Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [60]
Not that she was about to deny that she liked a good bender. ‘I can drink with the best of them and I like to be able to hold my own. But I regret it the next day when my head’s down the bog.’ Revealing that her home was near the Hawley Arms pub, Harding quipped, ‘I’m in walking distance of the Hawley, which is a bit scary!’
Called ‘the home of the “Camden caners”’, the Hawley Arms has long been a regular haunt for Amy. For years the Hawley had been something of a nonentity, certainly when compared with other Camden bars such as the Dublin Castle and the Good Mixer. The former was where Madness launched their career and the latter was the scene of numerous battles among the Britpop crowd during the 1990s.
The Hawley now has the chance to become just as legendary thanks to Amy’s patronage of it. As the Independent reported,
Winehouse, 23, is such a regular she could be made its honorary life president. Her deputy could be Kelly Osbourne, a favoured drinking partner, or Peaches Geldof, another customer. The celebrity endorsements keep coming, though the punters hate comparisons made with the Met Bar, the hotel lounge where celebrities used to fall over themselves to get seen. They think there is a bit more grit to the Hawley.
You don’t have to be in skinny-tight jeans and a washed-out T-shirt to drink here, but it helps. Indie haircuts are welcome, too – though customers will tell you that Winehouse’s matty beehive and extravagant tattoos are to marvel at, not imitate.
Among regulars who have drunk alongside Amy are Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and his wife Nicole Appleton, television comedian Noel Fielding, Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell and his movie star girlfriend Kirsten Dunst.
The Evening Standard rated it London’s best pub for star spotting:
This ‘proper boozer’ last week saw Kate Moss, Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie, Sadie Frost, Amy Winehouse and Kelly Osbourne spend an evening there – together. Osbourne, for one, is a regular player on the pub’s ‘awesome’ jukebox and the likes of Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell and (of course) Pete Doherty have also been spotted.
Amy was at one point banned from the pub. ‘The manager and his staff are at their wits’ end with Amy and her pals. They hate them coming in and have just been waiting for an excuse to throw them out. Amy’s hangers-on were throwing stuff out of the window and being a nuisance. Eventually the manager ordered them all out and Amy was told to sort it out or she wouldn’t ever be allowed back.’
However, within no time at all, Amy seemed to have charmed the bar management enough not just to let her drink there but to serve behind the bar too! ‘Amy treated the pub like her own home, pouring herself vodka Red Bull drinks and choosing the music on the pub iPod,’ an onlooker reported. ‘She poured shots and, pointing to a black sambuca, told punters, “This is on the house!”’
But while she was seemingly in her element as centre-stage in a thronging London pub, Amy had long been dreaming of success on another continent – that fabled market that is considered such a difficult one to succeed in but one that promises riches of every kind to anyone who does make it there.
Amy Winehouse had her sights set on America.
Chapter Eight
THE AMERICAN DREAM
It’s the dream of all British musical artists – to crack America. The land of Hollywood, glamour, skyscrapers and enormous wealth is an irresistible prospect. No matter that most British acts have failed to make it Stateside, the dream remains as strong as ever. Amy had the advantage that her US campaign caught the attention of the American media. In May 2007, the Wall Street Journal published a major feature to coincide with her arrival on those shores. It summed up brilliantly the challenges that faced her and put into context her arrival in the land of the free. However, Christopher John Farley’s article was not without its reservations about Amy: ‘Though one could argue that given her influences,