Julian Casablancas is very, very drunk. Backstage at Birdy's a 500-capacity club in a quiet Indianapolis neighbourhood. The Strokes' singer flops his head heavily on a wooden shelf. "Fuck!" he slurs and slumps to the floor, before trying, and failing, to light a cigarette.
Rising shakily, he lurches to a pool table where the group's drummer, Fabrizio Moretti, is about to break. Casablancas runs a hand into the rack of balls, sending four or five into pockets. "Hey!" Moretti scolds him, but Casablancas is already stumbling through a door toward a throng of excited fans.
"I want a fight!" he yells to no one in particular, but he won't find one with these fans and, oblivious, the excited throng struggle to engage him in meaningful conversation as he scrawls messily on their CDs. He won't find one with Moretti either, who waits until the singer is out of earshot before grumbling, 'Cocksucker' under his breath.
Earlier, guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. had played down The Strokes' reputation for violence. "We don't fight," he insisted. "I've tried to get rid of that rumour. It's not a good one to have. If you punch someone, nothing changes." If Casablancas, his belly full of shots and beer, is currently making a mockery of Hammond's pacifist stance, Moretti assures Q that The Strokes do not, at least, fight amongst themselves.
"I've been friends with Julian since I was 13 years old," he shrugs. "We've had a lot of time to work things out." Moretti continues to sulk over his pool game, distractedly throwing a sponge ball at a miniature basketball hoop and cursing with lessening ferocity as his anger cools. The reason why Moretti avoids a confrontation with Casablancas are three-fold: 1)There is no reasoning with the singer in his present condition. 2)Moretti is too pleasant a young man to be of any use in a punch-up. And 3)He stresses, as do all five Strokes, that no personal issues should be allowed to fuck up what each refers to as the 'perfect' band.
"I'm doing what I really wanted to do all my life and it's being executed perfectly," Moretti says with a faint air of incredulity. "We talk about it all the time. It's almost too good to be true."
Tonight's show confirms The Strokes as the world's most exhilarating rock 'n' roll group. With a mean age of 21, they possess the youthful arrogance to toss away Last Nite, their Lust For Life inspired hit single, as the second song of a brisk 40-minute set in which nervy punk rock energy is combined with a certain New York cool that has drawn repeated comparison with The Velvet Underground and Talking Heads.
They play the whole of their debut album, 'Is This It' (no question mark: "Aesthetically, it didn't look right," Hammond explains.) plus one new song, 'Meet Me In The Bathroom,' written four days previously. "I think it's good," Casablancas informs the audience, adding nonchalantly, "That's my opinion, anyway."
Dryly, Casablancas dedicates a song to long-forgotten, scientifically precise thrash metal band Anacrusis ("The best heavy metal band ever - they'll change your fucking life."), then jumps off the stage to sing 'Hard To Explain' while being playfully buffeted by pogoing teens. During the last song, he took the camera from Q's photographer. Seemingly, unsure whether to take a picture of the crowd or smash the camera against a wall, he paused for a few seconds before gently placing it on a backline speaker cabinet.
At the finish, Fab Moretti performs an expert stagedive then hurries back stage for a beer as Bob Marley's 'Rastaman Live Up' airs over the PA: Marley is The Strokes' favorite artist.
"Every time we play I feel like kissing everyone in the crowd and going home and partying with them," Moretti beams. "There's just a vibe in the room, an energy."
It's this energy, coupled with a shrewd pop nous, which has elicited praise from A-list celebrity admirers like Noel Gallagher, Joe Strummer and Courtney Love, making The Strokes the most talked about rock band of the past 12 months. Is This It has been acclaimed the best debut album since 'Definitely Maybe,' but dissenting voices have been raised: The Strokes, they say, have been hyped by a UK media so desperate for new rock 'n' roll heroes that they've mistaken style for substance. If the wry title of The Strokes' album has failed to deflate the hype, the band offer their own sense of perspective.
"I think any fuss over anything is always a little much," Albert Hammond reasons. "I would hate us too if I had just read about us."
"It's more of a problem in England," Julian Casablancas sniffs. "Here in America, there's a different perception of us. In England, it's blown out of proportion, but I think the music will outlast the hype. So, it doesn't really worry me if people buy into it or not."
Nevertheless, people bought into 'Is This It,' pushing the LP into the UK Top 10 in its first week of release. And while chart success could be attributed to constant media attention, it's apparent that press hype can be ineffective if the music doesn't come up to scratch, as Mick Jagger and The White Stripes will have discovered in recent months. Fortunately, The Strokes have been at hand to answer their critics with an exhilarating debut album. And being one of the most exciting live acts around has helped, as Joe Strummer will testify.
"He just said it was the first time in a long time he's seen a show and smiled the whole way through," Casablancas shrugs. "The Clash have a lot of great songs, it was really flattering. But it freaks me out a little bit. Part of me liked it and part of me went, Wow, this is really weird!"
In truth, much of Julian Casablancas' young life might be described as a little weird. As the son of John Casablancas, founder of the Elite model agency, Julian was born into money but has intimated that he and his father were never close. Julian enjoyed a privileged education. At 13, he attended the Dwight School on Manhattan's Upper West Side (celebrated Dwight alumni include pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and author Truman Capote). It was at Dwight that Casablancas met Fabrizio Moretti and Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi, and it was at Le Rosey, the oldest private school in Switzerland, that he first encountered Albert Hammond, Jr., the other American student in his year. Le Rosey's 'clear code of discipline' made scant impression on Casablancas, who reportedly entered rehab in his late teens.
"Where did you here that?" he frowns before confessing. "I was doing early morning hard liquor drinking. It's not worth talking about."
He is equally dismissive of John Lydon's assertion that rock 'n' roll is a working-class pursuit. "I guess it depends on what style of music and what you're saying. If you're playing music like the Sex Pistols, I guess he's got a point."
Now 22, Julian Casablancas' life keeps getting weirder. Eighteen months ago The Strokes were regularly playing to crowds of 20 in New York clubs. Now they are touted as leaders of a new rock underground. The Strokes' ascent has been dizzying: on January 31st 2001 they played their first gig supporting ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at Portsmouth's humble Wedgwood Rooms; by August 24th they were sharing the main stage at the Reading Festival with Travis Iggy Pop and Green Day.
"I puked before Reading," Casablancas laughs. "It was pretty nerve-racking."