It's not done yet...

The Rip it Up one... simple scruffy spunks Scruffy rock stars get all the chicks. Julie Warmington and Kylie Klein Nixon corner the dashingly shaggy boys from the Strokes in London - once at an interview, then at a party - and find they just wanna drink and rock. Meeting Julian Casablancas is like meeting living proof that rock'n'roll will never die. The 22-year-old New Yorker and singer with the Strokes should be embracing the "now" culture of many of his peers. He should be scrupulously clean, drug and booze free, heading down to Florida for the summer break with a pretty blond on his arm and Basement Jaxx on his personal MP3 player. But he's not. Rip It Up still hasn't met him. He's in bed, hungover and refusing to get up. He is unwashed, jet lagged and beer crusted. Yay! We don't mind. When he finally does show, two hours late for for the day's round of interviews, he's dishevelled and rye. His grin is about as infectious as rabies and he is, quite frankly, sexy as fuck. "Hey, this is new," notes band manager Ryan Gentles, whose been sitting fretting in the hotel lobby for what appears to be half the night and all of the morning. He's referring to Julian's tan La Coste jumper, not the attitude. When we get our turn at the Strokes info trough, the boys are tucking into Thai rice and a round of amber nectar. It's 1pm. Handshakes and suitably half-arsed "nice to meet yous" are flung at us and we wade. "New Zealand," bellows Fabrizio "Call Me Fab" Moretti (drummer) when he hears the article is for Rip It Up. "Man, that's supposed to be a beautiful place. I have a friend who went there on an exchange,he said it was really cool." Aww, how sweet, he's heard of us. So when are you gonna go play there? "Dunno," whispers bass player Nikolai Fraiture shyly, "but we're going to Australia next month." Ah, great. Let's move on shall we? "The coolest band on the planet", "the saviours of rock", playing on the catwalks of New York and Paris, hounded, followed and adored. Rumours abound - their names are made up, they were put together by the lead singer's dad (John Casablancas, founder of the Elite Model Agency), they're constantly fighting with each other, they're constantly fighting with strangers, they drink to much, they're gay, they're straight, they're homophobes. Everybody wants to know everything they can. But one thing is sure, The Strokes are roundly agreed to be the quintessential rock band, the "great white hope" of nu-rock'n'roll. They're more than that. They're five guys who hooked up in high school with a shared interest in booze, girls and guitars. Casablancas (the vocals, wit, sex, and charm behind The Strokes) met Nicky Valensi (the guitar playing, gorgeously cynical, faux English schoolboy) at New York City's Drake School before being shipped off to L'Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland for some "discipline". It was here that Casablancas bonded with Albert Hammond Jnr (dead pan and wised-up afro with a guitar). Seems the Hammonds were having the same problems as the Casablancas. Neither Julian nor Albert has anything particularly nice to say about the school, apart from adoring it for introducing them to each other. A year later Julian would be re-united with Nicky and meet up with Nikolai Fraiture (bass, stoically shy and sweet) and Fabrizio Moretti (drummer, earnest and excitable, all round ace guy) at The Dwight School on Manhattan's Upper West Side.. When fate drew Albert to the Big Apple via Los Angeles (his songwriting father, Albert Hammond, wrote It Never Rains In Southern California), Julian was the first person he looked up. Luckily the first vestiges of The Strokes had already been formed and all they needed was another guitarist. Albert was their man. They performed together - properly - for the first time in 1998. There are stories floating around about debuts at Nicky's sister's 21st birthday and seedy bars in the village. Almost all these stories they will admit, are true. So they slowly built up up a reputation until finally getting booked at New York's Mercury Lounge. There they met Ryan Gentles, who became their manager. The Strokes were complete. The rest will be history, as premature as that might be for a band who have just released their debut album, Is This It? So what are they all about? Besides saving us from the glut of pre-masticated pop and souls stifling dance, what are their hopes an ambitions? Playing music and doing their stuff, by all accounts. Their stuff: a sublimes mix of 70s New York City and noughty's savvy. Fashion flash and strep throats, with a smattering of anglophilia to match the op-shop chic. Garage soul-sensibilities and themes as diverse as personal disgust and underage lust. We discover that Julian always roots for the underdog and doesn't "really give a fuck about baseball," and that the last time Albert cried was "as the plane was taking off". For Fab it was when Nicky's girlfriend dumped him (for the cute one from Weezer no less). At this, Nicky leaps to his feet to sing, Don't Cry For Me Fabrizio, at the top of his lungs. "The Beatles hated each other, but we love each other," Nicky says. To prove the point they all agree that if they could only take five things to a desert island they would take each other and their manager. That is until Julian demands that one band member opt out so they can "take something more useful like a girl, or our fucking instruments". Just in time Nicky reasons that they can make their instruments out of coconuts and bamboo. The band is open and unguarded - they want to chat. Chiefly with each other, but it's fine just being around this kind of energy.

two hours late for for the day's round of interviews. His grin is about as infectious as rabies and he is, quite frankly, sexy as fuck.

Nicky leaps to his feet to sing, Don't Cry For Me Fabrizio, at the top of his lungs."The Beatles hated each other, but we love each other,"