Maybe we'll never reach that perfect zenith you imagine in your dreams, but I sure as hell will die trying.Collection: Dreams
Julian is a very humble guy, so he might not say this, but he never lived with John Casablancas. John Casablancas is a very cool guy. But Julian is a very self-sufficient person. He worked as a bartender, just like everyone else worked.
When we got signed, I lent my parents money, because they were broke.
Themes rise and fall. Kingdoms rise and fall. Religions rise and fall.
There's a way that mirrors can be portals towards vanity, but there are also ways they can be portals towards self-reflection and understanding.
I think the only way for us to move forward is to take care of each other and understand each other better and become cells in a communal body that moves forward in coordination and not in aggression or tension. A lot of that has to do with giving people the chance to express themselves, but also giving people the chance to feel important.
It's not so much that art is difficult to make; it's that the structures and the kind of prejudices that the art world constructs make it seem like creating art is this insurmountable task.
I think that quiet lends itself to that kind of in-your-own-head introspection.
The number 128 is very important to me.
You go and you see a piece of art; you're looking at it outside of you. When you listen to a song, the singer's voice is being put together in your own head. The effort that you as the listener has is part of the artwork in a sense.
I think that music is cyclical, and that trends happen and happen again.
I'd love to work with Rick Rubin. He made some pretty seminal records.
I'm happy that as many people who wanna listen to us can listen to us.
I feel sorry that maybe there are some people out there that think our integrity is a little spoiled because we have a bigger fanbase now, but what can you do?
We were ambitious. The several levels of Dante's inferno that we had to go through emotionally within the band to be able to stick to it, was crazy. That's ambition.
I'm really bad at pronunciation in Italian.
I applied to come to Harvard and they didn't accept me.
We understand that there is a certain protocol. You have to do press in order to continue, and we understand that. It's not like I sit at home with a picture of some press guy shooting darts at him.
I'm not that interesting.
We are very much fun-loving guys.
Even though the mainstream doesn't recognize garage as much or as prevalently as those crazy huge bands, garage does get the privilege of being looked upon as something that's cool even by people that don't understand it.
Every once and a while there's a point where mainstream and garage kind of cross.
Just living out in California, it really puts you in a different mind frame.
In New York, I never felt a real big sense of camaraderie between bands.
When you live in a house in L.A., you feel so isolated. You urge yourself to go and find the nooks and crannies where people are having a good time.
The hype got people to recognize us, and we appreciate that, but we don't invest much attention or credit to the hype. Because when we do, at any moment, whoever is giving that hype can take it away just as easily... and then we're lost.
We don't have the big-band mentality. We never wanted to become a big band.
We just try not to get big heads.
We give ourselves enough free time to work on music and also to get royally happy.
I would rather play a club show, just because it tends to make a much livelier show. You can connect with people when it's a smaller crowd.
You have to live in the moment and do the best that you can and be true to that moment.
I don't spend much time reading our own press.
Why the hell would I want to read about myself?
We just try to make what we think is good, interesting music.
We try to make air-tight, intricate songs with melodies and counter-melodies and rhythms that work together, and we try to make it as palatable as possible - something that's not difficult to listen to.
We do the press because we know logically it influences how we are perceived, but we don't pay attention to it after the fact.
We discovered there were three very specific ways of being in the Strokes. One was in the studio, one was in the face of the media and the other was playing shows.
We've gotten a grasp on fame and tamed it and the media.
I hate to sound jaded, but everything else has become routine and a business - that's what the music industry has become to me - and I have to remind myself that creating is a privilege.
In my case, it's hard to be like a simple drummer who doesn't play all over the place.
What I find really interesting about our songs is that one part might sound completely different from another, but they fit together almost in their sort of incongruency.
The polarity of Mitch Mitchell and Moe Tucker offers a pretty good understanding of what a drummer's role is.
Part of being really objective about your trade, your music, or your art is recognizing that you might not know everything about it.
A long, long time ago, I was in front of the 'Mona Lisa' and I heard someone saying, 'Ugh! Take your photo and go!' And it bummed me out. Shouldn't there be more of a reverent experience?
It got to the point where I was like, 'Are we the new face of rock 'n'roll?' But that's a bad place to be, and when you find yourself there you have to desensitize yourself.
We try very hard not to be a cookie-cutter band.
We worked really hard to get what we have.
We're very respectful of what we have.
I think we have done all that we can do to make the music we want to make, and hopefully people will like it, and if they don't, so be it.
We've learned the values of not being crazy all the time and just really enjoying the endearing moments of life.