Pete Doherty

English rocker Pete Doherty is painting a pretty picture of himself, in a bid to enter the US music biz.

The musician insists that he no longer is the same person that he used to be, and that he has left all his bad vices behind.

"Obviously I'm off the drugs now," the Sun reported him as telling Spin mag.

He goes on to explain that his public persona is "nothing more than a horrible, cartoon-like monster that bears no relation to the quiet, shy, retiring, teetotal, police-loving, clean-nosed poet you see before you now".

However, even though Pete says he's clean, the mag claimed his nine-bedroom home in Marlborough, Wilts was stinking to high heaven.

"There are kittens everywhere. The stench is overwhelming. You have to be careful where you step," the mag said.

It seems that Pete's house does not even have beds, just floorboards and plenty of stained sheets, and as the mag stated, it was no surprise that singer Amy Winehouse and her grubby hubby Blake Fielder-Civil felt right at home there.

Pete says they used to visit him and have a "few drinkies and crisps" and "a bit of a singsong".

"She had me in tears when I'd just split with me missus, singing at me with this amazing voice of hers," the mag reported him as saying.

The Babyshambles front man also claimed to be writing a book, something about a "sizzling gypsy tale, a rambling, shambling melody of a novel that came about when I was still on the fighting juice. Fascinating stuff."