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Best known as the lead singer/songwriter of the Strokes, Julian Casablancas was born on August 23, 1978 to Elite Model Agency Group founder John Casablancas and model and former Miss Denmark Jeanette Christiansen. Christiansen's second husband, painter Sam Adoquei, helped shape Casablancas' early musical taste, giving him a Doors album that was a marked difference from the Phil Collins and other pop that he listened to at the time. Casablancas spent part of his teens in the Swiss boarding school Instituit Le Rosey, where he met future Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr., and in New York's Lycee Français high school, where he met Fabrizio Moretti and Nick Valensi. Casablancas began playing with Moretti, Valensi, Hammond, and bassist Nikolai Fraiture in 1998, and dubbed the band the Strokes the following year. The band's 2001 debut album Is This It was a critical and commercial success, and helped put back-to-basics, garage-y rock back on the map alongside bands like the White Stripes ...