'I guess I'm confused; says Julian Casablancas, his head drooping towards the bar. 'Confused between everything I thought when we started and everything I think now.' Next to his left hand he has a can of Milwaukee Beer; next to his right hand a whiskey on the rocks. 'I obviously have the same goals, the same ideals,the same everything...'. He is pretty drunk. 'basically I feel like when we do something that's good, no one gives a shit, and when we play the game it pays off.' He's rarely keen on talking like this, and has little faith in the purpose of such conversations.'All I know is that from the start I wanted to do something that was...cooler, and hopefully be successful by not doing the typical things.' I take the seat next to him; the least I can do is hit the beer and the tequila...try to catch up...listen. 'I don't know, dude, I wish I understood it better myself.' We are in New York, in the East Village, not far from where he shares one end of a dumbbell-shaped apartment with his bandmate Albert Hammond Jr. "I guess we haven't done it right or worked hard enough.' He lowers his head so that his hair covers his face. 'It tears me apart that you can't do it in a really original way and be successful.'
You don't need to spend much time around The Strokes, and especially around Julian Casablancas, to realise that behind the smirks and the swagger and the falling about, they couldn't be more serious or ambitious about what they do and what they want to do. When it comes to explaining exactly what that is, the answers might sometimes seem a little inarticulate, or even banal, but perhaps that is just because they are young men talking about the kinds of things which words don't readily express so well: about music,about doing something distinct, about making people feel.
But they couldn't be more serious about it and though the strokes have had success, they already feel frustrated that is has not been enough success, and that already many of the kinds of things they have ended up doing are not the things that they ever meant to do or wanted to do. Tonight Casablancas mentions a few of these things:being told that the video you didn't want to make but which you're proud of doesn't work because there's not enough of the same cheesy band posing everyone does;being forced to play radio station concerts when you'd rather be writing a new record because they won't play your songs otherwise; the constant pressure to do things the way everyone else does them. Probably also having your photograph taken, answering questions,for articles like this. I've caught them at a delicate moment.
I point out that many people would imagine that right now he'd be having the time of his life.
'Well, I would be having the time of my life if my only dream was to be a rockstar and get laid,' he begins. "Which is cool -I mean, don't get me wrong. But that's not why I got into it. I got into it because I felt..when you feel serious pain and serious depression in your life, like "what can I do?" Your fists clench and you have to do something or you're just going to kill yourself because you don't understand. It's so much frustration. But the only thing that you can do about it is work really hard on whatever is. I'm talking about slaving over shit. You focus on one thing. It becomes special. I would thing nothing but music. That's all I can do.'
Why did you feel that kind of pain and depression to begin with?
'I don't know.' he shrugs. 'I mean, look around, dude. I guess I had a problem. Not a problem but I always just, maybe thought too much, whatever it is, in any situation, I was in...I'm not trying to complain about anything. The weird part is that I feel I've felt pain so many times in my life for different reasons and I don't like to talk about it so much...'
He goes to the jukebox. He says he needs to put on 'as much as I can of the Harder They Come soundtrack'. He does not return for some time.
What do people most misunderstand about The Strokes?
Fab Moretti[drums]: That we're in this for anything other than the music. That we're fashionistas. That we're rich boys trying to steal the spotlight from someone else. When you try a hard as you can to just be yourself and make music, people like to start making things up.
Albert Hammond Jnr.[guitar]: They don't see our bigger picture, our bigger goal. The music gets put to the side and a lot of stuff gets talked about that doesn't really mean anything. When the media first talked about us they talked about the way we looked, which is fine, but what a small thing to talk about: the hours you spend on music compared to the minutes you spend on what you're going to wear.
Nikolai Fraiture[bass]: There's a lot about us that people don't don't know, so they make up suppositions. We're pretty much five normal guys; we like to work and party and have fun.
Julian Casablancas[singer]: That we act like snobby assholes. As far as I know I'm pretty normal. Maybe when I get fucked up I act weird. When you mess with your brain a little bit, sometimes something positive comes out that's more long-lasting than the negative effects of the next-day regrets.
Nick Valensi[guitar]: If we're misunderstood,that's good, because I never understood he bands I liked as a kid, I never knew that their motives were. I don't think people should know too much about anything. It messes up the fun.
When they arrive at the photo studio where THE FACE will photograph them, The Strokes each grab a Heineken and wander out onto the roof to lie in the sun. Nick is wearing a white stripes T-shirt, which he keeps on for the photos. Julian is wearing a Nirvana Incesticide shirt, which he will change.
They hate having their photograph taken. When they first appeared, the fashion worlds in New York and London assumed that these gorgeously shabby, attitude-drenched New York indie kids would be flattered to be adopted as fashion's latest pet rock stars; that The Strokes would be thrilled to preen and pose for them. They were very wrong.
Eventually, they straggle inside. Julian and Fab sit on a trolley and Julian slides his hands up the back of Fab's maroon T-shirt, just because. One of the first things you notice around the Strokes is that the casual intimacy they assume with each other is often playfully physical. Julian leans behind Fab and bites his back. "Ah! Ah! Ah! Dude! Slow! Stop!.' shouts Fab.
Albert sits on a sofa and makes a ring out of a $1 bill, meticulously folded, creased and tucked back on itself. It's a trick someone once showed him when he was wasted, and he was so surprised to remember it the next day that he started doing it himself. he mentions that he once proposed to a girl with one of these rings; she said maybe.
Fab draws a five pointed star in felt pen on the inside of Albert's left wrist and carefully shades it in.
Julian stands in front of the mirror. He pours a little bit of his Heineken bottle into his hands and applies it into his hair. Ruffles it a little. That'll do. As he is being photographed, he cradles a Heineken in his lap. "My friend, the beer...' he mutters wryly. He doesn't seem comfortable with any direction from the photographer. 'Looking relaxed makes me feel weird.' he explains.
At the photographers request, the five of them pose together, arms around each other. In a break Fab and Albert dance cheek to cheek, 'I'm jealous of your slow dance,' teases Julian. 'I'm going to kill you both in a jealous rage.' Nick leaps around Julian's waist, his legs wrapped high behind Julian's torso, his head tucked in below Julian's chin. 'My monkey child!', Julian shouts. 'Somebody have my monkey child.'
These are the Strokes, being as they are, as they do a little more of what they don't like to do.
Why are you called the Strokes?
Julian: Because it means a lot of things that are artistic and strong. We all do interesting things in different ways and the words means interesting things in different ways. It just made so much sense that you can't deny it.
Fab: We'd rejected a bunch of names. Nikolai said that made us laugh for days: "de Niros" as in "the Niros'. I used to think of what the word actually meant: a stroke [holds his heart in an inaccurate medical mime], a stroke...blow to the face...a stroke in a painting. The one I think of the most is the brushstroke. But now I just think of five dudes standing around.
Nikolai: There were so many different meanings to it, it could never pin us down. So many people have said "stroke of luck", "stroke this"...there's never one thing they can focus on. There's when you have a stroke, cerebral congestion; there's a stroke when you play guitar; then there's the obvious sexual undertones.
Nick: When it first came up, it was like, "Oh, The Strokes, like a wank." Then a person said "No, it's The Strokes like a heart attack'. Then another person said,'...like a caress'. It rolled off the tongue really well - sort of violent and sort of sexual and it just sounded cool to everybody.