Albert Hammond Jr.

Albert Hammond Jr. is a songwriter, solo artist, and guitarist for The Strokes. Since 1999, he helped define the band's signature rock sound across landmark albums including Is This It, Room on Fire, and First Impressions of Earth. Alongside his work with the band, Hammond has built a solo career with albums such as Yours to Keep and Francis Trouble. On July 24, 2026, The Strokes released their seventh studio album, Reality Awaits, marking the band's first new record since the Grammy-winning The New Abnormal. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Anthropic https://Claude.com/tetra ------ AG1 https://DrinkAG1.com/tetra ------ Squarespace https://Squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www. AthleticNicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Lectio 365 https://Lectio365.com ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Rick Rubin?

  Tetra Grahamton.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  I did that yesterday. Oh, I heard that years ago when I was a kid. I didn't wanna do it years ago, but I did. I did that yesterday when I was a kid. Weekend, I like your outfit. You're low, you only live once. Do kept the beat as it was. John Legend, that's just golden. I guess I'm planted, maybe. All good, we all still baby. Y'all ready for the next fan? Chris Edgey's next. I did that yesterday.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Oh, I did that years ago when I was a kid. I didn't wanna do it yesterday, but I did. I did that yesterday when I was a kid.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  You don't get it, it's a pity. Maybe you catch up soon. Rather than later, baby. It's lonely in the future. You don't get it, it's a pity. Maybe you catch up soon. Rather than later, sorry. It's lonely in... A hundred, twenty fucking years ago, I did. I turned a word for word when I was a kid. Stick to the technical, 'cause that's great. You would not recognize art in any age.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  On the first day we had, jumped in the water, yeah. Costume is soaking wet.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  I'd like to dry it. No, I never pray for the grace to be merciful. Help me not lay waste, 'cause it's not their fault. I don't care, I don't care. Anybody try me, but please stay there. I wore that years ago, I did. I liked that years ago when I was a kid. And in a hundred dozen days from now, I say, I did that yesterday when I was a kid.

• 3:34Rick Rubin?

  Wow, this guitar sounds so cool.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Yeah, that was, I did that in Hawaii.

• 3:40Rick Rubin?

  Thanks.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was just thinking that that song has had a long journey.

• 3:48Rick Rubin?

  How did it start? What do you remember?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  It was a song I had that I sent the band a long time ago. And then Julian liked it and we jammed on it at like, I wanna say 2019, at this festival in Paris. But then it took its own life in Costa Rica because it had multiple parts. And you were like, actually, that chord progression is verse and chorus. And I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And then the melody kind of grew and the breakdown. And then the, I think that guitar part makes the chords feel like they're not just continuing, you know?

• 4:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Or just even the way it starts, it's like, what's happening? But it's so catchy. It's very cool how this like thing that's put together over time, little bits here and there, but it just sounds so fluid as a song.

• 4:37Rick Rubin?

  It sounds free, like it just kind of happened.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I mean. But it's like all these little things that kind of like, 'cause you, 'cause you could beat the shit out of a song.

• 4:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  And be like, I killed it. Why did I kill it? But it's the opposite. It feels like this one like became free.

• 4:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  It feels like it needed help to get the shell off or something.

• 4:55Rick Rubin?

  This is an example of what's happening now for the band. What was happening around the time of the birth of The Strokes?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  I was the last member. Well, they weren't The Strokes, they weren't called The Strokes yet. But they had known each other in some form, probably a few years, 'cause I met them when I was 18.

• 5:14Rick Rubin?

  What year did you join?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  98, September of 98. So it'll be 28 years in a few months since I've met those guys.

• 5:20Rick Rubin?

  Congratulations.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Which is insane.

• 5:22Rick Rubin?

  Insane.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I moved across the street. I went to a film school. I took a year off before going to college. And I ran into Julian. We moved in together like right away.

• 5:34Rick Rubin?

  Did you know him from before that?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I had gone to school with him when we were younger. He's kind of gone to school with everyone. He's known Nick since he was like five.

• 5:43Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  And Fab and Nick, since they were like early teenagers.

• 5:46Rick Rubin?

  And when you knew Julian the first time, did you ever talk about music together or play music together or no?

• 5:53Speaker 01

  No, I was, I think I was 13 and he was 15. Felt like a big brother vibe.

• 5:58Rick Rubin?

  But someone you wanna hang out with.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:00Rick Rubin?

  Learn stuff from the guy who's a little older.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Like doing stuff that you don't really like, like what's that?

• 6:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  So it had that kind of energy. And when I met him again in New York, he was very advanced musically from a young age. He kind of like, very smart with it. We had a similar like, it both felt like we wanted to play music or be in a band.

• 6:20Rick Rubin?

  And what was going on in New York in 1998? What was the scene like?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  So funny. We always make this joke, 'cause we always tried to have a scene. But no one wanted to play with us. I think we rubbed people the wrong way. But we always thought like, if we can just get a few bands, we can play one place, people will come to us. Like, why tour when we're in New York City? Like, everyone comes here. The idea was if we hung out together at places, people would start to recognize us. This five guys hanging out in the same place. It's like, who are those guys?

• 6:52Rick Rubin?

  Like a gang.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, always hanging out. That's kind of the idea. And there was this place called Bar 13. And I guess the vibe was like a 60s revival. Like, also Don Hills had it, where it's like people fully dressed up like the 60s and dancing. And that's kind of like where they were girls and, could we get in? We weren't 21, whatever. You figure out a way to get in, right? When you're not of age. But that was kind of like the biggest scene that I could remember that wasn't a musical scene. 'Cause once we started playing, the musical scene was, felt very different to us.

• 7:31Rick Rubin?

  Do you remember the first show?

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, Spiral Lounge. Yeah, I remember. Julian and I went to go see, I think it's Bowfinger? With Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy? I was like nervous for like four days. I think we had like seven people that were friends. And we must've played everything at like 1,000 miles an hour.

• 7:50Rick Rubin?

  Where would you guys practice?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  There's a place called The Music Building. And Madonna used to practice there. It's a famous building in New York where the whole building must be like eight to 10 rooms per floor depending. 12 floors, all rehearsal spaces. You could rent, like four bands would rent one and you'd lock out hours. And so it would be really inexpensive to rehearse a month, you know?

• 8:18Rick Rubin?

  Did you know any of the other bands in the building?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Once again, we weren't terribly liked.

• 8:24Rick Rubin?

  Do you know why?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  We were probably, you know, kind of obnoxious or full of, I think we believed highly in ourselves.

• 8:33Rick Rubin?

  Would you discuss what you were gonna wear before you went out?

• 8:36Speaker 01

  It's weird to talk about it, 'cause you would talk about things, but it's not like, you see a movie about it, they like dramatize it, it feels like overly done. But for sure, I remember, for some reason I have one memory of about to play Baby Jupiter. 'Cause I live with Julian and I was like, it was something like this shirt or this one? Or like, and he would be like, these shoes? And you still kind of do it, you know? Glasses, no glasses. When you hang out that much, which you could only do at that age, you're just, you're just always up in each other's shit. So you, you don't even need to talk about it. You just kind of feel it or see it.

• 9:11Rick Rubin?

  In those early days, what was the time commitment to the band?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  That is interesting. I mean, the time commitment mentally felt like all the time. That's all, that's all I thought about. We would rehearse a lot. I met them in 98 and our first show was in 99. And then 2000, maybe a little before then is when we started to have songs from Is This It? So it was like these year periods where we would transition and we would make little goals. And we'd meet certain people. There was a band called The Mooney Suzuki. We kind of looked up to, like, they played such a great show. They were such, they were showmen. The drummer had a brother who recorded, so we went to him and did like an EP. And we'd always try to like grow. And I, what was the first song? I remember it was Arlene's Grocery.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  We played like Snowing, I think it was Soma. I remember one of the shows too was Last Night in Modern Age. We played for the first time.

• 10:12Rick Rubin?

  Before you guys wrote songs, did you play covers?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  No, we never really played covers.

• 10:18Rick Rubin?

  But in the early days, would you just jam?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Well, my first memories was I came in. I met Nikolai and Julian uptown. There was a place called Rudy's because they would have free hot dogs. You'd get a pitcher of beer and free hot dogs. And then we'd go to practice. This was my first time going there. I had like a fever. And they had two songs, I think. Two songs that were playing. They were just like showing me the parts. I was not equipped yet to be in a band. It was so, so, because I was just playing by myself. It's so different when you play with people. So everything's faster. People are waiting on you, the stress.

• 10:58Rick Rubin?

  And would you guys play quiet? Or would you play like stage volume?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  I imagine we learned dynamics over time. I think at first, like anything, when you're, it's a nervous excitement or an energy. You're just, it's like full blast. I remember hearing or saying, or someone saying, or it being an energy of like, until we get it better, let's not play it with all the pedals and all the sound because we'll get tired of it. And by the time we play it good, we might not like it. You know, so I remember like discovering as a band, those, those kind of moments, which are actually like really deep impactful things to know about creating music.

• 11:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, that's real progress. Because I think there's something when you're first starting, just the sound of an electric instrument, there's a lot of excitement in that energy. It's fun to play loud.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it kind of like can hide mistakes.

• 11:54Rick Rubin?

  Everything, yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  And you got to remember too, if you're playing with drums, it's almost like you have to be loud. Like everyone, it's like at a restaurant where everyone's just talking louder and louder. Looking back at many things about us as a band, we were pretty good at discovering things you would need to survive.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Like it makes sense why, that we survived because there was like little things, whether it's how we communicated about life issues or musical stuff, or understanding that you're only as good as you are as a band, you know?

• 12:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  And we all liked rehearsing. We would go at weird hours because we weren't great at planning. And so we'd go at times that we didn't pay for.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Hence why they sometimes they'd come back from shows and they're like, what are you doing here?

• 12:42Rick Rubin?

  After the first show, what was the first special show you remember?

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Maybe like a year after we were playing, you just started to notice there was people there you didn't know. Because a big thing we would do is before we'd play, we'd run out and just try to grab people last minute too and say we were, we were playing. But December before 2001, we were doing a residency at Mercury Lounge. You know, if you, if you took it in for a second, you're like, wow, there's people there we don't know. And then the last one was sold out before we went on stage. That moment is as big as like doing SNL. It's just a different hill, but it's the same. Might be a higher mountain, but it's still going to the top of the mountain.

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• 14:57Speaker 02

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• 15:24Rick Rubin?

  Did you guys have like a demo tape?

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Well, before that, we had, there was this place called Luna Lounge. Gordon, who was our first producer, he came to see another band.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  And this girl, Carrie Black, who was kind of like trying to help promote for us and something like, and stuff like that, was trying to tell him to come see us. And I went and visited his studio, which is where we recorded Is This It? And it just felt like there was a cool energy with him. And when we all went there, we made, we made the EP, which wasn't an EP. It wasn't, it was just, we just thought we were trying to make something else to sell or do something. And it became something Rough Trade put out and then Beggars, the label in America. And it became Modern Age, Barely Legal, and Last Night, I think.

• 16:17Rick Rubin?

  I'll just listen to a song from that.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  That was like the first recording where it was like, it's like we found ourselves. I felt invincible, like there was nothing. Even if you didn't like it, it was like, yeah, that's fine. Like, this is cool.

• 16:29Rick Rubin?

  Let's see. Should I just play it from the top?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  I feel something running out. We train in ABA. I wish you had a date. My vision's bigger than what I'm afraid.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Flying overseas, no time to feel the breeze or to a many varieties.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  Well, if the sun's on heaven's blood, it's in my blood. I just can't help it. Don't want to hear it, no, let me go.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Well, let me. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Leaving just in time. Stayed in for a while. Rolling in the ocean. Trying to catch her eye. We're caught in crazy. You're just a clean sweep. Tomorrow is different. And this is why I'm leaving.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  That almost like made me cry.

• 19:44Rick Rubin?

  You guys sound exactly the same. It's weird. It's like fully formed.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  I know. It's crazy is you could, the album version, because we redid it. It's like tries to be a little more put together. But you can hear Gordon's just trying to capture like a band exploding.

• 20:01Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  It's just, you feel like the push and pull we have, that's just like us.

• 20:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Trying to find your rhythm between the guitars, bass and drums is like uniquely our personalities. It's crazy.

• 20:15Rick Rubin?

  Right out of the box.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Well, not totally out of the box, because it was songs, like song wise, it was like much later, like the earlier songs were, weirdly, it's like a full circle. You kind of like, were more proggy.

• 20:28Rick Rubin?

  So the songs were more complicated before this?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, they were really complicated, like six minutes with the big hearts.

• 20:33Rick Rubin?

  Was there a decision to change? Or did it just sort of happen?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  I feel like you have to, everyone's gonna probably have their own version of it.

• 20:40Rick Rubin?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  I feel like my version might be skewed and I might get roasted for it, but like, yeah, whatever.

• 20:47Rick Rubin?

  It's your experience.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:48Rick Rubin?

  What do you remember?

• 20:49Speaker 01

  I just remember I listened to a lot of Guided by Voices. When we came in, Julian and I were hanging out, talking about music. He just absorbed a bunch of that and like did amazing things with it. I remember even doing, is this it? The song itself, sound wise was like, and even modern age, the way the distortion comes in the guitar, the rhythm guitar was based off a Guided by Voices song, like eight track thing. But then is this it? Kick drum was like watching the wheels go around, John Lennon. Like, which is a super high fidelity, right? So it was like a mixture of, of those things. I don't know what. I mean, I wouldn't know, you'd have to ask Julian what made him do that.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  But that's like, yeah, I guess in, in my mind, there was elements of listening to different stuff. You know, or maybe he listened to something and I wasn't around and he just like, it just felt different when everyone was there. But it was like, he started writing different songs.

• 21:49Rick Rubin?

  Where was this recorded? Do you remember?

• 21:51Speaker 01

  This, yes, Avenue Way and Second Street. I remember he was in, I think he had, he went out to Long Island and he was playing that opening guitar riff. It's so funny to have these memories of certain songs. I remember hard to explain, like he was playing with the chord progression. And I thought it was awesome, but I didn't like fully get it. It was like in his head and also like, because we, our room was like a weight. So he's over here, like a dumbbell, you know? We had the kitchen in the middle and we each had our own room. I remember hearing him play someday for, for a while. He didn't record things on a dictaphone, so he's just like, if he had an idea, he would just.

• 22:30Rick Rubin?

  Keep playing them?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, he just thought if he had to record it, then it wasn't worth keeping. Which is the opposite of how we are now.

• 22:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. How long of a period of time was the EP recorded?

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Oh, it was fast. It's all live.

• 22:44Rick Rubin?

  If you'd played the night before, would it have been similar to what you'd have heard at the club?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  That's, sounds like how we would sound live.

• 22:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  This actually sounds incredible. I really, I forget Gordon, his techniques to capture certain things.

• 22:59Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, well recorded.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  It always bummed me out, people always just lumped us into like a lofi thing where I just thought we sounded cool. Lofi, hi-fi.

• 23:09Rick Rubin?

  Did people call the Strokes lofi?

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Oh, man, yeah. They're like, yeah, cool, but like, oh, man, early on, success was like, sometimes a bit of a bummer, because people would just go to a bar and they would just hate you. And you're like, I don't even know you. And then you'd talk to them for two hours and they're like, you're, you're a nice guy. And I was like, what? Fuck you.

• 23:30Rick Rubin?

  Do you remember some of the other bands you might have been playing with at that time?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  I have a poster where the yeah, yeahs were on it. And I think that was at the very end, because I don't remember some of the bands from that scene. I don't remember playing with. I used to cut out our, our name there. It was like my mission, because sometimes they would just write Strokes and it would drive me crazy. It was like an angry exchange. Maybe it's even in the book, maybe in the bathroom, where someone was just like, yeah, they were so annoying. Like, we forgot the the. And I think they said that I called and was like really upset. He was like, who cares? Details matter.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Details matter.

• 24:13Rick Rubin?

  It's like the opposite story of the Eagles, where people called the Eagles, the Eagles. And they were like, it's not the Eagles, it's Eagles.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Really?

• 24:20Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I guess when you like have something in your heart, it's hard to, I have that with my last time when it's like, when they don't say Hammond Jr. Or just, I don't feel like just Hammond.

• 24:32Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  It's just funny. I know, I don't remember those. Who did we play with? I mean, once we kind of like that EP happened, our first tour was with like a band called Doves. Or the Doves, I think it was Doves, British band. Kind of never looked back.

• 24:50Rick Rubin?

  Do you remember the first time you played in the UK?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:54Rick Rubin?

  What was that like? Was that EP time?

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I remember when Ryan, who was our manager, then was like, this guy Jeff Travis, we didn't know who Jeff Travis was, but he was known to people. He's like, yeah, really loves the music, wants to put it out. Everyone was like, wants to put it out.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  And I'm excited, but like, who is this guy? What does that mean? And like, he wants to, you guys to come over and do shows. And it was like, I was just like ready to go. And everyone was like seeing if we were being scammed, you know? The shows were like in rooms like, like this, like flat rooms, no stages. Some kind of like upstairs pubs where people, a hundred people were just like right in your face.

• 25:39Rick Rubin?

  Did the people there feel like they knew who you were or no?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  No, just from like, I don't know what it is. When we're all together, I felt it when I first met them. But I was like, we're all together, like something in the universe like moves and allows things to happen.

• 25:59Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  We just got like press. We didn't understand what press was, you know what I mean? We just got press. And I think just us, the way we hung out and just chatted and being ourselves, they just like ate it up. But it wasn't, we weren't doing anything. Even like, you know, they thought our names were fake.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  It was a whole thing. So I think people were just curious. And actually hearing it now, if I was a kid, I'd, I'd want to go to that. I mean, I was, I'm in that band, but I'm listening to it now and I'd be curious to know what they know or just to see them.

• 26:32Rick Rubin?

  It sounds both traditional and new at the same time.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's like nostalgia in there. It sounds like dangerous, but sexy, like, you know, sexy is such a wrong word. It sounds cheesy, but it just sounds like, you know, if you gotta fight or kiss someone.

• 26:48Rick Rubin?

  Charged.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Charged.

• 26:50Rick Rubin?

  Charged.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I think that's exciting. I mean, now I didn't really get it then, but whatever. Twenty six years or 25 years later, it makes sense to hear that and be like, yeah, fuck, yeah.

• 27:03Rick Rubin?

  So you record that probably in a day?

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Rick Rubin?

  Thinking it's something you would sell at shows?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  That's it. The other thing we sold, like Julian would go try to find them and like throw them away, like.

• 27:19Rick Rubin?

  I don't understand.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  We recorded this other one and it was like, we were gonna sell it. It's so funny. I mean, I get it, because he wanted like, it wasn't right.

• 27:27Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  If you listen to the songs now, the other, the other EP that we made. But if he saw it at someone's house that we went to, he would try to take it and throw it away. So no one would have it. It's kind of, it's kind of.

• 27:38Rick Rubin?

  Was that before this one?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, before this one. There was one that had a song called Rhythm Song, In Her Prime. And a version of Trying Your Luck that was called This Life.

• 27:49Rick Rubin?

  Should we hear one of those just as a reference of what didn't work or no?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, In Her Prime is probably the closest to where we were going. Rhythm Song was more like a Mooney Suzuki, trying to like be like that 60s revival thing.

• 28:04Rick Rubin?

  I got it.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  How much before the EP that came out was that?

• 28:37Speaker 04

  So we were doing the songs when I joined, there was these few songs that we were doing. Then we did some others that added to the set. And then this one was the beginning of something different, mixed with the other two songs that were on the EP. That was the beginning of Trying Your Luck. Maybe like in that year, slowly over time. I think every time we had a show, we tried to have a new song or something slightly different.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  And in those days, was there a feeling like someday we're gonna make an album? Or was it more just we're writing songs and we'll get some shows?

• 29:14Speaker 04

  In my mind, it was like, it was a dream of everything we're doing now.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  It all, it felt like it all existed. You don't know, and you don't, it might not happen, but the feeling I had was the same feeling I have now. I just, there was an immense gratitude to, of like knowing these guys and feeling like I had found a home with a, you know, at first a bunch of strangers and now like a family.

• 29:47Speaker 03

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• 31:48Speaker 01

  Describe each of the band members.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  So much changes when you, after you know people, like Fab and I are so close. Talk to him all the time. Not that we weren't close in the beginning.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  But I was just like living with Julian, and he was the first person I met, and I'd gone to school with him. And Nikolai had, they were older, and so like, it was kind of like the older two, Julian and Nikolai, and then the younger two, Nick and Fab, and I'm in the middle. Let me see, when I first got to the studio, Nick was, he's funny, but like aggressively cocky and almost like, I also have to play guitar with him, so there's like an intimidating factor, like no one else has

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  a competing instrument, right?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  Nikolai would come down to our house all the time, because he worked at a video store. And we had this like shitty projector we would put against the wall. We would watch movies, the three of us. We'd get stoned and watch movies all the time and like talk about them. So that was like a bad bonding circle. And Fab actually was, went to school in New Paltz, so he was the only one in college. I remember when we had to talk him, he was like, I don't know if I can do it, I'm close to finishing school, and I was like, dude, you gotta quit school.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Did he quit school?

• 33:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, he did. He was like, this is happening.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  I'm glad he did.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  This is happening. We all, that second year, we all knew to give it a shot. There was, there's unspoken, maybe when you're young, you're just bold like that. I don't feel as bold like that anymore. Or at least there's like a little more nervous energy around it. Then it was just like, no, no, we're, like, we're gonna do it. Which is a strange thing, because the whole time, even though we, we thought we were amazing, like people were like, yeah, you don't really fit in anywhere. Our first album, I was like, this is so good. And they're like, yeah, radio's not gonna play it. And so that's kind of why when we get to the point where we are now, and they're like, radio might not play, it's kind of like, who cares?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 33:52Speaker 04

  We've gone this far.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  We've done all this, and the whole way has been like swimming upstream.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  I know people look at it, and they're just like, oh, it looks like it was so easy, but it was always against the grain. We didn't fit anywhere.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 04

  And we're still here, so.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  So Nick, you were a little intimidated of

• 34:10Speaker 04

  Sure. Fab was very happy that there was someone else with curly hair.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  We were like, I think I bonded maybe the most at first with Nikolai, because he had joined almost last, like me.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I see. You were the new guys.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  I was, yeah. And so there was, there was a certain element of like, I just remember like when I first saw him, he stood still with, with an energy and a look that was striking. So it was like, he didn't need to say, you don't need to say much when you're, when you're like that. I remember walking into that room. I was actually nervous, because afterwards, there was like back in the day with phones, Julian didn't call me, and I was like, maybe I didn't make the band. And I called once and I woke his mom up, as you do when you used to have to call house phones.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  But then I found out, no, he was just busy doing something else, and he thought I was in the band from before I went in, so I was like, okay. He was like, what?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  You know, when you find someone, it doesn't matter like the level they're at, you're like, we'll figure it out. There's a certain vibe that fits, everything else can work itself out. Because you can be amazing guitar, and if the vibe doesn't fit, you're like, this will never work out.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Nick told me a story that he remembers the first time you walking up to the first rehearsal.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  And he thought, oh, oh, this guy looks so much cooler than any of us. It's like, he's the cool one. What are we doing? Close to finishing school and it was like, dude, you gotta quit school.

• 35:44Rick Rubin?

  Did he quit school?

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. He was like, this is happening.

• 35:46Rick Rubin?

  I'm glad he did.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  This is happening. We all, that second year, we all knew to give it a shot. There was, there's unspoken, maybe when you're young, you're just bold like that. I don't feel as bold like that anymore. Or at least there's like a little more nervous energy around it. Then it was just like, no, no, we're like, we're gonna do it. Which is a strange thing, because the whole time, even though we, we thought we were amazing, like, people were like, yeah, you don't really fit in anywhere. Our first album, I was like, this is so good. And they're like, yeah, radio's not gonna play it. And so that's kind of why when we get to the point where we are now, and they're like, radio might not play, it's kind of like, who cares?

• 36:31Rick Rubin?

  Exactly.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  We've gotten this far.

• 36:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  We've done all this, and the whole way has been like swimming upstream.

• 36:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  I know people look at it, and they're just like, oh, it looks like it was so easy. But it was always against the grain. We didn't fit anywhere.

• 36:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  And we're still here, so.

• 36:47Rick Rubin?

  So, Nick, you were a little intimidated of?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Sure. Fab was very happy that there was someone else with curly hair.

• 36:54Rick Rubin?

  Uh huh.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  We were like, I think I bonded maybe the most at first with Nikolai, because he had joined Almost Last, like me.

• 37:04Rick Rubin?

  I see. You were the new guys.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  I was, yeah. And so there was, there was a certain element of like, I just remember like when I first saw him, he stood still with, with an energy and a look that was striking. So it was like, you didn't need to say, you don't need to say much when you're, when you're like that. I remember walking into that room. I was actually nervous, because afterwards, there was like back in the day with phones. Julian didn't call me, and I was like, maybe I didn't make the band.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  And I called once and I woke his mom up, as you do when you used to have to call house phones.

• 37:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  But then I found out, no, he was just busy doing something else. And he thought I was in the band from before I went in. So I was like, okay. He was like, what?

• 37:52Rick Rubin?

  That's amazing.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  You know, when you find someone, it doesn't matter like the level they're at, you're like, we'll figure it out. There's a certain vibe that fits, everything else can work itself out. Because you can be amazing guitar, and if the vibe doesn't fit, you're like, this will never work out.

• 38:04Rick Rubin?

  Nick told me a story that he remembers the first time you walking up to the first rehearsal.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:10Rick Rubin?

  And he thought, oh, this guy looks so much cooler than any of us. It's like, he's the cool one. What are we doing?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  That's so funny.

• 38:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  There was a friend of mine in high school, who I was like friends with in like fifth grade, and then I re-met him at 16. And once again, like a Julian-type personality, like a slightly older brother. And he looked so cool. And I just kind of like mimicked him in my own way. And then I started to feel like, as I was doing that, people responded to me differently. So I was like, if I dress with where I want to be, then maybe I will get there. Because you don't know how to get anywhere. And your ability isn't something that you can like, push you in any direction. So I was just like, if I, maybe I'll find like-minded people by looking a certain way. They'll be like, who's that over there? And it did work. I mean, I would go to shows, and sometimes people would let me backstage accidentally.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  They would think I was in the band. Or there's definitely an element to that. It's funny, I didn't feel that way about myself. Maybe in one's own head, you know, you have all your insecurities and stuff like that. And...

• 39:21Rick Rubin?

  Tell me what happens between the EP and the first album. What's that period of time like?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Very short.

• 39:29Rick Rubin?

  Really, right away?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Very, very, very, very short. We made it thinking it was going to be something we sell.

• 39:35Rick Rubin?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  It turned into like a release. At first, like I was saying, people were confused because it was like, wow, it's not really, you know, like it's not, can you release that? Is that good enough? Like, he wants to release it. They, England's fast. They release it in January. We go and play some shows. And things start, you know, we start, we open up for Doves, kind of our voices. And things start to like go faster and faster. American record labels are looking at us. We do South West. And then it's starting to build up. And it's like, we have to record the record before we do more shows. We're not gonna find it. So by April, we're already, like March, April, we're already recording.

• 40:14Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about the experience of recording the first album. Where did you do it?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Same place.

• 40:20Rick Rubin?

  Same place.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Avenue A, Transporter Room. It's still there. Actually, someone sent me graffiti we did in the elevator that goes down. It's underneath the deli of Avenue A and Second Street.

• 40:30Rick Rubin?

  Cool.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  That corner. And across the street was the bar we would hang out, called 2A. We'd go listen to like our songs in there after playing them. It was basically like our live set. Sometimes cheated in certain ways. But it was our setlist that we did live.

• 40:49Rick Rubin?

  And how quickly did that record get recorded?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  It was pretty fast. I remember like Gordon was having a nervous breakdown, Julian being there late, tweaking levels with, I mean, it's like, it's funny when people say, are you guys different? When we're kind of the same, it's just older. I don't remember if it was the end or the beginning, but my 21st birthday, April 9th, 2001. And they got all the parents together. And we all went to dinner together. And it was like, I didn't realize how special it was till looking back, like everyone's family was there.

• 41:28Rick Rubin?

  So cool.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was so cool. And we were in the middle of recording our first album. So like the dream of what we would have told our parents was like kind of taking shape. And so everyone was just, kind of couldn't believe it and excited and proud, probably nervous too, because they're just like...

• 41:47Rick Rubin?

  Let's listen to something from the first album. You can pick what song you think would be good representative of this time.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Hard to explain.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Hey, I was just thinking, hearing that, I feel like part of us being a band is actually, even as like life gets hard and has its own things, is it feels like we still have our best songs yet to write. If anything, we're like unlocking new things we couldn't do. They weren't our strengths in our youth. We had a different strength, which was cool. Has a certain energy or vibe that we were going somewhere. And now like, when I hear the last two records we did, the ones with you, which is, we sound so much like us, but so not like that. But it still, to me, sounds like us, almost like, even before we made this. So it's like a weird full circle.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  And I still, I can see everyone's like energy and creativity. And it really just, it doesn't feel done.

• 46:32Rick Rubin?

  Just the opposite.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. And that's why I was, and I'm curious to see as we age, where we can go with that. Because there's an element of aging where like, takes away some of that energy that's in the first one. But I'm just curious how we'll replace that with what kind of music? And what'll that mean for our shows? And the possibility is really exciting.

• 46:55Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. What was the reaction to this first album?

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I remember when it was done, I couldn't have felt more successful. Like, no one had heard it yet, but it was just, it was everything I could have possibly wanted to be part of when I'd fallen in love with music. When I fell in love with music, it was like, I looked up to these people that were part of a fabric that I wanted to be part of. Now it felt like I was in a really cool way. Like I'd want, I'd go up to someone and be like, look.

• 47:23Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  I was, I am part of this.

• 47:26Rick Rubin?

  I'm part of this.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  You know? But going back to how was it perceived? I think it was, well, I think it was, we got a lot of press, which was cool. And then we got a lot of hatred because...

• 47:38Rick Rubin?

  Because you got a lot of press.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Like, who do you think you are? And I was like, I don't, I don't really think I'm anyone. I didn't write this stuff.

• 47:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  They made it sound like I was writing the articles myself.

• 47:49Rick Rubin?

  Right, right. So the press was on the good side?

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, the press was good. But I'm just saying, they were so excited. I think it was a combination of the music's really cool and a combination of we were young, we're all good-looking, we look cool. It's just like...

• 48:04Rick Rubin?

  Looked like a group.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Right. You just like, once again, early on, people really just wanted to hang out and get fucked up with us. Which was fun, but it was kind of, it was kind of funny. It was like, that element of it excited them so much that they would write stuff that was just a little, it felt over the top.

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• 49:53Rick Rubin?

  So first album comes out, do you remember touring for the first album?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Great touring.

• 49:58Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about that.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  All summer. The record came out in Australia first. Already cool and interesting. Also crazy because Fab broke his hand then and couldn't come to Australia.

• 50:11Rick Rubin?

  What did you do?

• 50:12Speaker 01

  We got a friend of our manager who then became Fab's drum tech. Matt came and played for like six weeks. And it was stressful.

• 50:20Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  It's really stressful and sad and I imagine for Fab it's been hard too.

• 50:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. How'd he break his hand?

• 50:31Speaker 01

  It was so silly. We were touring with Moldy Peaches and Adam Green dressed up as Peter Pan. British people are just, you know, bars are intense. I wasn't there, but someone said something, he jokes about it now because he was like, "Maybe they were just like saying that he was dressed like Peter Pan," which he was. So I think someone was like, "Why are you dressed as Peter Pan?" And Fab was like, "Don't talk to him like that." And he went to hit him and he punched a wall and broke his hand. It was funny. We have video. We made this movie called In Transit and with this video where he broke this bone here by the pinky. And he's looking at it, he's like, "Yeah, I don't think it's that bad." Thinking it might heal and it's like a ball.

• 51:11Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:13Rick Rubin?

  So where'd you tour first when the album came out?

• 51:16Speaker 01

  I guess Australia. I mean, it was incredible. It was also terrifying because all they spoke about were all the bugs that could like bite you. This is, but what they didn't tell us is that a hotel on the 40th floor doesn't have red-backed spiders in the toilet. But I couldn't go to the bathroom there for like two weeks. Because I kept scared that a bug was gonna bite my balls. Checking my bed every night. And it's like, it's so different touring there when you first go because they put you in these like mini apartments. Julian and I would share a room. It felt like being at home, really. It was like the same, same thing. And then we did America. Our album came out in America on 9/11.

• 51:59Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, on vinyl. There's actually, I have the Village Voice that has, from the week later, it has the front covers, the two buildings exploded on fire. And then the music cover inside is a picture of our faces smiling. And I framed them side by side because it was like you couldn't have.

• 52:18Rick Rubin?

  That's wild.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that first part of that tour, it was strange. It was a strange time to exist in. But playing music was always a safe place for us, you know, even that. I think we went and rehearsed that night.

• 52:31Rick Rubin?

  You in New York when 9/11 happened?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I saw it fall from the roof of my building. Yeah. It was crazy. Walking the streets was also scary. You heard like a bell or any kind of alarm, you know, everyone would slowly start running.

• 52:48Rick Rubin?

  And it's the day the album came out?

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the album came out, on vinyl, it came out on 9/11. Yeah, and then on CD, it was, I think, the 25th of September? Yeah, I totally forgot about that.

• 52:58Rick Rubin?

  It might have been like a bad omen.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  But we had that even with the new abnormal, COVID happened.

• 53:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  It's kind of like, we always make jokes, like be careful what we name the record or what's on it. Like, everything is fine.

• 53:15Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, so 9/11 happens, you guys were in New York, and then you toured the US?

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did SNL like January of '22 with Jack.

• 53:25Rick Rubin?

  For the first album?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:26Rick Rubin?

  Most bands doesn't happen on the first album.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, SNL's been like a very cool home for us. I grew up watching that, so I love playing. It's maybe one of the most intense things to play for such like a, when you get off, it really feels like you did drugs, like.

• 53:44Rick Rubin?

  Because it's live and everybody watches.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's so intense and it's three minutes. So like a show that intensity dies down by the end, so it's different. This is like, you're on, all of a sudden you're off. And so like you're high, you're high as a kite. Like if they had a camera in there, the bands would just be pacing in a circle. And then when you get off, you're just like, can't stop talking.

• 54:06Rick Rubin?

  Writing the second album, how was that different than writing the first album?

• 54:11Speaker 01

  It's funny, I feel bad that I didn't, I wasn't aware, or at least in my mind, I don't remember being as aware. Or I didn't want to think about it. I know that Julian felt pressure, at least I think he did.

• 54:26Rick Rubin?

  It's common, that second album thing is.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know how to sit in that space. It's, you know what's funny with that though, looking at it from a different angle? Is how upset people got about certain parts of the second record? And then how over time, people are upset that we don't sound like the second record? So it becomes like you see the cycles.

• 54:46Rick Rubin?

  It makes you think you shouldn't listen to them.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  He, I mean.

• 54:49Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the second one was so fun to make. Again, it was fast and like, the one thing I remember is the label making you feel like, "If we don't put this out soon, like people are gonna forget about you." And that's probably not true.

• 55:02Rick Rubin?

  How much time was there between the first and the second album?

• 55:04Speaker 01

  It was on the road for like two years and it came out in 2001, September. And I think the second one came out in 2003. There wasn't a lot of time. I mean, in Julian's lyrics of that, it's just like, you know, basically you don't, no one's giving me time.

• 55:19Rick Rubin?

  What would be a good representative song for the second album?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Probably Reptilia is probably like, it's funny because that's such a big song at festivals and like, you would think it was like a song that would have done well on radio. I don't think any of these songs were really on radio.

• 55:36Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Let's hear Reptilia.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  So funny. Time gives you that perspective of like, people would always talk about either our sound or Julian's vocals and kind of like in saying something negative about it, blow off the songwriting or like the bigger picture, right? It was just like, well, you're cool, but you're lo-fi. Or like, yeah, it's great, but his vocals are distorted. Just like now, like, yeah, cool new song, but it's got a vocoder on it. And it's like, and then as time goes,

• 58:01Speaker 01

  it gets a bigger life than it did. What do you remember about when this came out? There was just a lot of darkness. Within the band or outside of the band? Yeah. No, we were super excited about it. And like, it was really kind of the beginning of success. It was more just like feeling the, I think when you're younger, you don't, you know, you take all the praise and you're like, oh, cool. Great. And then when the praise goes away,

• 58:45Speaker 01

  you're like, oh, no. However much you take it in, it's going to affect you the other way. So it's kind of like you have to be okay with it yourself and everything else doesn't really matter. But that was the beginning of in the public space. You know, doing interviews and having to answer questions of like, whatever they might ask you. How does it feel to not be as good? Or like showing some like negative points.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  You're like, huh, you didn't know how to like answer some of that. And we were doing as many, you know, like the, you'd go to Europe and you'd have two press days and it'd be like nine to five or 10 to six, like press all day. They wouldn't fit in lunch. And then you're dealing with that kind of energy. It's dark. How were the shows starting for the second album? We always like connected to the bands. You know, the shows were always growing.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  So it would be like Bowery Ballroom sized places. And Is It Going into smaller theaters and then smaller theaters into like bigger theaters like in New York, I think. It's got some big songs of ours in there, like still big songs live in a festival setting too, which is funny. It's like a record that press wise had the opposite. It was the constant like, oh, so you made the same thing twice. And I was like, don't really think we made the same. It doesn't feel like the same thing twice,

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  but maybe in the small window of time it did. But in the bigger span of stuff, it doesn't feel that way to me at least. You toured all over the US? Toured everywhere. I think we went straight from finishing that record straight to Japan. How different was playing in Japan than everywhere else? Very different. They'll really watch you and then cheer and then be silent waiting to see what you're going to say or do.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  And so that was just very strange. The first time we had that, it was like, why did everyone get so quiet? Like you almost like want the chitter chatter. So you're not. You're used to it. Yeah, you don't, it doesn't feel like the spotlight has come back on you, you know, too soon. Also, one changes, you know, like, we just did warm up shows for Coachella and the Warfield, it's like 3,000, it was like too, felt too small.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  And like the bigger room felt more comfortable to me. And I think as a kid, the bigger room was just like nauseatingly too big. I remember on Room Fire, we did Bill Graham and it was like, this is, I think it's 8,500. I was like, this is too big. It felt like you couldn't fill it with your sound. Yeah, or like, just like, I always, I always compare it to like leaning on the audience or the audience leaning on you. And like, there's a balance where you want to like give in sometimes and they'll push forward and you push back.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  But it feels weird when you're standing there and you're just like, oh, they're going to crush me. Which kind of makes sense. Like, why would you just, an evolution, standing in front of a bunch of people is probably a negative thing. Yeah, it feels unnatural. I'm going to die. You know, that's not why we're, that's not what's going to happen on stage, but it's definitely like, it must be some element of it. Yeah, just genetically you feel. Yeah, don't get out.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Like I feel the waves of nerves and I try to like not have them like grab me or change me. I understand like, I don't know what Tai Chi, like the thing that you like, you move and you like let things go by you. And so like, you know, I'm really nervous. I, I see it and I try to just like let it go past and stay loose. A lot of what I use in life or like what I have to do

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  comes up in an intense form before going on stage. Yeah. Once you're on stage, do you forget everything and be in the moment? It's not natural. Like the second Coachella, I understood the audience more and like how it was going to be. And I like chose to remember the guys I'm with on stage because sometimes it's so big and you're taking in so much, it's hard to slow it down. So my, my practice is always like slowing it down,

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  being in the moment, not thinking what the next song is. And then once I finish a song, not worrying about what I did wrong, the other one, like it's done. I can get better without whipping myself. You know, I don't need to like punish myself for three songs because I made a mistake. Are you trying to connect with the audience? Are you trying to connect with the other band members when you're on stage? It's hard at that distance to know if you're going to connect with an audience.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  You can feel it more at your show. I feel like if you get into the songs and you play for yourselves, that will channel to people very strongly. And whatever they give back, doesn't matter. And sometimes it's awesome and they give back and you feel it and you're like, oh, my God, I'm like, okay, that's too much. So then, and then you get so riled up, you can like. Could be too much. You could have a broken leg and just dance on it, you know, like, because the energy that's coming back.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Adrenaline takes over. But also like, you got to be careful. It's like, if you're in a bad mood, it'll turn into like, get into a fight. You've seen people fight on stage. That's like the adrenaline went the wrong way.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

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• 1:07:10Speaker 01

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  Because you have your own monitors.

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• 1:08:05Speaker 01

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• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  The tightness of the band also. Sure, yeah. And every venue you go to is almost the same.

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• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Because of how well you can dial it in.

• 1:08:43Rick Rubin?

  In the studio, do you ever think about, I don't want to play this part because it's too hard and I won't be able to play it live?

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  No, I think about it for sure.

• 1:08:48Rick Rubin?

  Or do you never think about that?

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  I'm pushing myself to like, I take lessons

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  I try not to not play it because it's too hard unless there's like something where it's like, there's like a balance in that.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  and I'm just trying to get better than who I was.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  I think everything I play in the studio, I push myself where like, I don't really want to play that live because it's like slightly above my ability.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  So I push myself with different things or certain songs are harder and I didn't get to play it

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Like even on this, on this new album, I, I did some stuff that was like pushing myself, you know?

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  or even, even if I can play it, but I didn't get to perform it like I want to.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Well, which reminded me when I was listening to this, I had a guitar teacher then named JP Baurisoff, who also taught Julian and like,

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  I want to like, I want to entertain and perform the song was a big part of those first two records and like being a guru to, to us.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  in a way that's like, it's more magical than just, I know the parts. And even to him as a songwriter and giving like, um, when you have a guitar teacher who's like really good, they, they can kind of like,

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Then I just try to hold that for something else to, I feel like it's important to have stuff that you still have to work on.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  show you options you might not be thinking of, you know, different directions where of genres that don't normally cross.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  It's like, if that just ended, you might just die.

• 1:09:40Rick Rubin?

  When you're listening on stage and playing, what are you keying into to play to?

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  You know, I might just be like, well, I finished here.

• 1:09:47Rick Rubin?

  Is it drums? Is it Nick's guitar? Is it the vocals?

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  God, I mean, a little bit, a little bit of everything. I would say drums for either foundations, the backbeat. I would say Nikolai and Nick to see how I'm fitting in. Maybe those two the least because I trust that they're moving in their direction that I know.

• 1:10:12Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  And then Julian, that's kind of like sometimes the emotional driver. But though Fab can be too, when he, certain songs where, when he digs into it and I feel it, I'm just like, oh, okay, we're going there, let's go. And I know that he's said the same thing about me, like, I will come up to the drums and I'm not even thinking about it. And he'll like, feel it. I don't even know if that's musical or if it's just like pacing on stage and also like just being in sync. So it's like, you might feel an intensity and then someone isn't and you just go for it. And maybe they come along, maybe they don't. But then when you don't know, if you pay attention, it kind of guides you and it, it gives you something good for the mind not to wander

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  about stuff that doesn't matter in that moment.

• 1:11:00Rick Rubin?

  If you're playing the same song in rehearsal or in the studio or on stage, how is it different?

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  For instance, I just had them. So like there, there's an emotion that changes who you are. And that's what I mean by like, you try to like, let nerves go through so you can be yourself the whole time. Cause it's very easy to like, lose yourself in your mind overthinking. So practice, you can get there, not have played the songs. You don't care if you're gonna make a mistake. You're not thinking, no one's watching you, you're just casually doing stuff and you somehow nail it. Or maybe the mistakes you have, you don't really think about it. Sometimes you do because they're your friends and you're like, oh, is that embarrassing that I just fuck that up? But it's not, it doesn't linger so much. In the studio, same thing. It depends like if you're in the room or not, it adds, it adds to it in a good way.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  I feel like it's just like, or if you're like having recorded the song and it's the 10th time and your mistake is the reason why it's not moving forward. You know, you can feel people's energy in the band or if it's someone else, like you root for everyone. Cause when it's someone else who's going, having a hard time, you feel the weight. And then stage is like the crowd dynamic. It really only matters if you feel like close as a band. The energy is like, fuck you through the crowd and it feels good. But if you feel like you're being torn apart as a band, it almost like makes you sad. It's, being in a band is like your whole life.

• 1:12:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  It's your identity. And so like, it almost feels like you're crumbling, like you're dying.

• 1:12:41Rick Rubin?

  What happened between the second album and the third album?

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  There was this success of having our, our management got an office and our management was kind of like us. Cause he was only managing us. So we had like a headquarters. And then in the music building, we got like the mezzanine floor. So we had our own, we had the rehearsal space slash, oh, we'll record in here.

• 1:13:02Rick Rubin?

  Everybody's living in New York still?

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Everyone's living in New York still. And so there was like this element, it kind of fell apart in the different producers and what we were, what we were doing. But there was this element of like, we could have more time and that the home base and where we recorded is where we rehearsed. Which made for some awesome music stuff, but it was also from my side, it was just, it was a heavy time. Just a lot of excess and like.

• 1:13:31Rick Rubin?

  Just you or everybody?

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. Maybe everyone, maybe mine was just more. I had the who am I in the band? What am I doing? Almost like I had lived too long or gotten away with too much with like a natural thing and not like a practice thing. So I felt behind. A band is like, it's a loving place, but it's also like, everyone sees your strengths and weaknesses and you can't really hide from them. And so it's, it's tough and you can almost kind of permanently stay in certain age groups around each other because it's like that family dynamic, right?

• 1:14:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Did you feel like the people around you were getting better and you weren't? Is that what you're discussing?

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. And my choosing to kind of like party over focusing on getting better. Going back, I would handle that whole time differently. I guess that was the, that's the one where I'd be like, oh, I would, I would do it really differently like.

• 1:14:29Rick Rubin?

  And then the rehearsing and recording was the first process where you had more time?

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  I think so. That's, that's what I remember. And it was started off with like, I think Julian's idea, if I remember correctly, was like have Gordon, we would do things slowly and we'd build a home base. Kind of like a garden that we could tend to and make songs and like, and like grow from a foundation. Like having your own studio is just different, right? You start to know the room.

• 1:14:58Rick Rubin?

  It's cool.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  All, and spaces always take, it's not money. You could have all the money in the world, set it up and it has got nothing. It just needs time. There's, there's like black magic in recordings.

• 1:15:10Rick Rubin?

  So what would be a representative song?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  Division of division.

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  Tell me so, you could be Tell me tell, just like me Just turn it my way, happy and free I'll turn it to shame, happy and free Ohhhhh

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  All that I do is wait for you All that I do is wait for you I can't get along with all your friends Don't know how to act, it's all there is Why do I accept the things you say? You know what to change, but not in one way How long must I wait?

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  How long must I wait? How long must I wait? How long must I wait? How long must I wait?

• 1:19:28Rick Rubin?

  What do you remember about recording that album?

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  I guess I picked that song because there's like, it's perfect description of trying to grow in different directions where it's like hard and you can feel the tension of something not being natural, but a song wanting to go.

• 1:19:47Rick Rubin?

  Like trying to challenge yourselves.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I feel like join wanting to go in different directions and then kind of trying to find yourself in spaces that's outside of your comfort zone or like, and I feel like there's something in that song that you can feel that tension. It's it's exciting. It's exciting to look back on. And funny enough, I was thinking on this whole thing. Touring this album was was amazing. Even though we ended up taking a big break afterwards, it was like we got to a point where we were going and doing a set of like 23 songs. And even if it wasn't the best show, it was like, it was a great show. We were on fire. Looking back, I wish I knew how young and awesome we actually were.

• 1:20:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. And venues were similar sized to what you played.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  They grew. At the end, they were, they were gonna start. No, this is where it really, this is where it really changed. Had we continued, we probably would have been in arenas at the second half of touring this album. Or the starting of the next one, had we not given it so much time. But it was like, no, it would have been five, 10, 1,000 people at different places. We were playing cities we'd never been to and like.

• 1:21:01Rick Rubin?

  Would you say that the live show had a life of its own outside of the records?

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Rick Rubin?

  The band kept getting bigger regardless of how an album was perceived.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  Totally. Which is funny, the now our manager manages Fish, Dave Matthews, Chris Stapleton and us. Yeah. As a live band, we keep growing.

• 1:21:21Rick Rubin?

  And then why the decision for the break?

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Well, it was never like a talk about it. I think some of us might have thought we were doing other shows. I feel like it's my fault, but I didn't mean it that way. I put out, I put out a solo record. I never thought I'd play shows. I didn't want to. And I somehow ended up playing shows. I don't know how everyone views it. There's a whole journey I took that I wish I was able to express to myself and then within the band and not alone, but such is life.

• 1:21:56Rick Rubin?

  It's the nature of a band.

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to be more, I think I would sit with that and like be more angry at myself. And now I'm just like, oh yeah, you never know. Like maybe we you wouldn't be here, you know, you'd be doing something else or it needed it or like.

• 1:22:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. And sometimes doing a solo project makes you coming back to the band that much more interesting in the band.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:22:19Rick Rubin?

  You grow as an artist.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  There was some growth in that. I almost did need to like experience completing certain things to know how to bring other stuff to the band.

• 1:22:28Rick Rubin?

  Did you feel that there was negativity from the band for you doing the solo thing?

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. I, I can't tell if it's just me or if it feels like I instead of using my time to like get better, to bring more to the band, I, I did solo stuff.

• 1:22:44Rick Rubin?

  That doesn't sound bad.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Well, look, we finished that in 2007. And there was also like a whole drug thing for me. So, but then we, there was a big pause because I went to rehab.

• 1:22:59Rick Rubin?

  You were the only one? Everybody else was good?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Everyone stopped in their own way. I was the only one. I was just like destructive with it or like this band never functioned well on any substances. And people think we're fucked up or hear songs and like, modern age was like, oh, you guys are doing heroin. It's like, no way. We were like thinking and like practicing a lot and like, you know, sometimes you might have a drink towards the end, but it was mostly all the recordings are all pretty sober. Even at times where you did a lot of stuff, it was, we're not a band that functions well fucked up.

• 1:23:35Rick Rubin?

  During that time, do you feel like the band grew more close together?

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  I think there was elements that grew together closer and elements that grew further apart. Probably like different relationships got a chance to to grow. I think in a band, sometimes it takes a while to like actually talk about stuff and process it. Or also as you get older, you realize, you know, sometimes these things just need time. You can't just just because you want to talk about it, doesn't mean it's gonna like heal a moment, you know? And someone told me a while back that sometimes some of the healing actually happens while you're creating and playing music. It's like a silent healing. Like you're lucky. You get to speak to each other without talking, but in a very deep way. And I was like, wow, that's kind of beautiful.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  And so I think some of the healing took place in those next two records, which I think people could hear. And I think in some of the press, it's just like, whoa, what are they doing? Or they're not as good because everyone's bringing in more stuff. But some of the things in that were really cool too. And so they, and they, it allowed us to become what we were with you for the last two records. Then weirdly enough, it's so interesting to see how some people find us who are younger. Like I'll meet someone, they'll be like, oh, I saw your shirt in Transformers, the movie. And I was like nine or 10 and they weren't, they didn't think to look up the band, but it's just subconsciously there, right?

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  You just, the guy has a shirt the whole time. And then you're 14 and someone plays something and it's like, that's the record you heard? That's the first song you heard? Like you didn't hear like something on Is This It? And it's like, the fifth album was like a song they heard. That's how they got into it. And so they have a love for it. That's like, you don't even understand because it's your fifth one.

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• 1:26:09Speaker 02

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• 1:27:46Rick Rubin?

  What's the first time someone moved out of Manhattan?

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Nick moved to LA.

• 1:27:50Rick Rubin?

  Before the fourth album?

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:52Rick Rubin?

  And how did that change things?

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  I remember thinking I thought it was gonna change things more. Like now it feels totally fine. Like it doesn't matter where we live because we're just gonna meet up somewhere. Transitions are a weird thing in life, right? It's kind of like, how are you gonna do it? We all lived in New York. We could just call each other and go. And there's an element to that that I miss sometimes. But it's, it's almost like made the band feel even bigger, that we live in different parts and come together.

• 1:28:20Rick Rubin?

  It also probably creates more focus when you are together.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:28:26Rick Rubin?

  It's like it's on.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it becomes like camp then when you're together.

• 1:28:30Rick Rubin?

  So tell me about what was different about album four?

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Well, it was like two parts, right? We kind of like, we did a whole version of the album with Gus, who does our front of house. Felt more like stonely. It was really cool. It was just like all in the room in a rehearsal space like this. So it's really live and dirty. And I think we were afraid to put it out. Afterwards, it was like, I wish it was like that. I think we were trying to polish something too much. It's exciting to produce and like think about sounds and get weird sounds. But I still want that first, that first song you played wants to go back to like that. But not with those songs, just the rawness, but with different songs, right? So that felt like we had that version.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  And then we created this version. This one, we actually, we did this album, I guess, three times. Cause we went with a producer that we ended up not really getting along with. And we recorded at Avatar. And it felt like, spent a lot of money. Was like there from like 11 to like nine. It really felt like work.

• 1:29:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Felt like, man, it'd been more fun just for, you know, spend all the money like going to the south of France and recording on an eight-track like.

• 1:29:47Rick Rubin?

  Was it the first time that it felt like work?

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50Rick Rubin?

  Fourth album?

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Julian was on tour. We were doing it the four of us. We'd already had the songs, but we were recording as a band without him. And I think missing, I think if he was there, he, he did 10 minutes of vocals. And the guy said one thing and he was just like, he just, I think he just left and then just did vocals with Gus. And then we were recording at my studio afterwards.

• 1:30:13Rick Rubin?

  Is that the first time you recorded without Julian being there?

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. We had all the demos, so it wasn't like, we didn't know the songs. But it was the first time where like.

• 1:30:23Rick Rubin?

  Played them together in rehearsals.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was the first time his voice wasn't in there when someone was challenging us in a room. We'd, we'd send him stuff and stuff like that, but it just, it, it feels different.

• 1:30:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  You know? I mean, that was like a big part when we first did with you of all being in the, all being in the room, right?

• 1:30:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pick which song.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  I feel like I'm gonna have to go for gratification because it's the first time we have background vocals in the chorus. So that's kind of cool.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Funny to have his lyrics throughout my whole life. Cause he's like my friend, which is like such good lyrics that like I have memories and thoughts about stuff he said that we've never spoken about. That they live in the same way a fan might hear it and create their own meaning from, you know? It's kind of, it's kind of amazing.

• 1:34:00Rick Rubin?

  How was this one received?

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Same feeling as like the second record where it was like, because they made it as like, oh, it's their big comeback. And it's just too much weight on an album. So as your big comeback for a band that had that excitement at 21 years old, it's just gonna feel flat. Cause it's all over the place. I think there's great songs on it. It's really cool ideas and production. There's a song called Games in there that's like, production wise, really cool. And a lot of things that we have thought of for a long time that just never came to. But as a whole, it's just all over the place.

• 1:34:40Rick Rubin?

  And then do you go out and tour right away?

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  From the, the third album until now, this tour, we have not toured like the third album since that one. So 20 years ago, we did a tour like we're doing now. And then this album here, did like six months.

• 1:34:58Rick Rubin?

  And what was the vibe of the festivals around then?

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  It was good. It was the first time we were like, not lower off the bill, but put in a different spot. It felt different.

• 1:35:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Because I think we were, they had pushed us to grow and grow and grow. And then like, we missed to grow up here and so we grew sideways.

• 1:35:16Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  And went to like headline a different stage. In the movie, that would be like the, is it over? Where are they now?

• 1:35:27Rick Rubin?

  And then what happened leading to the next album? Next album is Come Down Machine.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it was a pretty positive tour. It was great memories from South America was growing there. So it was like, there's certain areas of the world, actually in this time, where maybe the biggest they'd been, which is interesting how that happens. I think just in some other spots, mainly America and the UK, they just kind of like, felt like they took a dip in some, in some ways. But it felt positive. I remember going into the fifth one. It was, it was gonna be our last one on RCA. So, and that wasn't like a negative thing. It was just like, you signed something. Yeah, it's just like, oh, wow. The thing we signed that I never thought of again, after we signed it, is now coming to an end.

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  Like a lot of people think the album cover is like a negative thing because we did like, we put RCA up there, but it wasn't negative at all. The photos being like our first album, but like blacked out. Just, I think it was more like, we couldn't get everyone together to do photos for something. And it felt like a funny way to end a cycle. You know what I mean? I was shocked when Julian didn't want to. I, I loved that he was like, no press on this, on this album. I was like, oh, man, that's amazing. I started to hate.

• 1:36:46Rick Rubin?

  Do you know why?

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  I mean, you just hate press.

• 1:36:49Rick Rubin?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  Like after a while, you're just like answering like, sometimes you can have a good interview or like, that's not how I meant it. You're trying to figure out so much in life. And so you just, you say something one way and then you hear yourself. I don't know. It's just, there's so many things with press. And so the idea of like putting out a record and not doing any seemed exciting. But then, then it was like no shows. And it was like, oh, that's a bummer. Because in the studio, it felt really positive. And also we didn't like speak about not doing it.

• 1:37:20Rick Rubin?

  For the fifth album, where was that one recorded?

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  Electric Lady.

• 1:37:23Rick Rubin?

  And good experience?

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Glorious, like six weeks. As you get older, the fact that that's your job and you get to like, go away from your responsibilities and go to a studio feels like, you know, it's like, ah.

• 1:37:38Rick Rubin?

  All you have to do is make music.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  I gotta go to work. And you're like, you know, it's like, ah, such a, you know, and you get there and you're just like playing with your friends.

• 1:37:44Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  I know you have to make music, but at the same time, you're ordering food and watching TV. It's not like, it's different than like punching in nine to five after work.

• 1:37:55Rick Rubin?

  So what would be a good representative song on this album?

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  To me, 80s Come Down Machine was like a jam. We all just started the verse, all just started doing. And so there's something really special about that. And it's actually, funny enough, one of the few songs I play a lot of from our catalog. If I want to put on a song in the car from our catalog, I put on that song.

• 1:38:18Rick Rubin?

  Let's hear it.

• 1:39:00Speaker 03

  It's not the first time I've lost you in passing by.

• 1:39:12Speaker 03

  I've tried too hard to get back there, but you're not on time.

• 1:39:24Speaker 03

  And I'm on my way. Tried to believe in you for a second time.

• 1:39:39Speaker 03

  You said the walls closed in, but you're crawling back inside.

• 1:39:58Speaker 03

  So please.

• 1:40:11Speaker 03

  So please.

• 1:40:40Speaker 03

  I've tried to believe in you for a second try.

• 1:40:53Speaker 03

  It's there in the safe. Why don't you

• 1:41:03Speaker 03

  close the blinds

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  for the night?

• 1:41:18Speaker 03

  So please.

• 1:41:24Speaker 03

  So please.

• 1:41:31Speaker 03

  So please.

• 1:41:38Speaker 03

  So please.

• 1:43:15Rick Rubin?

  How would you say the band had changed at that point from the beginning to there?

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  I joke, we're the exact same when I was 18. We were opening up for the Chili Peppers. We were in a backstage. We were like talking and being a certain way. We could have just been 18 and the five people outside of a small venue then became a stadium. But the surroundings changed, but it's like they just grabbed us and put us in different things. And like you age, but there's a part of us.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  As much as changed, there's a part of us that are always there, which is kind of beautiful.

• 1:43:55Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  We were more aware. Everyone was kind of, I don't know if we were trying to figure out how to get to the place that Julian had envisioned, maybe for us as a band or for the instruments of being a band with him. And maybe it didn't fully. I don't know, it's always in motion. So it's like you never achieve it. So it always feels like there's elements of what happens next. Because there's elements of that in the next record. But and even in the two that we did, there's elements that are so different and so the same. And now I want to do another one because I'm like, oh, I think I get it.

• 1:44:36Rick Rubin?

  What's going to be next?

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  You know, like, or like where my starting point is like, it's like, oh, let me try again. I feel like this time I can really, I can really hone it in.

• 1:44:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Which is, I have to learn, my personality has to learn how to like, drink that slowly, savor it. Because if not, I'm just like, I can just seem like, let's go, like, what are we waiting for? What's everyone, what's everyone doing?

• 1:45:02Rick Rubin?

  So the fifth album, no touring.

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  No touring, no press.

• 1:45:06Rick Rubin?

  Did you guys do anything together during that time? Were you all separated?

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  All separate, almost at SNL. That was, that was, that was it. Yeah, almost at SNL.

• 1:45:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Be a good autobiography title. Almost at SNL, the story of the Strokes.

• 1:45:19Rick Rubin?

  So how was the new abnormal different than the ones before it?

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Well, I feel like it brought an element of us being all in the room for a certain amount of hours, right? We came in and jammed from 12 to 1, and then you would come from like 1 to 6. And then we would stay afterwards sometimes if we had stuff to, if we were almost there, we had stuff to do. I don't know, that, that element of it was, was really exciting. It was back in a studio. It was LA, so it was the first time we were not in New York. It's pretty magical being out here. Also, there was something in how we worked, the five of us with you, that felt like when we were younger, but different. You know, like you could never go back to that. But there was an element of like,

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  you in the room allowed us to be a band. Your just presence allowed us to be like, oh, it's the five of us. Then it's like, the band dynamic became new and old at the same time. And that was maybe the most fun part about it.

• 1:46:22Rick Rubin?

  Cool.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:23Rick Rubin?

  What would be a good song representative of the album?

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, representative of the albums.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Eternal Summer was the first time we did, where you were like, record long time, playing one part, and we'll, we'll get a piece that feels right for both parts. And I feel like that was.

• 1:46:41Rick Rubin?

  New.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  New, and also it started to grow and grow. We're like, started jamming more and songs were even taking shape through jams. And like, Julian would find many different vocals, and then you guys would figure that out later. So I don't know, it feels like a, it feels so different, yeah.

• 1:47:28Speaker 03

  When I think of you

• 1:47:33Speaker 03

  So is on my mind

• 1:47:38Speaker 03

  This is the truth

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  Lost and dying

• 1:47:48Speaker 03

  Don't you want the dream?

• 1:47:53Speaker 03

  Ignore reality See I love that feeling too

• 1:48:04Speaker 03

  Nobody's gonna stop right now

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  Summer is coming, wanna go away Summer is coming, it's here to stay

• 1:48:31Speaker 06

  I can't believe it, this is the eleventh hour Sycodalic, life is such a funny journey I can leave, your service is no longer needed It's just like make believe

• 1:48:51Speaker 06

  They got the remedy

• 1:48:55Speaker 06

  But they won't let it happen

• 1:49:01Speaker 03

  They got the remedy. They won't let it happen.

• 1:49:30Speaker 06

  Now that you have the truth.

• 1:49:35Speaker 03

  I need a friendly face.

• 1:49:41Speaker 06

  Hate that feeling too.

• 1:49:46Speaker 06

  But now I'm not afraid.

• 1:49:51Speaker 06

  Don't expect the truth.

• 1:49:56Speaker 03

  This is a fantasy.

• 1:50:01Speaker 06

  I fight that feeling too.

• 1:50:06Speaker 03

  But nobody's gonna stop us now.

• 1:50:13Speaker 06

  Summer is coming. Go away. Summer is coming. Yeah, it's coming. Long ago, but so down the sun. But as I die, we're fading away. So I'm rebuilding. I'm turning the future. This chance I've fought so hard.

• 1:50:54Speaker 03

  I can't believe it. Life is such a funny journey. Say, darling, this is it. Love and thought. I can leave. Your service is no longer needed. It's just like make believe.

• 1:51:14Speaker 03

  They got the remedy.

• 1:51:18Speaker 03

  They won't let it happen.

• 1:51:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, they got the remedy. They won't let it happen.

• 1:51:34Speaker 03

  Everybody's on the take.

• 1:51:40Speaker 03

  Tell me, are you on the take too?

• 1:51:45Speaker 03

  Everybody's on the take.

• 1:51:50Speaker 03

  Tell me, are you on the take too?

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  See, I feel like that's what they wanted in 2011.

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  But once again, like looking back on stuff, it's always it's nice to have it all.

• 1:53:12Rick Rubin?

  For sure. When it came out, what happened?

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Well, COVID was happening, but it was like this big, a whole new generation. I mean, it was a whole new generation of people found us. We could literally go out and probably play it's only nine songs on the album, but six to eight songs on it and we'd get cheers as loud or louder than old songs because they didn't know it. There was a whole generation who came. That was the first album. They were like, oh, look at this new band.

• 1:53:44Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, surreal. For me, we just did when we did ACL. We ended the show with the adults are talking and like this video on I think Strokes Instagram or mine where they're singing along so loud, you can't even hear it.

• 1:54:01Rick Rubin?

  It's got a lot of words. It's fast.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just like.

• 1:54:04Rick Rubin?

  Not an easy sing along.

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  No, it's not. It's not a sing along at all.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  I'm so isolated in my world. I didn't like feel it or hear it. But when you watch it afterwards, it's really moving and cool.

• 1:54:16Rick Rubin?

  During COVID, obviously there were no shows.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:18Rick Rubin?

  What were the first shows that you were able to play?

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  SNL. Bringing it all back to SNL. That was the first.

• 1:54:27Rick Rubin?

  Same as always or a good experience, bad experience?

• 1:54:30Speaker 01

  Maybe the best.

• 1:54:31Rick Rubin?

  Oh, great.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  It was really cool. We we know Colin Jost. He was there with Lorne Michaels. Lorne was watching and saying like, oh, this band's been around for he just, he put two and two together and was like, oh, it's been 20 years. This is the fifth album. They're coming here. Like, that's cool. He made it sound like it was like a moving moment. Like he just like realized we had been in the fabric of that thing for a long time.

• 1:54:58Rick Rubin?

  And also New York band, New York show.

• 1:55:00Speaker 01

  It's just like it's it kind of fits hand in hand. And then afterwards, I think we got to do some a small run. Maybe like it was like Miami and LA and then Peru and but then we got to open up for the Chili Peppers in stadiums.

• 1:55:18Rick Rubin?

  Wow. How was that?

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  It was fantastic because it was like it was just a great bill. It really gave us a chance to like see what rooms like that would feel like and see them afterwards and see like the work they put into making their show and it's just it just inspires you for the next. And there's like a thing because you you record them and you record us. So there's kind of like a friendly animosity.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  Like you. No, so happy you're here. No, I mean, it's, I'm kidding. It's, it's awesome. It's just like, you know, it's in a good way, you kind of like.

• 1:55:59Rick Rubin?

  Familiar.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, it's like siblings.

• 1:56:02Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  Oh, you think dad likes you? Well, he likes us.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  Right. Reality awaits.

• 1:56:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:11Speaker 01

  That was maybe the most cinematic record to make in every aspect. I mean, talk about if you want to live the dream with any angle from your angle, band angle, production angle, anyone's angle. You're a band and you take all this gear. There's probably a million people telling you not to do it. Like, it's too complicated. You take all this gear and you record outside on top of a hill overlooking the ocean in Costa Rica.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  It's like Costa Rica, there was an energy there that was just fantastic. I just remember the recordings, the sounds we were getting, the songs. And like I tell everyone, it's my favorite. It's my favorite album. And it's made me even realize even more so.

• 1:56:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  How much more we have to give because it's so exciting and I feel like we just were tapping into it.

• 1:57:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Like, it's not like we got to the end and it was like, we got nothing left.

• 1:57:08Rick Rubin?

  No.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  It's like, we have like so many songs in jams that we did that we might never even see or find it. But that's not even the point of the jam because like they're, they're within us. They'll come out in a different way.

• 1:57:19Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  But just when you know it's there, you're like this. It's like we tapped into like a oil well and like we found oil like for, for your family's family.

• 1:57:29Rick Rubin?

  What would be a good song to listen to?

• 1:57:33Speaker 01

  This is tough. Also, this album has such a like I listen to it like a, like you'd watch a play.

• 1:57:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  And even though you have like certain scenes in the play that you might own a movie that you'd be like, I love this scenes. Like it's the

• 1:57:50Rick Rubin?

  The body.

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  Movie.

• 1:57:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:51Speaker 01

  Or the, the whole story that takes you in different spaces, you know, like I feel.

• 1:57:55Rick Rubin?

  I always listen to it as an album.

• 1:58:23Speaker 03

  All your attention, please. I wondered if an assailant passed this way. Was a friend that I once knew. Flew in from L.A. A lesson that I learned a long, long time ago. Remind me of my lonesome self at all. In a shadow and I'm... I count my blessings then. I know nobody understands.

• 1:59:08Speaker 03

  I waste my days away.

• 1:59:18Speaker 03

  You don't have love. Because you don't want pain. Oh, no, no, you don't want pain. Because you don't have trust. Oh, no, no, you don't have trust. So you don't have love. Oh, no, no, you don't have love. Because you just can't take the pain.

• 1:59:47Speaker 03

  There was a time, sat there like a dog. He was the one, now he's away. Right in the radio ways. Get the fuck out the way. We can have all the things you want, okay? Listen to the AI tell you what to do today.

• 2:00:16Speaker 03

  I waste my days away. Instead, I'm giving it all. I wanna play my game.

• 2:00:39Speaker 03

  You don't have love. Because you don't want pain. Oh, no, no, you don't want pain. Because you don't have trust. Oh, no, no, you don't have trust. Because you don't have love. Oh, no, no, you don't have love. You just can't stand the pain.

• 2:01:27Speaker 03

  Harmonic minor.

• 2:01:34Speaker 03

  I don't want love. Because you don't want pain. Oh, no, no, you don't want pain. Because you don't have trust. Oh, no, no, you don't want trust. Because you don't want love. Oh, no, no, you don't want love. Because you just don't want the pain. You're taking too long, please send us a song. How can I do it all on my own? Never a secret, all on the two. Putting your feet up, running a tune. I didn't see it, it's nothing new.

• 2:02:17Speaker 03

  A reservation, dinner for two. Something inside us bubbling up. We gotta go somewhere to get drunk. A reservation, dinner for two.

• 2:02:39Rick Rubin?

  Fuck, I love that song. It's so cool.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  It's so cool.

• 2:02:43Rick Rubin?

  Doesn't sound like anything else.

• 2:02:44Speaker 01

  No. And also, this one was cool because it was... We had... The song was all one way. And then, when Julian was doing the singing, he sent me a thing and he was like, "If you have any ideas..." And like, with my guitar teacher, I was like, "What are the different ways?" And we were doing certain... It's like kismet. We were doing certain things that I like. Like, my ear just picks up on it. And I was like, "Oh, it fits in this song, but it's so different." And so I got it. And I got to add my guitar at like, my own speed. And like, dive into like, different verses of different stuff, the chorus. And I feel like I'm just playing... It's really intimate. I'm playing to Julian's singing.

• 2:03:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  It's just really special to me.

• 2:03:52Speaker 07

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• 2:04:07Speaker 07

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