musician Mike Moore, who’s produced Baxter Dury and plays guitar in Liam Gallagher’s band, the pair then shaping the album ready for release on Peter’s own label, Strap Originals. Eleven songs shone through, trimmed to a brisk, punchy, 26 minutes 43 seconds: “Short, but it feels like the right length.”

The acoustic loveliness of Calvados opens the sonic storybook, the tale of a working orchard, the narrative evolving through a luscious, string-soaked reverie. Pot Of Gold is his beautiful, funny, orchestral serenade to Billie-May. “Daddy’s trying to write you a lullaby so sweet,” sings Peter, gently. “And if that lullaby is a hit/Dad can buy you loads of cool shit…”

The Day The Baron Died is the original version of The Baron’s Claw on the Esplanade album (renamed for legal reasons), a Shack-like atmospheric segueing into a Beatles homage, while Stade Océan is driving, chiming dreaminess. Perky guitars, quirky violins and a headful of comedy absurdism inform the fabulously titled Out Of Tune Balloon, where Peter sings of Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey and the nature of his wonky ways-of-working in an ever-more streamlined world: “So I float out of tune balloons/Across the great corporate sky…”

The first single, Felt Better Alive, is a stunner, reminiscent of The Coral, a jaunty, bouncing paean to old songs, mentioning tourniquets and a Telford lay-by, with glorious pedal-steel guitar from Mark Neary (renowned session musician who’s played with Noel Gallagher, Adele and Baxter Dury).

“If I could’ve written any song, ever, it would’ve been Pancho and Lefty by Townes Van Zandt,” says Pete. “This mournful ballad, about two friends, outlaws, but musicians. It’s me trying to write that, in a way. But instead of Colorado, it’s Telford.”

The rollicking Ed Belly follows, the story of a dreamer musician travelling through the States, featuring honky-tonk piano and a stunning clarinet, while the album’s only truly dark moment comes with the dissonant Poca Mahonney’s, featuring wonderful Irish singer Lisa O’Neill, the tale of a sinister clergyman. Fingee then follows, an outright comedy caper, Captain Beefheart-y in places, sliding into spectral wooziness, while Pretre De La Mer scooshes along, a jangling, jazzy homage to the sea, with spoken word from Peter’s local French priest. The closer, Empty Room, returns us to Pete’s singular acoustic loveliness, where he ruminates on the way he used to write songs, often alone, in empty rooms. But no more: because his rooms, these days, are filled up with the people he loves.

Why the title Felt Better Alive?

“It’s hard to put it into words,” he muses. “That’s why I wrote the song, I suppose. I was gonna call the album If You Can’t Fight, Wear A Big Hat. But my manager talked me out of it. It’s connected to not being in an opiated state, maybe? It took me so long to give up drugs because it took me a long time to feel alright without it, y’know? It’s an odd expression, Felt Better Alive, because how does it feel to be dead? But in a strange way, I think I know how it feels, to be dead.”

Today, he’s not only a survivor but a creative powerhouse, with more projects, plans and reasons to stay alive than he’s ever had. And in 2025, the year he turns 46, Felt Better Alive brings us some of the most deft, bouncy and charming songs of his always melodic life.

“It’s mad busy,” he says, with a smile. “And it’s all stuff from my heart. I write songs, I play songs. It’s what I do.”

VONA VELLA

After support from BBC 6, Radio 1 and their 130k monthly listeners on Spotify, Vona Vella are set to release a new album in Autumn 2025. keeping those soft intimate moments weaving in and out. Imagine Belle & Sebastian meets The Strokes, and befriends The Coral on the way. The band emerged from the Midlands, and soon collected members from London and Leeds.

Having toured supporting the Libertines, Tim Burgess, Morcheeba and Peter Doherty, Vona Vella will be performing at the Strap Originals Showcase at  The Great Escape in Brighton in May. Vona Vella will  be venturing out on their own UK tour later this year.

Vona Vella released their debut album ‘Vona Vella’ in July 2023. The album was recorded at The Libertines’ Albion Rooms studio in Margate and produced by Jason Stafford (Jamie T, Sports Team, The Libertines) and Vona Vella.

Vona Vella released their debut EP ‘Go Outside Forever,’ in early 2022, which caught the adoration of Paul Heaton and in January of this year a remix of the title track from the EP, ’Go Outside Forever,’ was featured in the hugely successful  NBA2K23 video game.

Amy-Jo Doh & The Spangles