Adam Franklin, frontman for reunited shoegaze vets Swervedriver, says that he punched out famously troubled Libertines co-leader Pete Doherty last month, at a hotel party in Hong Kong. Franklin tells NME that he “decked” Doherty after Doherty flailed at him. Both the Libertines and Swervedriver were in Hong Kong to play the Clockenflap Festival, and both were apparently at the W Hotel bar at closing time when someone invited Doherty to a party at Swervedriver’s hotel room. There, Franklin says that an unprovoked Doherty tried to take a swing at him, and Franklin promptly laid him out. Aging British rock dudes do not play.

Here’s how Franklin tells it:

[Doherty] can’t have been in the room for more than a minute or two before some kerfuffle broke out across the room — you’d have to ask him what that was about, although good luck getting anything out of him as he surely won’t fucking remember — and he fell across to the side of the room where I was sat having a chat with Gary [Powell, Libertines drummer] and a couple of friends…

[Doherty] then suddenly took a swing at me and missed. I stood up and decked him, and that was it. Gary, who I have to say is a lovely bloke, helped get him out of the room and [Doherty] was screaming, “He hit me! He hit me!” while people were pointing out to him that he had in fact tried to hit me first…

Apparently I had said, “So you’re the famous Pete Doherty?” as I stood over him before they dragged him out, which entertained everybody else in the room and probably annoyed him. But what was I supposed to say? He hadn’t even introduced himself!

Franklin also calls Doherty “astonishingly inept and pretentious” and “a fucking disgrace,” before passive-aggressively adding, “I wish him the best.” And as awesome as this story is, it might even be true; a Libertines rep tells NME, “With adrenaline running high after the show in Hong Kong, there was an unfortunate short altercation/misunderstanding of which no one was injured and apologies were made soon after.” It doesn’t sound like that many apologies were made! Read the whole story here.