He talks about drugs ('Stuff that I guess is rightfully frowned upon for health reasons and mental reasons but at the same time I always felt like there's this different part of the brain that was always fun to fuck around with.) and fighting. 'I don't like fighting', he says, 'but at the same time, anyone that fucks with you, then I don't give a fuck, I'll fuck them up, you know what I mean?'
I ask him about the story that he'd thumped representative of one of their European record companies a few months ago in Paris.
'That was different,' he says. 'Different situation - you get to a point sometimes when you're on tour, you get pushed around so much it's like your career is on the verge of being over, you break up, or everything you do can sometimes be broken by a business-minded person. Being on the road and doing stuff all the time - it's already delicate as it is. To make it work the way it does now, the way you see we all get along and stuff, that's not just that we're getting along people, that's the attitude of don't-make-us-fucking-hate-each-other. Even Kurt Cobain, a lot of the time, I think that's why he killed himself, - honestly, sometimes I think it's because they didn't tour right. I want to learn from their mistakes. If you think of it in terms of just,like, someone's organising your day and stuff, it's ridiculous, obviously. But reality-wise, when you're constantly doing shit like that, to get along and be creative, is hard.'
So what should Nirvana have done?
'I don't know what they should have done. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Doing whatever a record company tells you to do - basically it's not good.
And that's what happened in France? 'No. They lied to us.'
It gets later. 'You believe in God?', Julian asks and then he details his own convoluted but clearly heartfelt faith. What do you think God thinks of the Strokes?
'That's a good question,' he says. 'Sometimes I wonder if he wants us to be like a martyr for like rich fuck who don't do anything but then inspire someone else to do something else, you know.' He half-laughs, he doesn't want to mean that at all. 'I just feel like I'm not supposed to know. Maybe later..'
Do the rest of the band believe in God? 'I don't know. I don't really speak to them about it. If they heard me say this they would probably think I was crazy.'
Though the words themselves are making sense, his sentences are becoming more and more slurred. 'I'm only 23 years old man,' he says. 'I'm getting started. I don't have shit figured out.' He peers ate the tape recorder perched on the bar in front of him, then up at me, his eyes both drooping and pleading. 'Can we stop this shit?'
How close have the Strokes come to splitting up?
Nikolai: Very close. There's two ways to look at this. Looking back on it we know that it's pressure from touring, and this and that. That's kind of the real reason. But if you look at it more precisely there's a bunch of things that go between bands, between friends, that have happened. Definitely when you're drawn into this environment at our age, mistakes like partying too much and not concentrating on why you're actually here, which is the music and us as friends. I would always say:excess in moderation.
Albert: We've never come close to spitting up. the boat has never sunk, but there's definitely been fights. Especially in the early days when we did two world tours, so unorganised...sometimes it took its toll. But we're our on psychiatrists.
Fab: Once, I felt it might be over. It was definitely the influence of success. I was scared, because it's just been so much fun. But then there'd be nights where I'd think if it is over, this has provided me with the most spectacular time in my life so we're just going to have to deal with it. We all said, this is what we love to do. There were times when we got caught up with the rock and roll life and we had to sort that out, we had to bring back the people who were sort of on the moon, bring them back to earth. Now everything's sorted out. It was heavy enough that we realised, as friends, and I don't think we're ready to make the same mistake twice.
Nick: Not close at all. Even if we did stop playing music, as long as they were still my friends, as long as I still hung out with them, I wouldn't give a fuck. And I've told them that too. Our relationships with each other to me is so much more important than our band. It's not that I don't care about the music - it's my entire life- but I would still be happy if I was friends with those guys. If the friendship thing went out away but we were still playing music together I would be miserable.
Julian: It's easy to stay as a band and not get along - the thing that's really hard is to stay way you were when you started out. That's what I want to do. And doing that means pissing some people off. The record company. Whatever. We got to the point where it was about to be no fun. We were about to not have time to write new songs, not have time to get along, see each other too much. It's been on the verge and that's not our fault. So we just said fuck that. And maybe we'll be less famous but at least we'll write cool songs.
I follow the band to Los Angeles. On the day I arrive, I find three Strokes swimming in the Sunset Marquis hotel pool three, while Fab reads Alexandre Dumas's The Count Of Monte Cristo. Julian is nowhere to be seen. After the others dry off, they order lunch. I sit with Nick as eats grilled cheese sandwich, sips a pina colada and, at my request, talks about the book he's reading. William Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury and then about the other authors he favours: James Joyce, Charles Bukowski, Celine, Kurt Vonnegut. He is wearing a T-Shirt commemorating the sleeve of Duran Duran's second album Rio. He mentions that 'none of us have ever stepped foot in a fucking gym or on a piece of exercise equipment ever.' he says that all he ever wanted to do was to play guitar and not have to do anything else and that it has happened for him. 'I guess it's like the typical fucking dream story that you write about every day probably.' he says, 'but when it happens to you yourself it's pretty fucking cool.'
We talk about the influence it has on the way The Strokes are that each of them is from immigrant backgrounds. Julian's father is Spanish, his mother is Danish. Fab's father is Italian and his mother Brazilian. Nick's father is Tunisian and his mother French. Both of Nikolai's parents are French, though his mother's family is Russian. Albert's father is British, but raised in Gibraltar, his mother is Argentinian, but with Peruvian and Austrian roots. 'We're really privileged in that we're all well-travelled, you know, fucking cultured,' Nick points out. 'We've got fucking table manners you know. I'd like to think that we're all fucking classy guys, you know, like sort of fucking gentleman, and not some fucking crass American rock band.'
Nikolai (whose poolside reading of choice is Jung's Dreams ,Memories and Reflections) is sitting out in the hotel's back garden; the calmest setting, the quietest Stroke. His voice is so low and gentle that the tape recorder struggles to record him. He has known Julian the longest, since elementary school. 'Everything we went through for the first time we sort of went through together or shared together.'he says. 'Your first cigarette, your first drink. Everything you could think of.'
I chat with Fab in his room. An acoustic guitar leans against the wall. He talks about how New York's, and the Stroke's, a spirit echo each other. 'In New York everything's very tight and tense.' he says. 'New Yorkers act more like roaches crawling over each other, and time is of the essence.' Fab is currently facing his own individual media circus: all the America gossip magazines have photos of him with Drew Barrymore. Sensibly, he chooses his words with care. 'I would say that she and I share amazing moments, and that I don't want to lose those amazing moments by tripping myself and saying the wrong things,' he notes, 'because she's one of the most perfect people I've ever met.'
Albert announces that he'd like to go for a drive, so he and I head off in his hire car, weaving in loops through the back streets of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. He tells me about living with Julian. 'We're like the odd couple. I'm really neat, he's really messy. But somehow it all works out. We both keep our doors open all the time. We're really close. Even though we have two beds, a lot of times we end up sleeping in the same bed; passing out in his room or he'll pass out in my room. Now his girlfriend lives with him a lot so that's changed a bit, sleeping in his room, because he's got his girlfriend in there, it'd be a little weird.'
Albert, who lived in Los Angeles until he was 15, and whose father, also Albert Hammond, is a noted songwriter, is usually credited with focusing the Strokes' fashion sense. He says he's always been drawn to that stuff. 'I liked the whole tie thing, a little looser.', he says, 'almost like you're going to work but you obviously look like no one would hire you.' He says he encouraged the Strokes to 'almost look like you're on stage all the time.'