Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi Have Started Writing Songs

According to an interview that Fabrizio Moretti gave to the BBC after a recent gig with band Little Joy, fellow members of The Strokes – frontman Julian Casablancas and lead guitarist Nick Velensi – have already started working on new music for the band’s fourth record.

“Julian has started writing and Nick has got some material as well,” Moretti said. “We’re the kind of band that it’s not finished until everyone’s in one room and everyone’s got their parts perfectly. We’re a very mechanical band.”

The first day that all members of the band will get together is, as we’ve written, Feb. 11 at 2:00 p.m.

At that time, Moretti, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. and bassist Nikolai Fraiture will join Casablancas and Valensi in New York City to work on the new record.

So that’s good news if you’re a fan of The Strokes.

It’s taken so long to produce a follow-up to 2006’s First Impressions of Earth because of many reasons.  First off, the band toured from December 2005 to September of 2006 in support of FIoE. And then, Valensi requested a year to spend with his new-born twins in Los Angeles, according to NME. After the year was up, the band reportedly decided to take another year to work on their individual efforts (Hammond made two solo records, Moretti made Little Joy and Fraiture made Time of the Assassins under the name Nickel Eye).

But now the band’s almost back together, and a record’s not far off.

(Expect it by the Fall)

Stay tuned to updates on The Strokes, and, starting Feb 11th, Is This It X will release lesser-known music/videos of the band to countdown to the release of the fourth album.

And if you’d like to hear new music from Nikolai Fraiture, pick up Time of the Assassins, which came out today.

The Strokes Getting Back Together On Feb. 11 @ 2:00 p.m.

The Strokes are getting back together on February 11 at 2:00 p.m. to get started on their fourth album.

I must editorialize for a moment, and say: Thank God.  I can only listen to the 39 songs on the band’s three albums so many times.  But now, with all of the band in a good place from both a family and health perspective, the “saviors of pop” are officially coming back.

“We’re getting back together for the first time in two years, and it’s very exciting,” Albert Hammond Jr. told Rolling Stone. “We’re just going to start working on songs. I mean, sounds — we don’t even have the songs. We got to get back to playing first.”

One would have to think that the recording process this time around, compared to that of First Impressions of Earth, would be much faster.  The band has had three years to write new riffs, lyrics and melodies.  And the last time that Julian Casablancas, the band’s singer and main songwriter (he wrote all the tracks on Is This It and Room on Fire), got this type of time was before the industry-changing Is This It.

With that being said, Hammond says The Strokes are simply getting back together in mid-February.

“Right now, it’s just February 11th at 2 o’clock we’re going to the studio to hang out and play music,” Hammond said. “I just know the date and time.”

The most underrated thing that fans of The Strokes should keep an eye out for (and check back here daily to learn more about) is who the band picks to produce the record.  My guess is that the band, and this is purely speculation, goes forward from what First Impressions of Earth was, in terms of the sound, and doesn’t revert back to the primitive style of their first two records.

All that I hope is that The Strokes don’t turn into The Killers and use saxaphones in the attempt to copy U2 and Bruce Springsteen.

UPDATE: Starting on Feb. 11, Is This It X will post unknown/unheard tracks from the band each weekday until the songs run out.  Do you want to hear the Alone Together demo?  You Only Live Once with Julian Casablancas’ original lyrics?  How about a version of Hard to Explain that sounds like a Christmas song?  If so, check back on Feb. 11.

In the meantime, enjoy Triumph the Insult Comic Dog interacting with The Strokes…