from 'THE BAND WHO FELL TO EARTH' (THE FACE, JULY 2001) The Strokes were born and raised in New York, except Albert who was born in LA, and Fabrizio who was born in Rio De Janeiro and moved to New York when he was three. Julian and Nicolai met aged five at a French school in the city (on account of their parents being French). At 13, Julian's parents sent him away to L'Institut Le Rosey, a private boys' school in Switzerland. Like Julian, Albert was also sent there for 'discipline problems'. They all reunited at the Dwight School on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Are The Strokes rich kids, slumming it? Julian's dad John Casablancas might have founded the Elite model agency but, says Julian, 'it's not like we're posh kids who drove fancy cars or anything. You've got to have money to live in Manhattan, but we all still hung out on the street and drank 40s.' 'Anyway,' says Nick, 'it's sort of irrelevant what our parents do, because it's not like they help us play songs or help dress us up...or do anything!' They were all surrounded by music when they were kids: Fabrizio's father played guitar on cruise ships to and from Brazil, Albert learned guitar from the age of nine, and Julian reckoned he knew that he was going to be a songwriter when he was 'like, 14'. The Strokes started playing together, performing Julian's songs, in 1998. During 1999 they were booked to play some shows at the Mercury Lounge, a shoe-box club in the Lower East Side. The club's booking agent, Ryan Gentles, became 'like a buddy and a manager'. Last year Ryan sent The Strokes' three-song demo tape to Geoff Travis at London's Rough Trade records. According to Strokes' lore, Travis called Gentles and offered to sign the band while the first song on the tape was still clattering away in the background. The same demo was released in the UK in March as their first single, the three-track EP 'The Modern Age'. So it came to pass that this year The Strokes found themselves in the curious position of playing small but sold-out shows in London, while being pretty much ignored in New York. For the last month, the band have been making the two-hour drive from New York to Philadelphia to play a Wednesday-night residency at 250-capacity bar The Kyber. It's a journey that involves the band collecting their guitars, drums and amps from a rehearsal rooms in the rough Hell's Kitchen district (Madonna used to rehearse there, her name is still graffitied on the wall, while Fabrizio was once mugged three times in the same night by a man holding his fist under his t-shirt, pretending it was a gun), loading up the van, unloading it in Philadelphia, playing the show at midnight, and then driving back. It's starting to lose its appeal. 'Man, I wish there was button we could press and all the kit would be loaded into the van,' sighs Nick. 'It's called money,' says Nicolai. 'And roadies'.

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"studied all the rules and i want no part but i let you in just to break this heart"