BUZZ: IT'S THE ELUSIVE WHIRL that makes the rock world run, and the Strokes have it in abundance. Distinct from its all too common cousin, hype, it's an electric noise that can't be manufactured, a sort of unspoken consensus that here is a band that matters.
Impossibly cool and unrealistically handsome in their black leather, their seventies shag haircuts, and their Mediterranean complexions, the five New York City twentysomethings tear through their set with sweaty exuberance as a capacity crowd of journalists, radio insiders, and record-company weasels are swept up by the energy of the snarling melodies and breakneck rhythms. The Strokes are living up to the promise of The Modern Age, the debut EP they released on England's Rough Trade Records, and they know it. But the fact that they've got almost all of this jaded crowd pogoing in place isn't quite enough to satisfy them. They want to convince everyone. Singer Julian Casablancas can see the disinterested middle-aged executive standing in the center of the throng. This guy has places to go, other acts to see, an expense account to abuse, and a ponytail to flaunt. When he impatiently looks at his Rolex and scans the evening's schedule for the third or fourth time, Casablancas finally lets him have it. "Don't you fucking look at your watch while I'm singing!" the front man shouts, then returns to the tune without missing a beat. Behind him, the band doubles the intensity of its attack, and Mr. Ponytail quietly slithers from the room.
"You've got people stacked all on top of each other here, so there's gonna be that little taste of New York in the music ... a vibe that comes across."
To find the last New York band that generated any real national excitement, you have to go back to the early eighties and avant-garde noise rockers Sonic Youth or frat-party rappers the Beastie Boys. Part of the problem is the intense media pressure cooker that is New York--it's hard for an artist to develop something original under the glare of a million spotlights. There are also the harsh realities of real estate. It's hard to be a garage band in a city where renting a parking space can cost $1,400 a month.
The Strokes entered this rat race with a distinct advantage. All but one of the five are children of privilege, the offspring of immigrants who came to New York from Europe or South America and scored big. Julian's dad is even famous: John Casablancas is the founder of a chain of modeling schools and the former head of one of the city's most successful modeling agencies. Father and son aren't especially close; Julian was raised by his mother under a different roof, and he denies rumors that he did some modeling for his dad. But the elder Casablancas did pay for the part of his son's music-school tuition that a two-year scholarship didn't cover.
Casablancas, Nick Valensi, and Fabrizio Moretti met and became fast friends during their high school years, in the mid-nineties, bonding through a common obsession with music. Unlike most of their classmates, whom they describe as a bunch of "wanna-be homies" and soon-to-be Eminem fans, they were never drawn to gangsta rap. Instead, they listened to the then-current alternative bands--Nirvana and Pearl Jam--as well as to the sounds passed down by parents and older siblings, everything from seventies punk to Bob Marley. This, coupled with a natural rebelliousness, set them apart from the "in" crowd, and it drew them closer together.
"I don't know if we were the outsiders, but there was definitely a group of popular kids, and it wasn't us," Valensi says. "We were just into playing music."
"Overall, it was a pretty bad experience for all of us," Moretti says of their shared high school. "Eventually Julian quit, and Nick left around tenth or eleventh grade. I was left there by myself, and it was horrendous. We were really the only friends each other had."
The trio learned to play their instruments together, with Valensi devoting himself to the guitar that he first picked up at age five and Moretti mastering the drums by practicing in a soundproofed closet in his mother's apartment. Eventually they were joined by bassist Nikolai Fraiture, a friend of Julian's from grammar school, and Los Angeles-born second guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., whom Casablancas met at 13 during a short stint at a Swiss boarding school. (Julian's dad sent him there thinking it would straighten him out, but it only intensified the kid's desire to rock.)
Ressentiment, Nietzsche called it--a spirit of revenge that festers in the weak, prompting them to seek vengeance against the strong, the noble, and the talented.
From the beginning, Casablancas was the band's leader and songwriter, chronicling typical postadolescent romantic woes ("It hurts to say, but I want you to stay"), and pondering life's big questions ("Is this it?"). He did it in classic rock fashion--with maximum energy and undeniably strong hooks.
"Julian was writing cool songs before he even knew what he was doing, when he only knew how to play on one string," Valensi says. "He's able to take some influences, listen to something, take what's good from it, and leave behind what's bad. He can listen to the Beach Boys and leave behind the pussy, wimpy stuff and only take these cool chord progressions or unheard-of melodies. He can listen to Freddy King and take all the balls and aggression that you get from it but leave behind the standard blues progressions."
On "Barely Legal," "Someday," and the title track from their just-released debut album, Is This It (RCA), the Strokes also incorporate unmistakable echoes of New York rock history. There are hints of the serpentine guitars of both Television and Richard Hell and the Voidoids (Valensi and Hammond rarely play separate rhythm and lead parts), of the spirited, pogo-worthy rhythms of the punk and new-wave bands, and of the glamorous, sexy swagger of the New York Dolls. But mostly there are the insistent pulse, droning riffs, subway-train rhythms, and urgent, monotone vocals of the legendary group that preceded and inspired all of the above.
"When I was probably 13 or 14 my brother bought me a Velvet Underground CD, and I just loved it," Casablancas says, somewhat sheepishly. Valensi adds, "The VU was hugely inspirational. It's the one band that all five of us can unanimously say, 'They were a great fucking band!' "
Critics have long scoffed at the notion of authenticity in rock: This is a music born of blatant thievery; everybody steals from everybody else, and if you're gonna rip somebody off, you might as well turn to the best. So better the Strokes take a page from the Lou Reed songbook than be another in the long line of rap-rock clones. Still, until recently, Casablancas was reluctant to admit the level of his Velvets fandom, for fear that it would somehow cheapen the accomplishments of his own songwriting. And all the band members think "the whole seventies New York rock thing" has been overemphasized by the press in stories about the Strokes.