The Strokes biography
New York five-piece The Strokes are regularly held up not only as pioneers of the so-called 'garage revival' in rock music in the early 2000s, but also as one of the best bands of the last decade. The energy of their 1970s-influenced guitar songs is only matched by the near-suffocating media hype that has occasionally surrounded them.
Beginnings
Julian ('Jules') Casablancas, the lead songwriter and front man for the band, first played with friends Nick Valensi (guitar) and Fab Moretti when they were at school together in New York. Nikolai Fraiture (bass) was at a different school, but was already friends with Casablancas.
Julian had a troubled teenage period: after some drinking problems he was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland to try and get him back on track. However, it was there that he met Albert Hammond, Jr. (guitar).
Years later, back in New York, Hammond shared an apartment with Casablancas, and in 1998 they started a band together, playing several songs, including 'Last Nite,' which were later to be developed into some of the band's most famous tracks.
After gigging heavily in New York, the band put out a demo, which managed to make its way to the UK and to Rough Trade Records. Ahead of the release of the Modern Age EP in 2001, a free mp3 download of Last Nite was given away online, raising their profile significantly. The new attention the band was getting led to them becoming the centre of a startlingly aggressive bidding war between record labels.
Is This It
The debut album Is This It from the up-and-coming band was released in August 2001 in the UK, and in October in the US, and was immediately greeted with massive critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, though each country had a slightly different cover and track listing (in America, a track named New York City Cops was removed, as it contains the refrain "New York City Cops, they ain't too smart" - this was an act of good faith following the 9/11 attacks). The singles from the album included 'Hard to Explain,' 'Someday' and the all-conquering 'Last Nite.'
On the back of the huge, multi-million selling success of Is This It, the band toured across the globe, to Europe, Australia, Japan, and around the USA. They also played the Carling Weekend festivals in the UK in 2002, as well as support slots for The White Stripes and Weezer. One of their biggest highlights was supporting The Rolling Stones, and Is This It went on to win the band a BRIT Award for best international newcomer, and an MTV award for best international album.
Room on Fire
After the band were lauded as the leaders of a new rock revolution in which guitar music was once again breaking boundaries and getting mainstream praise, a less commercially successful, but equally critically applauded second album, Room on Fire came out in October 2003. Sonically, it was to a certain extent just a more tightly honed version of the first record. The first single from the album was '12:51,' followed later by 'Reptilia' and 'The End Has No End.'
The band went on tour, this time taking a young group of upstarts named Kings of Leon with them as support.
During this period, Fab Moretti's relationship with film star Drew Barrymore brought extra attention from the media. The band were had been given a niche by the magazines and website, and their fashion for wearing white belts and skinny ties pigeonholed them for many.
After plans to release a live album recorded at Alexandra Palace in London hit snags, The Strokes played dates in Brazil, Argentina and Chile as part of a South American mini-tour in October 2005.
First Impressions of Earth
'Juicebox,' the first single from The Stokes' even more polished (and even more 'pop' focused) third album First Impressions of Earth was their second hit to reach the UK top ten. The album did not get particularly good reviews, but did extremely well in terms of sales, entering the charts at number one in the UK and number four in the US. However, it is considered by many critics and fans to be the least accomplished record of the band's career so far.
Extended tours throughout Britain and America came next, and The Strokes also won Best International Band at the NME Awards in 2006. They also played festivals throughout Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, South Korea, and gigged in Australia and Mexico.
But it was when they returned to the US for another stretch of dates that Casablancas told fans the band were going to take an extensive break.
Fourth Album: 2008 - Present
Finally after several delays because of apparent disagreements over which songs should feature on their fourth album, Angles, was released in March 2011 in the UK, their first record for five years, which peaked at number three. After such a big gap between records, the band are now currently working on their fifth studio album.
In June 2010, The Strokes headlined at the Isle of Wight Festival, which was their first gig together since 2006. In early 2011, The Strokes embarked on a world tour and announced they'd be headlining at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in the August 2011.