Equally inspired by classic tunesmiths like Buddy Holly and John Lennon as
well as the attitude and angular riffs of fellow New Yorkers Television and the
Velvet Underground, the Strokes were also equally blessed and cursed with an
enormous amount of hype — particularly from the U.K. music press, whose
adulation for the group rivaled their fervor for Oasis in the early '90s. Barely in
their twenties by the time their debut album Is This It? arrived in 2001,
singer/songwriter Julian Casablancas, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert
Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and drummer Fabrizio Moretti's success
wasn't quite of the overnight variety, but it still arrived pretty swiftly.
Casablancas (the son of Elite modeling agency kingpin John Casablancas),
Moretti (who began playing drums at age five), and Valensi started playing
together in 1998 while they attended Manhattan's private prep school Dwight
School. Soon after they met Fraiture, who attended the Upper East Side's Le
Cest Francais, 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 I've Loved
Before") came from Los Angeles to attend film school at N.Y.U. and was invited
into the band by Casablancas; the two met at L'Institut 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 City's 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 N.Y.C.'s Luna. The
band's 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 group's 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 championed the band,
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 their 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 group's 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 woman's nude
behind and hip with a leather-gloved hand resting on it; the U.K. chains
Woolworth's 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 "NYC Cops," feeling the song was inappropriate in the wake of the
terrorist attacks that struck New York prior to the album's 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 York's
Hammerstein Ballroom. The remainder of 2001 and 2002 saw the group's
profile continue to rise. Is This It? and the Strokes were lauded in many ways,
ranging from This Isn't It, an EP of instrumental versions of some of the album's
songs performed by a mystery band called the Diff'rent Strokes (Pulp's 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, the 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 their
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 band's 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, new
wave-inspired sound Room on Fire, which arrived in fall 2003. Just before the
album's release, the Strokes hit the road once again, taking Kings of Leon with
them.
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