The Strokes
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Casablancas (the son of Elite Model Agency Group kingpin John Casablancas), Moretti (who began playing drums at age five), and Valensi started playing together in 1998 while they attended the Dwight School, a private prep school in Manhattan. Soon thereafter they met Fraiture, who attended the Upper East Sides Lycee Français, and added him to their ranks. Hammond (the son of singer/songwriter Albert Hammond, whose songs include It Never Rains in Southern California, When I Need You, and To All the Girls Ive Loved Before) came from Los Angeles to attend film school at NYU and was invited into the band by Casablancas; the two met at LInstitut le Rosey in Switzerland when they were kids.
Casablancas officially christened the quintet the Strokes in 1999, and the group spent most of that year writing and rehearsing material in New York Citys Music Building. They made their live debut that fall at the Spiral, and word of mouth about the Strokes incendiary live show propelled them to gigs at venues like Under the Acme, Lower East Side clubs such as Arlene Grocery, Baby Jupiter, and Luna. The Strokes December 2000 dates at the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom not only gained them a manager (Ryan Gentles, who booked them at those clubs), but also helped Strokes mania reach critical mass in New York. Rough Trade released the groups three-song demo as The Modern Age EP in January 2001, which sparked a bidding war from which RCA emerged as the victors.
Meanwhile, the Strokes acclaim reached the U.K. and grew to massive proportions over the course of the year. NME quickly became their champions, profiling them several times that spring and summer as the Strokes live act and singles like Hard to Explain (which debuted at number 16 in the U.K. charts) won them a rabid British following. That spring, the band also completed its first U.S. tour as the opening act for the Doves and proceeded to play dates with Guided by Voices and ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in the U.S. and the U.K. The groups popularity continued to snowball in the U.K., with a side-stage slot at the NME Carling Weekender changed to a main-stage performance for fear of people trampling each other to see the band.
In late summer of that year, Rough Trade released Is This It with an album cover featuring a sexy, Helmut Newton-esque photo of a womans nude behind and hip with a leather-gloved hand resting on it; the U.K. chains Woolworths and HMV objected to its controversial nature. The U.S. version of Is This It was released in October and featured a few changes from the U.K. edition. The Strokes opted for an abstract pattern on the cover and removed the song New York City Cops, feeling the song was inappropriate in the wake of the terrorist attacks that struck New York prior to the albums release; the planned B-side, When It Started, took its place. The group closed out the fall with an extended tour of the U.S., culminating with a Halloween gig at New Yorks Hammerstein Ballroom.
The remainder of 2001 and 2002 saw the groups profile continue to rise. Is This It and the Strokes were lauded in many ways, ranging from This Isnt It, an EP of instrumental versions of some of the albums songs performed by a mystery band called the Diffrent Strokes (Pulps Jarvis Cocker was rumored to be a member) to 2001 NME Carling Awards for Best New Act, Band of the Year, and Album of the Year. The band toured extensively throughout 2002, including a series of dates that summer in New York and Detroit with the White Stripes, summer festivals at Reading and Leeds, and a string of gigs supporting Weezer, some of which were canceled due to a leg injury Casablancas suffered. During these shows, their fall tour, and their dates opening for the Rolling Stones, the Strokes debuted some new songs, including Meet Me in the Bathroom, You Talk Way Too Much, and The Way It Is.
By March 2003, the band was ready to start recording its new album, but instead of working with Is This It producer Gordon Raphael as previously reported, the Strokes began recording with Nigel Godrich of Radiohead and Beck fame. That May, however, the Strokes sessions with Godrich came to an end, and they returned to Raphael to finish the album, Room on Fire. The single 12:51 introduced the more meticulous,
ew wave-inspired sound of Room on Fire, which arrived in fall 2003. Just before the albums release, the Strokes hit the road once again, taking Kings of Leon with them. Early in 2006, they returned with the even poppier and more polished First Impressions of Earth.
