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The sweet Adam has been talking a bit off his ass in the last days. But here's the second part of the Teletext interview where he does the good boy.

Babyshambles: it IS a band By John Earls

To an extent, it must be a hard life being in Babyshambles. Half the public regard them just as “Pete Doherty’s hired help junkies”. How does drummer Adam Ficek feel about their public perception?

"It’s annoying, but the only way to turn that round is to make a great record,” he says. “We’ve done that, and now we’ve got to make people aware what a good live band we are.”

One of the reasons the band are playing a huge arena tour in November is to remind people of the band’s status.

"It’s a statement of confidence,” says Adam. “We’ve let people down by cancelling gigs before. This is us saying that those days are over, that we know we can’t muck about any more. We prefer intimate venues, but this shows that we’re popular enough to play them, and that we’re good enough too.”

The arena tour is a far cry from last year, when the band were dropped by Rough Trade that May.

"They offered Peter a solo deal, but not one with Babyshambles,” says Adam. "That was really disappointing and insulting. We were drifting at that point, as we didn’t have a manager. In a way, it would have been easier to go under. None of us wanted to, and the only answer was for me to manage us.”

Adam admits it was a nightmare trying to manage Babyshambles at the same time as being their drummer.

"The low point was a gig in Leeds, when the other three and our tour manager had gone missing,” he recalls. "The venue staff were asking where our merchandise was, and I didn’t have a clue. It was two hours before I was due on stage and I thought ‘How the hell am I meant to do a good gig like this?’”

Now with proper management and Pete making a concerted effort to get clean, Babyshambles have never looked rosier.

"Peter can take care of business on drugs,” says Adam. “But of course it’s easier when he isn’t - the arrests and the court cases have made it hard for us to find time to write as a band. We’re planning the next album, and it’ll be the first one where we’ve had time to properly rehearse songs.”

Adam admits the negative press has made him less trustful around strangers.

"I can spot wasters in a second,” he says. “We know there are certain ex-friends who make a nice living selling stories about Peter to the tabloids, who are willing to be their ‘sources’. Of course, they’re prone to plucking stories out of the air too. ‘Doherty to be Shane MacGowan’s flatmate’ was my favourite. At least that one’s funny!”