Prologue: Meet the guys in the band.
To hell with hype. Let's stick to the bare facts.
It is January 2001. Five school friends from New York are pretty chuffed that they've just landed a support slot to Texan rock revolutionaries ..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. Nice timing, as they've got a debut EP to plug. A few days later, they find their first release nestling in Tower Records singles section, beside Stereolab. Then their lives get just a little bit crazy.
One year and two months later, they've sold out two world tours and 1.6 million people own a copy of their debut album Is This It. Julian Casablancas (vocals), Albert Hammond Jr. (guitar), Nikolai Fraiture (bass), Nick Valensi (guitar) or Fabrizio Moretti (drums) haven't been in any other band except The Strokes. Aside from sharing such wonderfully exotic names, they are all aged between 21 and 23.
It is something of an understatement to say that it's been the strangest and most surreal year of their young lives. In the Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin, back in June 16 2001, Fabrizio Moretti told me: "It's been like an injection in the butt and now we're riding this weird wave ever since, but we just want to continue to make great music."
Nine months later at Glasgow's Barrowlands, Nikolai Fraiture attempts an updated summary: "It's been like every emotion you can possibly think of multiplied by so much. You do go temporarily crazy."
Even though this quintet have made it look so ridicolously easy - as if they'd just stumbled out of bed, put on their best junk shop clothes, turned up and banged out eleven classic tunes without beaking sweat - it hasn't been as effortless and dreamlike as one might think. It may seem the stuff of fantasy, but The Strokes story isn't just one big fairytale. For starters, their 'overnight' success story really began about seven years ago.
Part One: Daydreaming at the Back of the Class
"Up on a hill is where we begin/This little story, a long time ago." - The Modern Age.
In the mid-90's, three New York high school kids bonded over Nirvana and Pearl Jam, while their classmates obsessed about gangster rap. As Julian, Nick and Fabrizio (Fab) got closer, they collectively explored the back catalogues of Bob Marley, The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys. Whenever they could, they attended concerts given in New York by US artists such as Guided By Voices, Built To Spill, The Mooney Suzuki and the Reverend Horton Heat.
"Whenever there was a big show I was there," recalls Nick Valensi. "It was pretty much what we did. If there was a show going on, we all went to the show. We started to play, but we were just really like little kids in high school messing around. The goals weren't set and we knew we wanted to do something good together. But we didn't know how."
Julian dropped out of school. Nick left around by the eleventh grade. Fab stuck it out. The trio remained strong friends. Soon, they were to be joined by two other former school acquaintances of Julian's, Nikolai Fraiture from Jules' days in a New York grammar school, and Albert Hammond Junior, the only other American in his class during a short stint at L'institut de Rosey is Switzerland. A plush institution recently described by Casablancas as "horribly snobbish", it was the private school that his father had attended.
Now a five piece, the lads began to take a more active interest in playing their instruments. Albert hooked up with JP Bowersock for lessons via Richie Baxt, a retired police officer who ran a guitar shop from his apartment.
"JP started out as Albert's guitar teacher and little by little Julian started taking lessons with him too," Nick Valensi recalls. "I took up lessons with him as well. He helped out a lot with Julian's songwriting, Julian is still always showing him little ideas and asking him for advice. In terms of guitar solos, he was always helping you try a different way to do something. Even last year, he was always around when we were recording the record. Always. There was never a time when we were there that he wasn't there. Even if we stayed until seven in the morning, he stayed to seven in the morning."
"He was articulating things to the producer that we couldn't articulat and giving advice on everything from vocal to drum tones. He was always giving little pieces of advice and saying things like, 'Do you guys think that bit sounds a little bit loud at that part?'. And we'd all be listening together going, "Yeah, dude. It does'."
JP is the man photographed and accredited as 'Guru' on the inner sleeve of Is This It.
Julian Casablancas officially christened the band The Strokes in 1999. According to Albert, the name sounded hard and strong and it was the first one they could all agree on. They started gigging.
"We played our first proper show in a small crappy little club called The Spiral which is closed down now," Nick reminisces. Little by little, The Strokes improved with every show and won a fan and friend in Ryan Gentles who booked bands at the Mercury Lounge. Ryan began to see some potential and became increasingly involved.
"Back then, we did all the steps a band should take I think, but we did them faster than most bands do," says Nikolai Fraiture. "I don't know what exactly caused that. The first shows when we started in New York we didn't even have to send a demo. You just called up and you got a show. We took each step up. We did a tiny club first. Then a few more people started coming. Ryan would book us club shows in the middle of nowhere to people who didn't even like our music. Little by little, we took our steps.
"But there was some awful shows though! There was one that I think was in Delaware at a lobster house or fish house or something. We came onto this tiny little stage and Julian's microphone kept on cutting out during every single song. The PA was nothing - just a tiny little box - so after each song it would completely cut out. Thankfully, we only had eight or nine sounds at the time! We were playing our songs to one family of five having dinner."
Ryan Gentles decided to play The Strokes' demo containing 'The Modern Age', 'Last Nite' and 'Barely Legal' to a few people in the know. At this stage, the band were playing a weekly residency in Ryan's club and had scored opening slots to Julian's Ohio favourites Guided By Voices and on a US visit by Manchester's Doves, in support of their magnificent Lost Souls album. Soon, the demos were bringing a taste of The Strokes to the wider world.