May 1, 2025 • 30 mins
The Strokes… Music’s coolest ‘The’ Band of the early 21st century.
Along with Sweden’s The Hives, Australia’s The Vines, and Detroit’s The White Stripes - The Strokes almost certainly had no intention of getting looped into the phenomenon of wispy haired indie rock bands that all seemed to break out between the summers of 2001 and 2002; because - if we’re being honest - they didn’t exactly have what you might call an indie origin story.
Formed in New York City in as early as 1997 by Frontman Julian Casablancas, Guitarist Nick Valensi and Drummer Fabrizio Moretti at the illustrious Dwight Private School (which lists Truman Capote and Paris Hilton as Alumni) the trio would quickly recruit friend Nikolai Fraiture to play bass with them, as well as Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. in ‘98. Hammond Jr. had just relocated to New York from Los Angeles by way of Switzerland, where he was childhood friends with Julian Casablancas - at - you guessed it - an even more illustrious Private Boarding School.
Within less than 3 years, The Strokes would completely re-define what it would mean to be a trendy modern rock band - and they did it mostly on the back of this hit single; This is the story of The Strokes Last Nite, with newly unearthed audio from the band!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Me, I ain't never gonna understand. This is the story
of The Strokes last night. You know the songs just
making people feel something. It's been a pleasure to work
on this song with her, but do you know the
history to struggle making any kind of record. I don't
always have the direction or concept. This is Encore, an
in-depth look at the stories behind the music. Here's IR
(00:23):
Radio's Ruby Carr.
Ah yes, The Strokes music's coolest, the band of the
early 21st century. What they the band, you ask. Listen,
the reason I called you guys in here, your name,
some 41, the number band thing is out, OK? Blink 180.
2 Green Day 75. These names are not cool. What's
(00:44):
in now is the, OK, the, the strokes, the I
can't see you, the vines, the hives, the white stripes.
This isn't new. The Led Zeppelins, right? Are you feeling me, guys?
Check this out.
The sums, OK. The sums. What's in now is the
drinking your beer and smoking you guys smoke? Yeah, you
(01:06):
do now. You like that? Smoke them up, Johnny. What's
your name? Not anymore. It isn't. It's Sven. You like it?
It's great. I don't know. It's great. Yes, that was.
Canada's Will Sasso in a skit that aired before some
41's 2002 single, Still Waiting, in which Will hilariously breaks
down exactly what the band is. Honestly, it was played
(01:29):
as satire at the time, but looking back on it
25 years later, folks, I mean, where's the lie?
Anyway, along with Sweden's The Hives, Australia's The Vines, and
Detroit's The White Stripes, The Strokes almost certainly had no
intention of getting looped into the phenomenon of wispy-haired indie
rock bands that all seemed to break out between the
(01:52):
summers of 2001 and 2002, because if we're being honest,
they didn't exactly have what you might call an indie
origin story.
Formed in New York City in as early as 1997
by frontman Julian Casablancas, guitarist Nick Valenci, and drummer Fabrizio
Moretti at the illustrious Dwight Private School, which lists Truman
(02:15):
Capote and Paris Hilton as alumni. The trio would quickly
recruit friend Nikolai Fracher to play bass with them, as
well as guitarist Albert Hammond Junior in '98.
Hammond Junior was the son of Albert Hammond Senior, a
successful singer-songwriter who had written for Tina Turner, Celine Dion,
(02:36):
and Diana Ross, to name a few. And Junior had
just relocated to New York from Los Angeles by way
of Switzerland.
where he was childhood friends with Julian Casablancas at, you
guessed it, an even more illustrious private boarding school. Slightly
different than my public school, although we did take a
field trip to an old timey village once, so fancy.
(03:00):
The boys would tell much. We were all friends, that's
pretty much what brought us together, like as, as a band,
like our personalities.
Before we started playing music with each other, we were
just sort of school buddies. Were you like, um, were
you like outsiders or insiders or what what was your,
(03:22):
what was the outsiders, but we weren't insiders.
I don't know. I don't think people didn't really pay
too much attention to us in school. The boarding school
5 would christen themselves The Strokes, and like many bands
we've profiled here on Encore, dedicated themselves to practicing and
performing across New York City tirelessly. Here's Nick Valenci breaking
(03:44):
it all down. Like I met, I met Julian in
in school and I met Fab at the same time
and like Albert knew Julian from before that. They had
gone to school in Switzerland together.
And um Nikolai as well had gone to school with
Julian when they were younger kids and we just like
sort of started playing music like not even seriously like,
you know, for a long time we weren't even like
a real band, we would just sort of hang out
and like play songs in each other's bedrooms.
(04:06):
The Strokes' official first ever show under their now famous
moniker was on September 14, 1999 and became fixtures at
New York City rock clubs Luna Lounge and the Mercury Lounge.
Of course, it wasn't long before ambitious industry types started
to take notice of the Strokes. A booker at Mercury
(04:26):
Lounge quit to become the band's manager soon after meeting them.
And following a show at Luna Lounge in 2000, producer
Gordon Raphael offered to produce a demo EP for them.
Armed with about 14 road tested songs to choose from,
The Strokes and Raphael produced the Modern Age EP in
late 2000. Included on that EP were just 3 songs,
(04:49):
The Modern Age, Last Night, and Barely Legal. From there,
The Strokes made the.
peculiar decision to send their EP to UK label Rough
Trade Records, as they would tell much as So Lee,
it wasn't entirely a decision born out of market savviness.
You in the early period of the ban, you made
(05:10):
the demo and sent it off to Britain first of all,
and that's where you were signed in Britain, but why
was it important to you to send stuff over to England?
It wasn't just they sent it everywhere and they're just
the first to respond. It wasn't like it to Rough Trade.
I don't even know Rough Trade was. It was sort
of on a whim, I think that our manager sent it.
(05:31):
He wasn't even really our manager at the time. He
was just like doing us sort of like a couple
of favors like heard through someone that this guy in
England would would like it, and he just sent it
sort of on a whim and like it was Jeff
Travis from Rough Trade Records. He called back, released it.
We actually have.
It's all in good faith. The label loved The Strokes, unapologetic,
(05:53):
rough around the edges, garage punk style, and began a
good faith working relationship with the band. Remember, this was
a time in music where, at least in North America,
the drop D guitar stylings of new metal and rap
rock were filling up the airwaves. So the band's sound
was truly a breath of fresh air.
To a UK audience who never really got on board
(06:15):
with the brash stylings of American bands, Limp Biscuit, corn,
and their contemporaries, a sentiment that Nick and Albert Hammond
Junior explained to Music Plus. So why is it that, um,
the whiny British bands are being accepted in the US
and that happy party bands are being accepted in the
(06:36):
UK but that they're from the US?
I don't know. I guess just different youth, different tastes.
I don't know. Music in America right now is like
a little bit weird, sort of at a weird point,
I think, um, and it seems like the music in
Britain is just sort of like getting away from that
whole like sort of like pop, like new metal type
thing and sort of going to like more, I don't know,
(06:58):
like different, different kinds of sounds and maybe America and
Canada are not far behind, you know.
I don't think Canada and America are on the same
kind of wave-like music. Probably I wouldn't know, you know,
I don't like spend that much time in Canada. I'm like,
no offense, like it's a beautiful place, but I mean
like I'm from America, you know, so as we were
all still in the very early days of digital downloads
(07:19):
as a legitimate way to consume music, Rough Trade partnered
with UK music.
NME to give away a free download of the EP's
standout song Last night. The original EP version of Last Night,
released in the UK in the early weeks of 2001, is,
as you might expect, not quite as slick and polished
(07:41):
as the fully produced version we all know and love.
So
A bit more like a live off the floor band
vibing out in, you know, the coolest bar you've ever
been to in your life. The production is thinner and tinnier,
but the toe tapping bravado of the bouncing guitars and
Casablanca's raspy earwormy refrain of last night remain faithful.
(08:05):
As expected, the UK audience absolutely ate the track up.
Even before the boys had a chance to record a
proper LP, The Strokes were being touted as the saviors
of American rock and roll. A month-long tour of the
UK only solidified this notion with whispers getting back to
America that these guys were the real deal. It got
(08:29):
to a point like when we recorded that modern age,
like 3 songs, like,
Like we felt like we had like finally done something
that was like pretty good and like sort of like
worth like releasing and showing to people and from that
point on it was just like, like fast like like
you know, I don't, I didn't even keep track like
the past year has just been overwhelming. In true too
(08:49):
cool for school fashion though, the Strokes would seemingly insist
that all of their success was a sort of natural.
order of things and give the UK audience less credit
than you'd think for the hype leading to their success. Well,
like England has been always sort of supporters of the
eccentricity and originality. Do you think
Speaker 2 (09:10):
that
do you think so? Well, I mean like it's not
like their music scene is like.
That much superior, you know what I mean.
They just, uh, I think they, they pick up on like,
that was one of like the new like rock thing,
you know, so it's sort of easy for them to
like digest this, but I hope um.
(09:31):
I hope there's more to it than that in our future,
you know.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It seems like they're hungry for something that was like
didn't fit into what was going on there as well. Um,
a lot of people have been like raving about the band,
and I came across this quote from Graham Cox of
Blur who said that that he hopes that the strokes
will save pop music. I mean, how do you respond
to like this type of um.
(09:57):
Pressure to save pop music. And flowers, cookies, sometimes nice
little letter, a little thank you. By the time the
Strokes returned to American shores to play South by Southwest,
they sparked one of the largest major label bidding wars
for a band in years. Eventually they would sign with
(10:17):
Sony's historic RCA Records and begin plotting their major label debut.
Despite having the RCA mega machine behind them, the Strokes
scrapped their label arranged sessions with famed Pixies producer Gil Morton,
calling the songs that they worked on with him too
clean and too pretentious. The band instead opted to stay
(10:41):
faithful to the production stylings of the still unknown Gordon
Raphael and.
would begin working on their album Is This It in
March of 2001 at New York City's Transport Terrarium, or
as MTV Europe's Joe D'Angelo would call it, a basement
on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Raphael would tell publications sound
(11:04):
on So that despite the fact that RCA had technically
agreed to let the band continue to work with him.
They were none too happy about it, saying, having RCA America,
a major label, coming to see the Strokes recording in
a basement with Gordon Raphael, the untested producer, was a
very eye-opening and interesting process. From the get-go, they wanted
(11:26):
it out of my hands. They did not like the
sound of the EP and they did not think the
album was going to be.
Professional enough, they were very worried. Julian had the A&R
guy come down and play him the material on a boombox.
I watched the A&R smile and put his arm around
the band members, and he shook my hand and said,
(11:46):
good job. But I felt the vibe of, oh, what
are we going to do now? How are we going
to get this turned around, right? I could feel that
from the moment we met.
In any case, the relationship remained cautiously sustainable between RCA
Raphael and The Strokes until the final mastering stages, and
it's a good thing too. Raphael was dealing with the
(12:07):
threat of eviction from his basement studio in the early sessions,
but with RCA finally on board, those money issues magically
went away.
Inspired by the gritty, non-conformist sound and feel of the
bands like Velvet Underground, the Ramones, and Iggy Pop and
the Stooges, The Strokes wanted to limit the amount of
(12:28):
studio effects used on Is This It to maintain a
feeling of authenticity, or as Raphael would go on record
to say, Julian and Hammond Junior specifically had hoped that
the album.
It would sound like if a band from the past
came to the future to record an album. In his
biography of the band This Is It, not to be
(12:50):
confused with is this it, writer Martin Roach notes that
only overdriving amplifiers, distortion, and reverse echo effects were used
on the band's instruments and that the miking of the
drums was intentionally.
Bars so as to not pick up any excess sounds
from the guitars and bass. The guitar setup was similarly
(13:11):
straightforward with amps on either side of the studio, recorded
with no extra equalization. Somewhere that A&R rep was losing
his mind, no doubt. Casablanca sang through a tiny PV
practice amp, a particularly genius move that gave
His already growly vocals and even more lo fi feel.
(13:32):
The Strokes would complete Is This It by April of 2001,
but made the decision to go on a promotional world
tour before the album was released, staggering each territory's release
to sync up with where in the world the Strokes
were on their tour. Cool idea. I don't think it
would work now though.
Australia got the album at the end of July. The
(13:54):
UK was next at the end of August to coincide
with the band's Reading and Leeds festival appearances, while North
America would have to wait a little longer, but we'll
get to that. With the EP version of last night
already technically out, the band made the decision to lead
with a lesser known track, hard to explain.
As the lead promotional single complete with a music video
(14:16):
directed by one of the band's friends, of course that
friend was Roman Coppola, the son of legendary director Francis
Ford Coppola and older brother to the iconic filmmaker Sofia Coppola.
But hey, you know, if you've got a Coppola on
speed dial, while hard to explain as a.
Perfectly fine song in its own right and definitely a
(14:36):
well-fitting piece of the puzzle that is, is this it?
I'd hazard a guess that if it was the only
single released, we might not be doing this episode of
Encore right now. Although in hindsight, the band may have
been looking to temper expectations by releasing a single that
was slightly less of a sure thing.
Because the groundswell of hype was so overwhelming for the Strokes,
(14:59):
specifically in the UK where they'd already won over the
hearts and minds of an adoring fan base pre-album release
and had done a fair amount of high-profile interviews, the
still barely in their 20 strokes had begun to gain
a little bit of a reputation.
Well, Dicks. Here's what they told the one and only
(15:20):
Nardwar in the summer of 1 as North America waited
on bated breath for their turn to revel in the
full Strokes experience.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Just the way we've been portrayed, you know, is not us,
and if I heard of a band like that, I
probably wouldn't like that band. I think they were I
think they were assholes. I don't know. I just, I
think the way to hear music is to hear the
music first and then find out about the band later
and um.
Just, you know, it's like so over sensationalized that any
asshole with a pen can just like, you know, take
(15:50):
up your time and fucking portray you in a
You know, it's not, it's not, not that it's a
bad way, it's just not the truth, and it's like
it's a shame that people aren't hearing the music and
then appreciating and instead they're just, you know, being fed
some bullshit, but you're getting paranoid about it, like you
walk into Carlos and butts here and people are yelling
and they think, you think they're yelling at you? No, no,
(16:10):
not at all. I think it's not that, it's just
that you gotta understand like we've had a schedule that's like,
you know, so packed with stuff that we didn't, they
didn't organize, but.
We're gonna sort of like I think take it by
the helm a little bit and like sort of, sort
of like make sure that we can, we can function
as a band and like write new songs and get
better and not be like I I feel like so
many bands I I never realized like what it was
(16:32):
but I feel like so many bands like.
Got all this success, that's like it hasn't happened yet,
but if it does like that, it sucks. It's
Speaker 1 (16:39):
like Originally, the album was set to release on September
25th in North America, perfectly timed with a homecoming tour
of the East Coast, but the tragic events of 9/11
delayed the album by a few weeks while the band
and label made moves to replace mildly controversial.
New York City Cops with a new song when it started.
(17:00):
You guys had written um the song New York City
Cops and you had to um push the album because
of the release of the album because you
Speaker 2 (17:09):
decided to take that particular song off.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Why, why
Speaker 2 (17:12):
was that? Well, I think you know obviously the song
has nothing to do. I just think it, yeah, I
think it just bothered me that um that like the
meaning would be like.
You know, not heard and you know, like people that
had never heard this song, it would have a totally
(17:32):
different ring, you know. That was a cool song. I
just think it's like bad timing, you know, it's like
the wrong time.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Another well documented change was the album's cover image. So
original versions of the album featured a
ghost white photo of a woman's lower torso with her
hand draped in a leather glove placed along the curve
of her hip. Deemed too sexually explicit, the cover in
the US features a photo of subatomic particle tracks in
(18:01):
a bubble chamber.
While the original was ostensibly a collector's item at first,
both versions were made available everywhere on vinyl over the years,
and many streaming services feature the original to this day. Finally,
after months of hype, Last night was released as The Strokes'
second single on October 23, 2001.
(18:23):
The video directed by Say it with me now, Roman Coppola,
actually features a third version of the track, something you
rarely see an actual live on set version of the song.
The Strokes explained to MTV it was their one stipulation
to make a video for the song at all, actually.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
We actually didn't want to make a video for like
a really long time and um just now that I
think our album is coming out and um.
We thought if we could just play the song live
and they actually let us do that, so they like,
you know, it, it changed our mind because it's not
gonna be like a flashy video.
A typical MTV video, I think it's gonna be us
(19:04):
playing the song live in a funny funny environment. It's
gonna almost be like a show for like people on
their couch.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It's probably for that reason that the video for last
night is very simple and very strokesy. A straight up
performance video shot on what looks like, you know, a
variety show set right out of the 1970s.
A listless and doe-eyed Julian Casablancas is singing while he
half-heartedly rolls through frontman stage cliches like launching his mic
(19:36):
stand across the set and chugging a beer before throwing
the microphone down to the ground when he finishes singing.
Other than a brief blip on a map that also
appears in the hard to explain video, that's pretty much it.
As for the song itself, it didn't take long for
critics to notice a striking sonic similarity to another hit single,
(19:56):
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 1977 hit American Girl. Yes,
if you listen closely, you'll hear the similarities between the songs,
specifically the tempo, percussion, and even the guitar sound. The
vocal melodies are, of course, wildly different, but there's a
pretty strong resemblance otherwise. Hilariously, The Strokes had
(20:17):
No problem freely admitting their quote unquote inspiration from that
petty hit with Casablancas later noting, people would say, you
know that song American Girl by Tom Petty, don't you
think it sounds a bit like that? And I'd be like, yeah,
we ripped it off. Where have you been?
Luckily for the Strokes, Petty didn't seem to mind all
(20:38):
that much, telling Rolling Stone in 2006, The Strokes took
American Girl for last night. There was an interview that
took place with them where they actually admitted it. That
made me laugh out loud. I was like, OK, good
for you. It doesn't bother me. In hindsight, though, the
Strokes really got lucky.
Tom Petty would not be so benevolent to Sam Smith
(20:59):
when he sniffed out the similarities between their 2014 hit
Stay With Me and his song Won't Back Down. His
publishing company would eventually shake Smith down for a 12.5%
writing credit for Petty and Jeff Lynn. Damn, Tom, that
sure is petty.
OK, uh, I'm sorry about that. Eventually, the prophecy came
(21:24):
true for The Strokes, and last night, and is this
it itself, ushered in a new golden age of indie
rock and roll that you could argue we're still feeling
the effects of some 25 years later.
Ostensibly, a hipster-esque breakup song about a failing casual relationship
where the two people just can't seem to get on
(21:44):
the same wavelength. Last night includes not only the aforementioned
primal roar of the refrain, but a very fun to
sing along with chorus about the.
People who just don't understand. To clarify, that includes people, obviously, girlfriends, grandsons, spaceships,
and me. I ain't ever gonna understand. Critics adored the
(22:07):
song and the album with Rolling Stone literally calling the
record the stuff of which legends are made.
The band's friends, critics at NME, gave Is This It
a 10 out of 10 review, with writer John Robinson
calling it one of the best debuts by a guitar
band in 20 years. Pitchfork in a 9.1 rating, hilariously stated,
(22:30):
Are they really that good? Oh fucking course not, while
otherwise giving them kudos for their relentless melodies, saying the
instant gratification.
of solid driving rhythms while maintaining strong but simple hooks
that seem somehow familiar yet wholly original, all while reminding
us that the band are not deities. But it certainly
(22:52):
felt like they were. The Strokes became the dictionary definition
of the coolest band you've never heard of, even though
they were so cool, everyone, you know, had heard of them.
When researching for this episode, our writers recalled the Strokes'
second ever visit to Toronto for a tiny show at
the Horseshoe Tavern in October of 2001, located just east
(23:15):
of Spadina on Queen Street. Fans queued up for hours
in a line that spanned over two blocks just for
a chance to get inside to see the band, considering
the capacity is about $350.
400 people at a stretch at that venue, that is
a packed house. Much as Sookie and Lee was on
site just before that show to ask them what it
(23:37):
was like being the saviors of pop music. Well yeah, like,
what are we saving pop from? What what's going on
in pop music that needs to be
Speaker 2 (23:45):
saved? I don't think we're like saving pop. I think
you know those kind of cos like I hear that
stuff like, you know.
All the time I think people just they need to like,
you know, I think things that people want hope because
there's so much like crap going on and they see
the way like big business runs everything, so there's obviously
a lot of frustration, so you want to say things
(24:06):
like that, but I think it's what we're doing is
a little different than just trying to like you know,
restore the music industry or anything like that. I think
we're just trying to.
Put out something that had a positive effect and, um,
in time, you know, like, you know, different things will
happen from it, but like it's it's not a time
(24:27):
to like predict, at
least
Speaker 1 (24:28):
for
Speaker 2 (24:28):
us.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
By the time 2001 closed out, Is This It was
named the best album of the entire year by Billboard,
Entertainment Weekly, NME and Time to name a few, as
well as obtaining high rankings in the New York Times,
Rolling Stone, and USA Today.
BBC Radio's Zane Lowe, now of Apple Music fame, called
the album a masterpiece, saying that it essentially redefined the
(24:53):
template for rock and roll for the modern day, forcing
labels to actually look for hot new rock bands to sign.
Rolling Stone agreed in 2009 they ranked Is This It
as the second best album of the 2000s.
In 2020, they upped the ante by calling it the
114th best album of all time before inducting it as
(25:15):
the 10th best album of the 21st century so far
at the beginning of the year, putting them in the
company of fellow top tenors like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar,
and Radiohead. So are you taking notes? There will be
a quiz.
Amidst all the accolades, the Strokes fundamentally stayed true to
themselves artistically, which, to be honest, meant there wasn't exactly
(25:39):
an overwhelming commercial boom for last night, or is this it?
The album would peak at number 33 on the Billboard
200 and has only been a platinum selling record in
America for about a decade and a half. Last night
entered the top 5 on the US modern rock charts.
In late 2001, didn't break through to the Hot 100
(26:00):
and actually wouldn't even go platinum until 2021 as a
single with the inclusion of digital streams. Also in 2021,
some 20 years after its release, Rolling Stone would proclaim
last night the 155th best song of all time in
a companion list to the aforementioned albums guide.
(26:21):
The Strokes would release one more single from Is This It,
the underrated Someday, before returning in 2003 with Is This
It's perfect companion album, Room on Fire. No longer music's
best kept secret, Room on Fire was also critically acclaimed.
And still divides opinion between the most hardcore of Strokes
(26:43):
fans on which album is better. You can start arguing
about that now with the BBC even giving it the
dubious distinction of an acclaimed album that nobody listens to
anymore in 2018.
The Strokes would go on to put out one last
record in the 2000s, 5's heavier first impressions of Earth,
(27:04):
before taking an extended hiatus for the rest of the decade.
In that time, Julian Casablancas would release one solo album,
Praises for the Young.
The band would return in 2011 with the cult favorite Angles,
an album which initially sparked rumors of infighting within the
band when it was whispered that Julian and the rest
(27:26):
of the band actually wrote the music and lyrics and
melodies separate from each other, causing a myriad of issues
for all involved. Casablancas has since denied that that was
the case for what it's worth.
Angles would be followed by 2013's Comedown Machine, another cult favorite.
It would be promoted sparsely and performed poorly. 2016's Future
(27:50):
Present Pat EP would keep the band afloat as they
mostly performed festival dates to close out the 2010s. In
the meantime, Casablancas would form a new band called The
Voids with the stated goal of representing things unseen and
exploring music from the margins, purposely positioning themselves.
A band that is uninterested in mainstream attention. The Strokes
(28:13):
looked to return to form when they hooked up with
the band whisperer, Rick Rubin for their first full length
in seven years, 2020's The New Abnormal. The album turned
out to be quite aptly named, and the band wouldn't
really be able to tour the record properly until well
into 2022, you know, because of COVID. I'm sure they
(28:35):
were home baking sourdough like the rest of us. Reflecting
on
On the music of The Strokes, Casablancas would tell the
Times in 2020. For me, the first two records were
one creative enterprise, but by the time the third record
came out, there were other issues going on. I liked
a lot of modern classical music. That was where my
mind was at, but it crashed with all the rock
(28:56):
cliches of the touring and the drinking and infighting and
the bullshit. Hitting the sweet spot between edgy and catchy
is the goal in everything I do, and is this
it is always what you're aiming for.
With the band now comfortably all in their 40s, that
you might not be surprised to hear that Casablancas has
remarked several times over the past few years that he's
(29:18):
kind of overperforming last night. I hate when bands do that.
It made you famous, it made you tons of money.
I don't feel bad for you, play the song. In fact,
play it twice, because that's why we're talking about it.
It's the encore.
In that same interview with the Times in 2020, Julian
would also note, when you start playing 30 or 40 shows,
(29:40):
the music doesn't move you, you feel phony. To some extent,
that's why I play with voids. I couldn't care less
about playing last night. I'm a human animal and a
prisoner of the crowd's reaction.
On a biological level, I don't want to care, but
if people like it, it feels better than if people
hate a song. Late last year, he even doubled down,
(30:01):
telling The Guardian last night by The Strokes is pretty
dead to me. I'm not sure why. If I heard
it on the radio, I'd probably turn it off.
Well, this is awkward. I was just about to queue
it up for you too. I'm Ruby Carr and that
was the story of The Strokes last night. Thank you
so much for listening. Now, make sure to subscribe wherever
you get your podcast and you can drop us a
(30:23):
review with what songs you'd like us to cover in
a future episode.
Encore is an iHeart Radio Canada podcast. Download the free
iHeartRadio app and subscribe. Thank you. Thank you so much
for coming.
Me, I ain't never gonna understand. This is the story
of The Strokes last night. You know the songs just
making people feel something. It's been a pleasure to work
on this song with her, but do you know the
history to struggle making any kind of record. I don't
always have the direction or concept. This is Encore, an
in-depth look at the stories behind the music. Here's IR
(00:23):
Radio's Ruby Carr.
Ah yes, The Strokes music's coolest, the band of the
early 21st century. What they the band, you ask. Listen,
the reason I called you guys in here, your name,
some 41, the number band thing is out, OK? Blink 180.
2 Green Day 75. These names are not cool. What's
(00:44):
in now is the, OK, the, the strokes, the I
can't see you, the vines, the hives, the white stripes.
This isn't new. The Led Zeppelins, right? Are you feeling me, guys?
Check this out.
The sums, OK. The sums. What's in now is the
drinking your beer and smoking you guys smoke? Yeah, you
(01:06):
do now. You like that? Smoke them up, Johnny. What's
your name? Not anymore. It isn't. It's Sven. You like it?
It's great. I don't know. It's great. Yes, that was.
Canada's Will Sasso in a skit that aired before some
41's 2002 single, Still Waiting, in which Will hilariously breaks
down exactly what the band is. Honestly, it was played
(01:29):
as satire at the time, but looking back on it
25 years later, folks, I mean, where's the lie?
Anyway, along with Sweden's The Hives, Australia's The Vines, and
Detroit's The White Stripes, The Strokes almost certainly had no
intention of getting looped into the phenomenon of wispy-haired indie
rock bands that all seemed to break out between the
(01:52):
summers of 2001 and 2002, because if we're being honest,
they didn't exactly have what you might call an indie
origin story.
Formed in New York City in as early as 1997
by frontman Julian Casablancas, guitarist Nick Valenci, and drummer Fabrizio
Moretti at the illustrious Dwight Private School, which lists Truman
(02:15):
Capote and Paris Hilton as alumni. The trio would quickly
recruit friend Nikolai Fracher to play bass with them, as
well as guitarist Albert Hammond Junior in '98.
Hammond Junior was the son of Albert Hammond Senior, a
successful singer-songwriter who had written for Tina Turner, Celine Dion,
(02:36):
and Diana Ross, to name a few. And Junior had
just relocated to New York from Los Angeles by way
of Switzerland.
where he was childhood friends with Julian Casablancas at, you
guessed it, an even more illustrious private boarding school. Slightly
different than my public school, although we did take a
field trip to an old timey village once, so fancy.
(03:00):
The boys would tell much. We were all friends, that's
pretty much what brought us together, like as, as a band,
like our personalities.
Before we started playing music with each other, we were
just sort of school buddies. Were you like, um, were
you like outsiders or insiders or what what was your,
(03:22):
what was the outsiders, but we weren't insiders.
I don't know. I don't think people didn't really pay
too much attention to us in school. The boarding school
5 would christen themselves The Strokes, and like many bands
we've profiled here on Encore, dedicated themselves to practicing and
performing across New York City tirelessly. Here's Nick Valenci breaking
(03:44):
it all down. Like I met, I met Julian in
in school and I met Fab at the same time
and like Albert knew Julian from before that. They had
gone to school in Switzerland together.
And um Nikolai as well had gone to school with
Julian when they were younger kids and we just like
sort of started playing music like not even seriously like,
you know, for a long time we weren't even like
a real band, we would just sort of hang out
and like play songs in each other's bedrooms.
(04:06):
The Strokes' official first ever show under their now famous
moniker was on September 14, 1999 and became fixtures at
New York City rock clubs Luna Lounge and the Mercury Lounge.
Of course, it wasn't long before ambitious industry types started
to take notice of the Strokes. A booker at Mercury
(04:26):
Lounge quit to become the band's manager soon after meeting them.
And following a show at Luna Lounge in 2000, producer
Gordon Raphael offered to produce a demo EP for them.
Armed with about 14 road tested songs to choose from,
The Strokes and Raphael produced the Modern Age EP in
late 2000. Included on that EP were just 3 songs,
(04:49):
The Modern Age, Last Night, and Barely Legal. From there,
The Strokes made the.
peculiar decision to send their EP to UK label Rough
Trade Records, as they would tell much as So Lee,
it wasn't entirely a decision born out of market savviness.
You in the early period of the ban, you made
(05:10):
the demo and sent it off to Britain first of all,
and that's where you were signed in Britain, but why
was it important to you to send stuff over to England?
It wasn't just they sent it everywhere and they're just
the first to respond. It wasn't like it to Rough Trade.
I don't even know Rough Trade was. It was sort
of on a whim, I think that our manager sent it.
(05:31):
He wasn't even really our manager at the time. He
was just like doing us sort of like a couple
of favors like heard through someone that this guy in
England would would like it, and he just sent it
sort of on a whim and like it was Jeff
Travis from Rough Trade Records. He called back, released it.
We actually have.
It's all in good faith. The label loved The Strokes, unapologetic,
(05:53):
rough around the edges, garage punk style, and began a
good faith working relationship with the band. Remember, this was
a time in music where, at least in North America,
the drop D guitar stylings of new metal and rap
rock were filling up the airwaves. So the band's sound
was truly a breath of fresh air.
To a UK audience who never really got on board
(06:15):
with the brash stylings of American bands, Limp Biscuit, corn,
and their contemporaries, a sentiment that Nick and Albert Hammond
Junior explained to Music Plus. So why is it that, um,
the whiny British bands are being accepted in the US
and that happy party bands are being accepted in the
(06:36):
UK but that they're from the US?
I don't know. I guess just different youth, different tastes.
I don't know. Music in America right now is like
a little bit weird, sort of at a weird point,
I think, um, and it seems like the music in
Britain is just sort of like getting away from that
whole like sort of like pop, like new metal type
thing and sort of going to like more, I don't know,
(06:58):
like different, different kinds of sounds and maybe America and
Canada are not far behind, you know.
I don't think Canada and America are on the same
kind of wave-like music. Probably I wouldn't know, you know,
I don't like spend that much time in Canada. I'm like,
no offense, like it's a beautiful place, but I mean
like I'm from America, you know, so as we were
all still in the very early days of digital downloads
(07:19):
as a legitimate way to consume music, Rough Trade partnered
with UK music.
NME to give away a free download of the EP's
standout song Last night. The original EP version of Last Night,
released in the UK in the early weeks of 2001, is,
as you might expect, not quite as slick and polished
(07:41):
as the fully produced version we all know and love.
So
A bit more like a live off the floor band
vibing out in, you know, the coolest bar you've ever
been to in your life. The production is thinner and tinnier,
but the toe tapping bravado of the bouncing guitars and
Casablanca's raspy earwormy refrain of last night remain faithful.
(08:05):
As expected, the UK audience absolutely ate the track up.
Even before the boys had a chance to record a
proper LP, The Strokes were being touted as the saviors
of American rock and roll. A month-long tour of the
UK only solidified this notion with whispers getting back to
America that these guys were the real deal. It got
(08:29):
to a point like when we recorded that modern age,
like 3 songs, like,
Like we felt like we had like finally done something
that was like pretty good and like sort of like
worth like releasing and showing to people and from that
point on it was just like, like fast like like
you know, I don't, I didn't even keep track like
the past year has just been overwhelming. In true too
(08:49):
cool for school fashion though, the Strokes would seemingly insist
that all of their success was a sort of natural.
order of things and give the UK audience less credit
than you'd think for the hype leading to their success. Well,
like England has been always sort of supporters of the
eccentricity and originality. Do you think
Speaker 2 (09:10):
that
do you think so? Well, I mean like it's not
like their music scene is like.
That much superior, you know what I mean.
They just, uh, I think they, they pick up on like,
that was one of like the new like rock thing,
you know, so it's sort of easy for them to
like digest this, but I hope um.
(09:31):
I hope there's more to it than that in our future,
you know.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It seems like they're hungry for something that was like
didn't fit into what was going on there as well. Um,
a lot of people have been like raving about the band,
and I came across this quote from Graham Cox of
Blur who said that that he hopes that the strokes
will save pop music. I mean, how do you respond
to like this type of um.
(09:57):
Pressure to save pop music. And flowers, cookies, sometimes nice
little letter, a little thank you. By the time the
Strokes returned to American shores to play South by Southwest,
they sparked one of the largest major label bidding wars
for a band in years. Eventually they would sign with
(10:17):
Sony's historic RCA Records and begin plotting their major label debut.
Despite having the RCA mega machine behind them, the Strokes
scrapped their label arranged sessions with famed Pixies producer Gil Morton,
calling the songs that they worked on with him too
clean and too pretentious. The band instead opted to stay
(10:41):
faithful to the production stylings of the still unknown Gordon
Raphael and.
would begin working on their album Is This It in
March of 2001 at New York City's Transport Terrarium, or
as MTV Europe's Joe D'Angelo would call it, a basement
on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Raphael would tell publications sound
(11:04):
on So that despite the fact that RCA had technically
agreed to let the band continue to work with him.
They were none too happy about it, saying, having RCA America,
a major label, coming to see the Strokes recording in
a basement with Gordon Raphael, the untested producer, was a
very eye-opening and interesting process. From the get-go, they wanted
(11:26):
it out of my hands. They did not like the
sound of the EP and they did not think the
album was going to be.
Professional enough, they were very worried. Julian had the A&R
guy come down and play him the material on a boombox.
I watched the A&R smile and put his arm around
the band members, and he shook my hand and said,
(11:46):
good job. But I felt the vibe of, oh, what
are we going to do now? How are we going
to get this turned around, right? I could feel that
from the moment we met.
In any case, the relationship remained cautiously sustainable between RCA
Raphael and The Strokes until the final mastering stages, and
it's a good thing too. Raphael was dealing with the
(12:07):
threat of eviction from his basement studio in the early sessions,
but with RCA finally on board, those money issues magically
went away.
Inspired by the gritty, non-conformist sound and feel of the
bands like Velvet Underground, the Ramones, and Iggy Pop and
the Stooges, The Strokes wanted to limit the amount of
(12:28):
studio effects used on Is This It to maintain a
feeling of authenticity, or as Raphael would go on record
to say, Julian and Hammond Junior specifically had hoped that
the album.
It would sound like if a band from the past
came to the future to record an album. In his
biography of the band This Is It, not to be
(12:50):
confused with is this it, writer Martin Roach notes that
only overdriving amplifiers, distortion, and reverse echo effects were used
on the band's instruments and that the miking of the
drums was intentionally.
Bars so as to not pick up any excess sounds
from the guitars and bass. The guitar setup was similarly
(13:11):
straightforward with amps on either side of the studio, recorded
with no extra equalization. Somewhere that A&R rep was losing
his mind, no doubt. Casablanca sang through a tiny PV
practice amp, a particularly genius move that gave
His already growly vocals and even more lo fi feel.
(13:32):
The Strokes would complete Is This It by April of 2001,
but made the decision to go on a promotional world
tour before the album was released, staggering each territory's release
to sync up with where in the world the Strokes
were on their tour. Cool idea. I don't think it
would work now though.
Australia got the album at the end of July. The
(13:54):
UK was next at the end of August to coincide
with the band's Reading and Leeds festival appearances, while North
America would have to wait a little longer, but we'll
get to that. With the EP version of last night
already technically out, the band made the decision to lead
with a lesser known track, hard to explain.
As the lead promotional single complete with a music video
(14:16):
directed by one of the band's friends, of course that
friend was Roman Coppola, the son of legendary director Francis
Ford Coppola and older brother to the iconic filmmaker Sofia Coppola.
But hey, you know, if you've got a Coppola on
speed dial, while hard to explain as a.
Perfectly fine song in its own right and definitely a
(14:36):
well-fitting piece of the puzzle that is, is this it?
I'd hazard a guess that if it was the only
single released, we might not be doing this episode of
Encore right now. Although in hindsight, the band may have
been looking to temper expectations by releasing a single that
was slightly less of a sure thing.
Because the groundswell of hype was so overwhelming for the Strokes,
(14:59):
specifically in the UK where they'd already won over the
hearts and minds of an adoring fan base pre-album release
and had done a fair amount of high-profile interviews, the
still barely in their 20 strokes had begun to gain
a little bit of a reputation.
Well, Dicks. Here's what they told the one and only
(15:20):
Nardwar in the summer of 1 as North America waited
on bated breath for their turn to revel in the
full Strokes experience.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Just the way we've been portrayed, you know, is not us,
and if I heard of a band like that, I
probably wouldn't like that band. I think they were I
think they were assholes. I don't know. I just, I
think the way to hear music is to hear the
music first and then find out about the band later
and um.
Just, you know, it's like so over sensationalized that any
asshole with a pen can just like, you know, take
(15:50):
up your time and fucking portray you in a
You know, it's not, it's not, not that it's a
bad way, it's just not the truth, and it's like
it's a shame that people aren't hearing the music and
then appreciating and instead they're just, you know, being fed
some bullshit, but you're getting paranoid about it, like you
walk into Carlos and butts here and people are yelling
and they think, you think they're yelling at you? No, no,
(16:10):
not at all. I think it's not that, it's just
that you gotta understand like we've had a schedule that's like,
you know, so packed with stuff that we didn't, they
didn't organize, but.
We're gonna sort of like I think take it by
the helm a little bit and like sort of, sort
of like make sure that we can, we can function
as a band and like write new songs and get
better and not be like I I feel like so
many bands I I never realized like what it was
(16:32):
but I feel like so many bands like.
Got all this success, that's like it hasn't happened yet,
but if it does like that, it sucks. It's
Speaker 1 (16:39):
like Originally, the album was set to release on September
25th in North America, perfectly timed with a homecoming tour
of the East Coast, but the tragic events of 9/11
delayed the album by a few weeks while the band
and label made moves to replace mildly controversial.
New York City Cops with a new song when it started.
(17:00):
You guys had written um the song New York City
Cops and you had to um push the album because
of the release of the album because you
Speaker 2 (17:09):
decided to take that particular song off.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Why, why
Speaker 2 (17:12):
was that? Well, I think you know obviously the song
has nothing to do. I just think it, yeah, I
think it just bothered me that um that like the
meaning would be like.
You know, not heard and you know, like people that
had never heard this song, it would have a totally
(17:32):
different ring, you know. That was a cool song. I
just think it's like bad timing, you know, it's like
the wrong time.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Another well documented change was the album's cover image. So
original versions of the album featured a
ghost white photo of a woman's lower torso with her
hand draped in a leather glove placed along the curve
of her hip. Deemed too sexually explicit, the cover in
the US features a photo of subatomic particle tracks in
(18:01):
a bubble chamber.
While the original was ostensibly a collector's item at first,
both versions were made available everywhere on vinyl over the years,
and many streaming services feature the original to this day. Finally,
after months of hype, Last night was released as The Strokes'
second single on October 23, 2001.
(18:23):
The video directed by Say it with me now, Roman Coppola,
actually features a third version of the track, something you
rarely see an actual live on set version of the song.
The Strokes explained to MTV it was their one stipulation
to make a video for the song at all, actually.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
We actually didn't want to make a video for like
a really long time and um just now that I
think our album is coming out and um.
We thought if we could just play the song live
and they actually let us do that, so they like,
you know, it, it changed our mind because it's not
gonna be like a flashy video.
A typical MTV video, I think it's gonna be us
(19:04):
playing the song live in a funny funny environment. It's
gonna almost be like a show for like people on
their couch.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It's probably for that reason that the video for last
night is very simple and very strokesy. A straight up
performance video shot on what looks like, you know, a
variety show set right out of the 1970s.
A listless and doe-eyed Julian Casablancas is singing while he
half-heartedly rolls through frontman stage cliches like launching his mic
(19:36):
stand across the set and chugging a beer before throwing
the microphone down to the ground when he finishes singing.
Other than a brief blip on a map that also
appears in the hard to explain video, that's pretty much it.
As for the song itself, it didn't take long for
critics to notice a striking sonic similarity to another hit single,
(19:56):
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 1977 hit American Girl. Yes,
if you listen closely, you'll hear the similarities between the songs,
specifically the tempo, percussion, and even the guitar sound. The
vocal melodies are, of course, wildly different, but there's a
pretty strong resemblance otherwise. Hilariously, The Strokes had
(20:17):
No problem freely admitting their quote unquote inspiration from that
petty hit with Casablancas later noting, people would say, you
know that song American Girl by Tom Petty, don't you
think it sounds a bit like that? And I'd be like, yeah,
we ripped it off. Where have you been?
Luckily for the Strokes, Petty didn't seem to mind all
(20:38):
that much, telling Rolling Stone in 2006, The Strokes took
American Girl for last night. There was an interview that
took place with them where they actually admitted it. That
made me laugh out loud. I was like, OK, good
for you. It doesn't bother me. In hindsight, though, the
Strokes really got lucky.
Tom Petty would not be so benevolent to Sam Smith
(20:59):
when he sniffed out the similarities between their 2014 hit
Stay With Me and his song Won't Back Down. His
publishing company would eventually shake Smith down for a 12.5%
writing credit for Petty and Jeff Lynn. Damn, Tom, that
sure is petty.
OK, uh, I'm sorry about that. Eventually, the prophecy came
(21:24):
true for The Strokes, and last night, and is this
it itself, ushered in a new golden age of indie
rock and roll that you could argue we're still feeling
the effects of some 25 years later.
Ostensibly, a hipster-esque breakup song about a failing casual relationship
where the two people just can't seem to get on
(21:44):
the same wavelength. Last night includes not only the aforementioned
primal roar of the refrain, but a very fun to
sing along with chorus about the.
People who just don't understand. To clarify, that includes people, obviously, girlfriends, grandsons, spaceships,
and me. I ain't ever gonna understand. Critics adored the
(22:07):
song and the album with Rolling Stone literally calling the
record the stuff of which legends are made.
The band's friends, critics at NME, gave Is This It
a 10 out of 10 review, with writer John Robinson
calling it one of the best debuts by a guitar
band in 20 years. Pitchfork in a 9.1 rating, hilariously stated,
(22:30):
Are they really that good? Oh fucking course not, while
otherwise giving them kudos for their relentless melodies, saying the
instant gratification.
of solid driving rhythms while maintaining strong but simple hooks
that seem somehow familiar yet wholly original, all while reminding
us that the band are not deities. But it certainly
(22:52):
felt like they were. The Strokes became the dictionary definition
of the coolest band you've never heard of, even though
they were so cool, everyone, you know, had heard of them.
When researching for this episode, our writers recalled the Strokes'
second ever visit to Toronto for a tiny show at
the Horseshoe Tavern in October of 2001, located just east
(23:15):
of Spadina on Queen Street. Fans queued up for hours
in a line that spanned over two blocks just for
a chance to get inside to see the band, considering
the capacity is about $350.
400 people at a stretch at that venue, that is
a packed house. Much as Sookie and Lee was on
site just before that show to ask them what it
(23:37):
was like being the saviors of pop music. Well yeah, like,
what are we saving pop from? What what's going on
in pop music that needs to be
Speaker 2 (23:45):
saved? I don't think we're like saving pop. I think
you know those kind of cos like I hear that
stuff like, you know.
All the time I think people just they need to like,
you know, I think things that people want hope because
there's so much like crap going on and they see
the way like big business runs everything, so there's obviously
a lot of frustration, so you want to say things
(24:06):
like that, but I think it's what we're doing is
a little different than just trying to like you know,
restore the music industry or anything like that. I think
we're just trying to.
Put out something that had a positive effect and, um,
in time, you know, like, you know, different things will
happen from it, but like it's it's not a time
(24:27):
to like predict, at
least
Speaker 1 (24:28):
for
Speaker 2 (24:28):
us.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
By the time 2001 closed out, Is This It was
named the best album of the entire year by Billboard,
Entertainment Weekly, NME and Time to name a few, as
well as obtaining high rankings in the New York Times,
Rolling Stone, and USA Today.
BBC Radio's Zane Lowe, now of Apple Music fame, called
the album a masterpiece, saying that it essentially redefined the
(24:53):
template for rock and roll for the modern day, forcing
labels to actually look for hot new rock bands to sign.
Rolling Stone agreed in 2009 they ranked Is This It
as the second best album of the 2000s.
In 2020, they upped the ante by calling it the
114th best album of all time before inducting it as
(25:15):
the 10th best album of the 21st century so far
at the beginning of the year, putting them in the
company of fellow top tenors like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar,
and Radiohead. So are you taking notes? There will be
a quiz.
Amidst all the accolades, the Strokes fundamentally stayed true to
themselves artistically, which, to be honest, meant there wasn't exactly
(25:39):
an overwhelming commercial boom for last night, or is this it?
The album would peak at number 33 on the Billboard
200 and has only been a platinum selling record in
America for about a decade and a half. Last night
entered the top 5 on the US modern rock charts.
In late 2001, didn't break through to the Hot 100
(26:00):
and actually wouldn't even go platinum until 2021 as a
single with the inclusion of digital streams. Also in 2021,
some 20 years after its release, Rolling Stone would proclaim
last night the 155th best song of all time in
a companion list to the aforementioned albums guide.
(26:21):
The Strokes would release one more single from Is This It,
the underrated Someday, before returning in 2003 with Is This
It's perfect companion album, Room on Fire. No longer music's
best kept secret, Room on Fire was also critically acclaimed.
And still divides opinion between the most hardcore of Strokes
(26:43):
fans on which album is better. You can start arguing
about that now with the BBC even giving it the
dubious distinction of an acclaimed album that nobody listens to
anymore in 2018.
The Strokes would go on to put out one last
record in the 2000s, 5's heavier first impressions of Earth,
(27:04):
before taking an extended hiatus for the rest of the decade.
In that time, Julian Casablancas would release one solo album,
Praises for the Young.
The band would return in 2011 with the cult favorite Angles,
an album which initially sparked rumors of infighting within the
band when it was whispered that Julian and the rest
(27:26):
of the band actually wrote the music and lyrics and
melodies separate from each other, causing a myriad of issues
for all involved. Casablancas has since denied that that was
the case for what it's worth.
Angles would be followed by 2013's Comedown Machine, another cult favorite.
It would be promoted sparsely and performed poorly. 2016's Future
(27:50):
Present Pat EP would keep the band afloat as they
mostly performed festival dates to close out the 2010s. In
the meantime, Casablancas would form a new band called The
Voids with the stated goal of representing things unseen and
exploring music from the margins, purposely positioning themselves.
A band that is uninterested in mainstream attention. The Strokes
(28:13):
looked to return to form when they hooked up with
the band whisperer, Rick Rubin for their first full length
in seven years, 2020's The New Abnormal. The album turned
out to be quite aptly named, and the band wouldn't
really be able to tour the record properly until well
into 2022, you know, because of COVID. I'm sure they
(28:35):
were home baking sourdough like the rest of us. Reflecting
on
On the music of The Strokes, Casablancas would tell the
Times in 2020. For me, the first two records were
one creative enterprise, but by the time the third record
came out, there were other issues going on. I liked
a lot of modern classical music. That was where my
mind was at, but it crashed with all the rock
(28:56):
cliches of the touring and the drinking and infighting and
the bullshit. Hitting the sweet spot between edgy and catchy
is the goal in everything I do, and is this
it is always what you're aiming for.
With the band now comfortably all in their 40s, that
you might not be surprised to hear that Casablancas has
remarked several times over the past few years that he's
(29:18):
kind of overperforming last night. I hate when bands do that.
It made you famous, it made you tons of money.
I don't feel bad for you, play the song. In fact,
play it twice, because that's why we're talking about it.
It's the encore.
In that same interview with the Times in 2020, Julian
would also note, when you start playing 30 or 40 shows,
(29:40):
the music doesn't move you, you feel phony. To some extent,
that's why I play with voids. I couldn't care less
about playing last night. I'm a human animal and a
prisoner of the crowd's reaction.
On a biological level, I don't want to care, but
if people like it, it feels better than if people
hate a song. Late last year, he even doubled down,
(30:01):
telling The Guardian last night by The Strokes is pretty
dead to me. I'm not sure why. If I heard
it on the radio, I'd probably turn it off.
Well, this is awkward. I was just about to queue
it up for you too. I'm Ruby Carr and that
was the story of The Strokes last night. Thank you
so much for listening. Now, make sure to subscribe wherever
you get your podcast and you can drop us a
(30:23):
review with what songs you'd like us to cover in
a future episode.
Encore is an iHeart Radio Canada podcast. Download the free
iHeartRadio app and subscribe. Thank you. Thank you so much
for coming.
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