festnoise | Music & Festivals

It's been 7 years since The Strokes’ last studio album “Comedown Machine” was released, but the most famous garage rock band of the last twenty years dont ceases to surprise us these days. New Year's concert in New York, confirmed presence in many festivals, an upcoming album (The Strokes have published on their social media accounts Jean-Michel Basquiat artwork “Bird on Money”, in what that seems to be the possible album cover called “The New Abnormal”) and last minute announcements of shows in Berlin, Paris and Belfast.

While we count the days left for their exclusive German show in the Columbiahalle in Berlin on February 14th, below you can find some facts that unless you are a massive fan of the band, you probably didn't know!

Fact 01

Frontman Julian Casablancas (New York, 1978) is the son of American business mogul John Casablancas, best known as the founder of Elite Model Management (“discovering” models such as Cindy Crawford, Gisele Bündchen or Alessandra Ambrosio), and Danish former model Jeanette Christiansen, who was crowned the 1965 Miss Denmark.

Fact 02

Albert Hammond Jr's is the son of Albert Hammond, who was a hugely successful songwriter. As a curiosity, every time Radiohead's hit “Creep” sounds on the radio, Albert Hammond Jr's Dad receives royalty payments after having been originally granted a co-songwriting credit on the song, owing to its similarity to The Hollies “The Air That I Breathe”, which he co-wrote in 1973.

Fact 03

Lead singer Julian Casablancas, guitarist Nick Valensi, and drummer Fabrizio Moretti started playing together while attending Dwight School in Manhattan. Bassist Nikolai Fraiture befriended Casablancas while the two attended the Lycée Français de New York. At age 13, Casablancas was sent to Le Rosey, a boarding school in Switzerland, to improve his academic performance. There, he would meet guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. Later, when Hammond came to New York to attend New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he would share an apartment with Casablancas.

The Strokes, from left to right Nick Valensi, Julian Casablancas, Fabrizio Moretti, Albert Hammond Jr and Nikolai Fraiture. Photo by Colin Lane

Fact 04

If Casablancas and Hammond grew up in wealthy families with lots of commodities, bassist Nikola Fraiture grew up in a very different environment lacking the privileges of his band mates and having a father who worked as a security man at Macy's.

Fact 05

It was Julian Casablancas who came up with the final group´s name of “The Strokes”, back in 1998.

Fact 06

After releasing the album that led him to the spotlight (Is this it), Albert Hammond Jr converted to Judaism so Nick Valensi wouldn't be the only Jew in the band.

Fact 07

The Strokes have always shown devotion for Arctic Monkeys and as a curiosity back in December 2003 when The Strokes were playing one night at London's Alexandra Palace, a very young Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys first album ”Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not” came out in 2006) was in the audience and would meet Pete Doherty asking him to take a photo together.

Fact 08

At the very beginnings of the band, Albert Hammond Jr. used to claim to be The Strokes manager using the pseudonym of “Paul Spencer”.

Fact 09

After releasing their debut album “Is This It” in 2001, the cover image of the album of a gloved hand caressing a naked ass, was simply too much for the US market and had to be replaced with an abstract image taken from a particle physics experiment.

Fact 10

Back in New York, during Strokes early beginnings, they used to open for a band called Girl Harbour. After one of the shows Nick Valensi was photographed while having sex behind the stage. Girl Harbour would use the photo to promote their next show with the claim: “This is what happened at our last show!”

Fact 11

Whenever Albert Hammond received a rejection letter as a response to his demo tapes, he would hang it on his walls. And apparently there weren't a few!

Fact 12

The announced show at Columbiahalle in Berlin will be the first one from The Strokes since they played for the last time in the German capital in 2006.

Fact 13

Julian Casablancas has a parallel musical project under the name of The Voidz. When The Strokes are hired to play at music festivals, there is usually the requirement to also book a show by The Voidz.