THE STROKES: Hard to Explain

“Before Albert (Hammond Jr., guitarist) joined, we sucked,” explained guitarist Nick Valensi to The Gaurdian, a year before. “We still sucked for at least a year after Albert came in.”

“I feel like I will break under the pressure that I put on myself,” Casablancas confessed to Mojo on the eve of the release of Room on Fire. “What if a critic, or the general consensus, says, ‘He really let us down this time,’ that would fuck with my head and hurt me. But if I knew it was true, that would hurt me 10 times more.”

Julian Casablancas was born in New York City on August 23, 1978, to John Casablancas, founder of the Elite Modeling agency and Jeanette Christiansen, former Miss Denmark. Julian was an only child whose parents separated when he was seven. He lived with his mother and, exposed to her pain over the divorce, grew to resent his father. At school, he settled into the role of class clown and troublemaker, until he realized girls appreciated him more if he acted serious. The first time he got drunk was when he was 11. At school he would ask friends who had access to their parents’ alcohol to bring him drinks, and he would get wasted in the morning before class. After getting caught, Julian was forced to visit a juvenile rehab center two days a week.

In an effort to straighten him out, his father sent him to Switzerland, to Le Rosey, the same swanky boarding school he himself had attended and loved. The school, with its strict disciplinary code and mandatory 6 a.m. jogs through the snow, was a nightmare for Julian, who didn’t like his classmates and was frequently punished for his behavior. But two important things happened to him there: the first was meeting fellow student and future Stroke Albert Hammond Jr., son of British songwriter Albert Hammond (co-author of “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” and Starship‘s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”) and future Stroke, the second was his discovery of music, which previously he’d had little interest in.

“My step dad sent me this tape of the Best of the Doors,” he told The Observer in 2001. “That night I stayed in my room and just played it over and over again.”

Julian’s stepfather, Sam Adoquie, a painter and art teacher, would become one of Julian’s biggest influences. It was Adoquie, through long conversations about art, who instilled in Julian the idea that constant hard work was the only way to achieve anything of lasting artistic value. He is the first person thanked in the credits of Is This It.

After spending two years at Le Rosey, Julian returned to New York and enrolled in the Dwight high school, where he reconnected with childhood friend Nickolai Fraiture. Fraiture had taken up the bass and was jamming with schoolmates Nick Valensi and Fabrizio Moretti. Together with Julian, they formed an early version of The Strokes. When Hammond moved to New York to attend film school, he bumped into Julian, who coincidentally was working directly across the street from Hammond’s new apartment.