Graham Coxon "Pete Doherty Is Funny, Warm & Charming"

Graham Coxon has described Pete Doherty as a "scumbag magnet", after performing guitar on the singer's forthcoming debut solo album.

As we revealed yesterday, the Blur star features on nearly every song on the Babyshambles frontman's first LP, which is released on March 9th.

Writing on the Blur forum, Coxon says of his contribution: "I would not have entertained the idea of playing on his record if I had not heard such a lot of promise when listening to the demos."

"I actually like Pete as a person a lot. He is very funny, warm and charming. He has rough press and not surprisingly so."

"He is also very impressionable, quite vulnerable, rather too trusting and needlessly gets himself into some difficulties – basically and unfortunately for him, he is a scumbag magnet."

"I really do think it's easy to think Pete is a waster. I also have been more than a little angry with him at times for pissing his talent up the wall on too many occasions."

"Some songs here touched me quite deep to be honest. And lyrically I think he's bang on with this record."