But then there are the offers you can't refuse. Tomorrow they will travel to Landover, Maryland, to open for the Rolling Stones on two dates of the Stones' Forty Licks tour. Casablancas' newfound willingness to play the game is evidenced when he casually reveals that he doesn't really like "the world's greatest rock'n'roll band."
"I respect them," he says. "I was just never a fan, you know?"
THE ROLLING STONES have granted an audience to their support band at a quarter past the hour, but there are complications. "[I know] it's 7:15," Casablancas moans, "but I gotta shit." Worse, Hammond and Valensi appear to be totally Cheech and Chonged. Red-eyed, they shift in a corner of the cement bunker beneath the 80,000-seat FedEx Field, home to the Washington Redskins and, tonight, three generations of Stones fans.
"I don't wanna go in there," Valensi says, worried. "Don't spoil this for me," Moretti pleads. Gentles finally rounds up the entire band and ushers them in to meet the Stones. Ten minutes later, they emerge, all wearing sheepish smiles. No matter what the Strokes think of the classic-rock geezers, they've obviously been starstruck by Keith Richards' no-bullshit cool (Mick Jagger was somewhat distant). They even autographed a set list for Ron Wood's daughter, Leah.
The stadium is less than a quarter full when the Strokes walk out. A roadie informs them that it's okay to smoke onstage, provided they deposit their butts in the designated ashtrays. "Even Keith does that," he says cheerfully. All one can see from behind the stage is an expanse of blue and red lights emanating from novelty pens issued at the gate. When Moretti hits the jail-door drumbeats announcing "New York City Cops," the thwack travels so far across the canyonlike field that it echoes. Minus the video screens, backup singers, horn section, and pyrotechnics that the Stones wheel out, the Strokes are dwarfed. Only "Last Nite" is faintly recognized. Then it's over.
"The show sucked," Valensi says, laughing. "Rolling Stones fans don't know who the Strokes are. I felt like we were little kids at a grown-up party. People were looking at us like, 'Aw, look at these kids, doing their rock'n'roll. Bring on the real.'"
The following night at the smaller Hartford Civic Center goes much better. Preshow, the band hunker down in another locker room, this one littered with porno mags left over from a hockey practice. Casablancas has finally changed his clothes. He wears a maroon school blazer and a tie with a pink shirt. Record-label reps stand around, oblivious to the crew thumbing through glossy Barely Legals.
The arena is nearly full when the Strokes go on, and the cheers are the kind you'd expect for a headliner. Girls scream and shake their hips in the stands. Even the bearded acid casualties tap their sandaled toes. Buzzing afterward, the band gather to watch the Stones show in its entirety. Even the Stones are better tonight, and Jagger seems to know the Strokes are watching. He shimmies down the walkway toward them more than a dozen times, hip-shaking, whooping, and sweating.
Moretti, Hammond, and Fraiture beam like schoolkids. Casablancas keeps his head down, unimpressed, again very much in his own head. He cradles a bottle of red wine in one hand and once again stares deeply into his cigarette. For a minute, I think I see him exhale blue smoke, then cup it in his hands, and splash it back toward his cheeks like senses-reviving cold water.
THERE HAVE BEEN six teenage girls sitting outside Philadelphia's Electric Factory since ten in the morning, doing their homework and waiting for the doors to open so they can get as close to the stage as possible for tonight's Strokes concert.
Post-Stones, the Strokes are excited to be back on their own. Hammond and Moretti are fresh from a quick shopping spree on South Street. Danny, the security guy, drops off a pair of size 11 Converse All Star "flames" for Valensi (the box is scrawled with a fan's phone number). Moretti and Fraiture play foosball in the backstage rec room and blast Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels." Strokes pal Ryan Adams tinkles on a candy-striped piano in the corner.
"Let's get to the point!" bellows Casablancas, like a full-fledged Heartbreaker. "Let's roll another joint. You don't know how it feels--to be meee!"
The space is lined with posters from bands who've played the Factory over the years. Some went on to become significant stars (Radiohead), and some are now mere footnotes (Squirrel Nut Zippers). How it feels to be Casablancas right now is edgy and hopeful. The follow-up to Is This It will be recorded next year in New York City with the debut's producer, Gordon Raphael (onetime keyboardist for the Psychedelic Furs). The five songs already written are "Meet Me in the Bathroom," "The Way It Is," "I Can't Win," "You Talk Way Too Much," and "Ze Newie." Although "You Talk Way Too Much" is markedly aggressive and "Meet Me in the Bathroom" has a bass line funkier than anything on Is This It, they're both unmistakably Strokes-ish and fit seamlessly into the live set.
"So many times, when you hit on something, you want to expand on it so quickly," Casablancas says. "And I don't want to be like, 'We had success, let's get weirder' and call it art and be arrogant about it. If anything, I'd like to make it sound a little more modern, because I don't want people to hear the second record and think, 'Oh, it sounds like '60s garage punk.'" He lights another cigarette.
"We might find that no one gives a shit about the second record," says Moretti.
Whether the follow-up is the Strokes' own The Bends (Radiohead's artistic breakthrough) or their ...But the Little Girls Understand (the Knack's career-stopping follow-up to 1979's smash Get the Knack), one thing's for sure: People will certainly "give a shit." So much so that it will probably be the most anticipated rock album since, well, Nirvana's In Utero in 1993.
And no one knows that better than Casablancas, who has a lot of intense smoking, drinking, and worrying ahead of him.
"I'm the one anticipating it the most," he says, laughing.