Julian Casablancas
Julian Casablancas (born
August 23,
1978) is the
lead vocalist and
songwriter of the
band The Strokes.
Julian Casablancas is the son of
John Casablancas, the founder of
Elite Model Management, and
Jeanette Christiansen, a
Danish model who was
Miss Denmark in
1965. His parents divorced when he was young. He attended kindergarten with future bandmate
Nikolai Fraiture at the
Lycée Français de New York. When he was 14, he was caught drinking before class and was enrolled in rehab for two days a week. Later, because of his poor grades, his father sent him to the
Institut Le Rosey in
Switzerland, which he attended for six months. One of the few American students on campus other than Casablancas was
Albert Hammond Jr., who would later join The Strokes as a guitarist. When Casablancas returned to New York, he continued his education at
Dwight School, where he met
Fabrizio Moretti and
Nick Valensi, who would later also become fellow band members. Casablancas attended
Five Towns College on
Long Island, receiving a scholarship after writing a classical composition.
Casablancas' musical influences are varied and wide ranging, spanning from
The Velvet Underground to
Nirvana. In 1999, Julian began to form the early workings of The Strokes with band mates Nikolai Fraiture, Nick Valensi and Fabrizio Morretti. Soon thereafter, a childhood friend of Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr. would move to New York City from California to attend film school, completing the band. The group began performing in New York City's East Village in small bar venues that were, at the time, the only places for underground rock bands to gain practice.
As the momentum of the rock revival gained speed heading into 2000, buzz began to build around bands such as The Strokes and others in what was sort of a random osmosis of sorts, as many of the practitioners of the rock revival noted, "it was simply time". As rap-metal such as
Limp Bizkit and the boy band craze began to fade away, the door was opened for pioneering rock bands to return to the limelight.
The Strokes eclectic bar sound, with their old, pre-modern electric twang and catchy rhythms helped the charge of the rock resurgence, though its initial surge was very independent from the mainstream. It also helped that The Strokes, especially Casablancas, possessed boyish good looks and a rogue, combination fashion sense that meshed the rock of the 70's with the grunge of the 90's, a look now coined as "hipster". The look signatured messy, bed-headish hair with vintage clothing and Converse style shoes.
Fine tuning their sound, The Strokes were able to help steer the direction of the rock revival in late 2000 when band-booker
Ryan Gentles was attracted enough to the group's sound to manage them. In doing so, Gentles sent a demo to UK record executives who fell in love with the band's dynamic sound and quickly released their initial EP, "The Modern Age". Less than a year later, and under the pressure of record demands, Julian Casablancas penned the remainder of the band's debut album, "Is This It".
The album was touted immensely popular with Julian's mysterious, yet identifiable lyrics, characteristically low singing voice and aloof demeanor helping the group push itself up the charts. The original album was set to release with one of the band's edgier songs, an anti-police rant by Casablancas, called "New York City Cops", but with the timing of the records release marked briefly after the September 11th attacks in 2001, the band instead decided to release the album with its B-Side, "When It Started" for the US release. Nevertheless, the song "New York City Cops" remains one of the band's most popular hits in Europe and has since made its way into live performances in the United States as well.
After the band's initial world tour, the personal pressure on Casablancas was tremendous. Barely out of his teens, the American and British mass medias have penned Casablancas as the Cobain of a new generation, a moniker Julian and his band members disliked (although they do like Nirvana's music), wary to play off the success of only their 11-song debut. At the same time, RCA Records, the major label which released The Strokes first album applied tremendous pressure on Casablancas shoulders to write the band's sophomore album in only three months, giving the group little time to recuperate from an exhausting tour.
The result was nearly catastrophic for the band, as Casablancas reverted to drinking as an escape from his insecurity and
depression, and The Strokes attitude shifted from enthusiastic to cynical, often playing off their own success in interviews with sarcasm that no one seemed to grasp but themselves. This led to the unfortunate misinterpretation that Casablancas and company were arrogant and careless and placed even more weight on the release of the second album.
Casablancas' original desire with the group's second work,
Room on Fire, was to go with a bigger, bolder sound than their lo-fi initial release, but Julian's drinking and obsession with detail clashed with big-market producer
Nigel Godrich, and, unable to come to an artistic agreement, The Strokes returned to work with Gordon Raphael on a second release. The result of a second release under Raphael was a second album that sounded remarkably similar to the band's first work, and though Casablancas attempted to blend his admiration of various non-rock influences, such as reggae icon
Bob Marley into the second album, the sound didn't appropriately display his desires.
As other bands that had ridden the wake of The Strokes' success began to capitalize on their poorly received second outing, Casablancas began to clash with the media further, as he digested frequent abuse from music media as a one-trick pony lyrically and artistically, whose ignorance and whining did not allow him for the musical range which he was expected to fulfill. Such clashes with the media continued to be reason for Casablancas to drink, and he began drinking himself to the point where it looked as though The Strokes would in fact fade into irrelevance.
As 2004 began to wind down, the band's future was in turmoil, and though the marriage between Joslin and Casablancas has been much touted as similar to that of
Lennon and
Ono and
Cobain and
Courtney Love, Joslin may very well have been Julian's saving grace heading into 2005. Primed for a depressive downward spiral, Casablancas began to sober up as a result of Joslin in his life and approached his band and the music industry with a much more fleeting ambition then he had in the band's first in second effort, and for the first time it seemed as though his excitement for making music was on tap with that of his band members.
In late 2005, The Strokes again ascended to the upper echelon of the modern rock charts with their ambitious single, "Juicebox", a song that featured a heavier, bigger, deeper sound than the band's previous works. As 2006 ushered itself in, the band began another world tour, this time focusing on smaller, more sincere concerts in tighter arenas.
As the band returned to the limelight,
New York Magazine magazine took another stab at Casablancas, calling him an "egomaniacal tyrant", and equating him to someone who had studied, perhaps, yet misread the qualities of a rock and roll star such as
Mick Jagger. The comment was made because the interviewing columnist, author
Jay McInerney had been left to wait for Casablancas for over five hours when attempting to track down the band and interview them about the new CD. Though the columnist had no trouble contacting the rest of the members, his impatience with Casablancas' aloofness triggered the remarks.
Casablancas' attitude towards later works has undergone a noticeable change. He is publicly very enthused about working on even more music than that, that has made this album. In an article published by
NME in 2006, it was mentioned that the band had started work on new songs, some of which may be premiered at this summer's festival's, which include
Oxegen,
T in the Park and
Roskilde.
Drugs and Alcohol
Casablancas has been known to be a heavy drinker, but he reportedly cut back on the alcohol because he felt it was beginning to interfere with their music, though many are still skeptical as to the extent of his alleged sobriety.
Marriage
On February 5, 2005, Julian Casablancas married his band's assistant manager
Juliet Joslin, much to the surprise of fans as well as the band. He announced the engagement at several shows including Central Park, where prior to playing their song "
Hard to Explain", he said, "I'm getting married and it's hard to explain!"
