Strokes singer Julian Casablancas has spoken exclusively to ClashMusic about his decision to go solo.
Julian Casablancas was always much more than a mere frontman for The Strokes. The visual centre point sure, but the singer’s role in songwriting extended to virtually every area of the track.
Gradually ceding songwriting duties, Julian Casablancas recently went in the opposite direction by releasing his debut solo album.
‘Phrazes For The Young’ was an overwhelming success, finding the Strokes singer on rejuvenated form. Speaking to ClashMusic, Julian Casablancas compared solo life with working within the constraints of a band.
“I put my life into The Strokes” he explained. “I was trying to pull back as much as possible to make other people bring songs to the band – if someone wrote a song they would be more likely to just put it on their own solo record than ever try to even bring it to the band, which is weird because we split everything equally.”
“Even though the band wasn’t spiritually ready for a record, I still felt like I had stuff to do. I was messing around with some keyboardy stuff… I kinda felt like I had to do something.”
Continuing, Julian Casablancas mused on the differences between the two environments. “I pulled back so much because I just wanted it to work and for people to be happy. I mean I’ve written all The Strokes’ guitar solos and a lot of the stuff, back in the day I was pretty involved on all levels, but for the future Strokes I’m trying really hard to pull away.”
“But then when it wasn’t enough, people still kinda needed to go out and venture on their own. When I was doing the solo record, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s zero compromise – I can do whatever I wanna do’, and I realised that I do enjoy that a lot. I think if anything it made me realise that I’d like to do both.”
Read the entire interview HERE.
