NME The Strokes 크리스마스 인터뷰

NME FAIRYTALES OF NEW YORK Q. How do the coolest band in the world spend Christmas? A. With sodomy, rigatoni, ukeleles…and dressed like this… Exactly how cool are The Strokes? Well, pretty cool. An example: we’re gathered in the reception of Manhattan’s Ober-fashionable Industria photo studios on a cold New York afternoon to meet the band. Casually hanging out in reception is Kate Moss. Second example: they’re the band who not only woke up one morning in 2001 having reinvented rock’n’roll for the noughties, but just-as-effortlessly managed to launch a million catwalk looks and skinny-tied garage-punk spin-offs, inspire the likes of Carl Baràt and Pete Doherty to form a band and bag a handful of A-list Hollywood dates in the process, too. Yep, it’s official: The Strokes aren’t just cool, they’re ice-cold. In fact, they are so saturated in sangfroid, they’d rather die than break a sweat, right? “Kate moss is here?” yelps Fab Moretti, a Santa costume under one arm, a gorilla suit under the other and a hugely camp vaudeville moustache sprouting from the middle of his face, as the rest of the band screech into the studio. “We gotta get this done and go meet her!” A mere 45 seconds later he’s pulled both ensembles on over the top of each other, shoved NME’s thick winter coat up his front to serve as a barrel belly, and is standing proudly admiring his genetically-modified festive man-beast disaster of a reflection in the mirror. Behind him, notoriously-dapper guitarist Albert Hammond Jr casually emerges from the side of a screen wearing a long blonde wig, Santa hat and aviator shades. He’s followed by the ever-louche Julian Casablancas and hopelessly-hip Nick Valensi, the former sporting a jumbo-sized and tastefully-angled hat of his own and the latter in – oh yes – pigtails. Only Nikolai Fraiture, dressed in grungey shirt and drainpipes and scowling somewhere under his fake snow-beaten fringe, is upholding the legend of The Strokes by refusing to join in the costume frivolities. “Can you help me get this snow out of my hair please?” he demands quietly, before succumbing to a smirk as he surveys the rest of his band. “then let’s get on with these Christmas questions.” Yes- and forget the fact that The Strokes’ excellent new album “First Impressions Of Earth” (Albert: “It’s so great. It feels so right,”) is released next week, or that only a short while ago they had intrepid fans queueing up overnight in the cold to buy tickets for their secret tiny London show – we need to get down to the serious business of talking Christmas. This we do, pausing every couple of minutes so that Fab (who, by the end of the interview has fidgeted so much he’s got a beer bottle label stuck on his forehead and a coat hanger tucked into the back of his T-shirt) can do some impressions of Freddie Mercury. Which is all, obviously, much, much cooler than it sounds. NME: Do The Strokes usually spend Christmas together? Nick: “We always get together a few days before Christmas and have a little Strokes gathering.” Julian: “It’s called A Very Strokes Christmas.” Fab: “It’s always held at my house. Well it has been for about the last four years. We do Secret Santa and we have a tradition of cooking vodka rigatoni, which is a secret recipe of our friend’s mum. I think it’s actually going to move this year to Albert’s house. I don’t know why.” Albert: “We’re going to film it this year and we’re hopping to air it on TV one day.” What, like MTV’s Cribs? Albert: “No, it’s going to be a little bigger than that. Prime-time.” So where will you actually be this December 25? Nick: “Probably in New York with family, girlfriend, mothers, sisters...” Julian: “This December 25 I will be…” Fab: “…in your anus.” Julian: “Um, I will probably be, Ummmm… I don’t know.”   Is this your first year as a married man? Julian: “Yes, it will be my first Christmas with my wife.” Fab: “C’mon dude, you’ve been spending Christmas with Juliet and us every year for the past four years. Julian “Yeah, but this will actually be our first Christmas Day together. So on December 25 I’m probably going to be in some manner of family. I don’t actually have any family here so I’m going to go find some.” Nikolai, you’ve recently become a father. Are you looking forward to spending the first Christmas with your daughter? Nikolai: “Yep, first Christmas. I’m hopping it’s going to be pretty exciting, I’ve got my fingers crossed.” Fab: “(Confused) Wait, it’s your first year with what?” Nikolai: “My first Christmas with my child.” Julian: “It’s not your first one, dude. You had Christmas with her last year. Fab: “Wait, yeah! She was at the house with us last year. I remember Nikolai: “Wait, what did we do last Christmas?” Fab: “We were at my house and she was playing with all her presents!” Nikolai: “(laughing) Oh yeah, now I remember. Sorry, I’m not very good at this. Yes, yes this is my second Christmas with my daughter.” Are you saying you don’t know how old your only child is? Albert. “ I think what he was trying to say is that the last year was one he never, ever forget. It was truly magical Christmas!” Fab: “Well this will be the first year that I celebrate Christmas having come out of the closet, so it’s going to be a fabulous Christmas.” Albert: “Right, the moustache!” Julian: “Did you change your name to Freddie yet?” Fab: “(Doing the first of many Freddie Mercury impressions) …’cos we are the champions, my friend…” What presents did you give each other last year? Julian: “I don’t remember what I got, but someone else might remember, that’s the kind of thing my memory’s bad with.” Albert. “I got an amp Ryan [Gentles, The Strokes’ manager] got me a guitar amp.” Fab: “This is going to sound really bad but I can’t remember what I got either.” Julian. “Didn’t I get you the drums?” Fab: “nah, that was two years ago.” So have your Christmasses changed much? Have your presents got more expensive? Albert: “Actually that’s kind of true!” Fab: “That’s why we have to do Secret Santa because if we were all all as extravagant to each other as we are to one person we’d be poor.” What’s the most extravagant present you’ve ever bought each other? Nikolai: “I got a boat.” Nick: “I got Albert a Lamborghini. It’s true!” Fab: “Well, Julian bought me that drum set two years ago, Oh and that’s right, the next year he got me an ukelele. It’s kind of like sliding scale.” Julian: “I’m going to get him a tambourine this year.” What are you hoping Santa will bring you in 2005? Nick: “I’m hopping for a boob job or some sort of plastic surgery.” Albert: “I’m hoping Nick will get a boob job.” Fab: “Yeah, you and him have something going on, right?” Albert: “Yes that’s right, we fucked years ago – circa 2002.” Nick: “Hold on, I’ve got some weird dejà vu all of a sudden. I reckon if we went back in the NME files we could find something with us talking about a boob job. No I’m serious, we’ve had this conversation before sometime…” Fab: “Yeah you’re right, you’re right. We did!” Julian, what would you most like for Christmas this year? Julian. “Umm… probably to titty-fuck Nick (Long silence) Oh God, my mum reads NME…” Fab: “Your mum reads NME?” Julian “Yeah, she goes and gets it from the newsstand every week. She’s got a file of them.” Fab. “Well you’d better hurry up and say what you really want then.” Albert: “Yeah – you don’t really want to titty-fuck Nick, you want to…” Julian: “…it’s true, I don’t want to do that. Er, what do I want to do?” Fab: “I don’t know, it’s you dude! I can’t answer for you. I know what I want to do.” What do you want to do, Fab? Fab: “(Pause) Oh man, I don’t know, maybe my mum reads NME too,” What are you doing on New Year’s Eve?   What are you doing on New Year’s Eve? Nick: “Two years ago we rented out a hotel suite and had a really nice party. I’d actually like to do that again. Hey, why don’t we do that?” Julian: “We were just talking about that actually, I was going to ask you guys if that’s what we wanted to do.” Fab: “Oh wait, we could have it at my place seeing as Albert stole Christmas from me.” Albert. “I didn’t steal it from you, you gave it to me. You can have it back if you really want but you’ll have to cook the rigatoni.” Nick: “So you guys want to get the hotel suite for New Year, yeah? That’s what we’ll all be doing then. There you go, you were here, you witnessed The Strokes’ New Year’s Eve decision.” You must had some debauched New Year’s Eves in the past… Fab. “Yes. Probably the best was that one two years ago in the hotel. Why? ‘Cos there was a bed and a closet…” Nick: “…And Fab was there.” Fab: “Yeah, I reckon you can figure the rest out.” Julian: “(Almost inaudibly) I was vomiting long before midnight.” Fab: “We had two patios…” Nick: “…and a partridge in a pear…” Fab. “No, and a bartender there, great food, great champagne.” Nick: “it was really great actually. You should have been there.” If you could have anyone round to your New Year’s dinner, who would it be? Julian: “(Immediately) Nelson Mandela.” Fab. “Dude, that’s is so weird! That is exactly what I was thinking. I swear to God I am not joking!” Julian: “He’s coming to my house. I don’t care if you want him.” Is there anyone else you’d like round? Nikolai: “There isn’t anyone else, they spoke for all of us. Aw look at that! (Pointing to Julian and Fab, who are now hugging each other)” Fab: “(Quietly to Julian) Seriously dude, that was so freaky!” Ever kissed anyone under de mistletoe? All: “Woo-oo!” Nick: “No I’ve never done that.” Julian: “That sounds like fun. When you have your Christmas party, Albert, I want a mistletoe.” Albert: “That’s how I met my girlfriend actually, under the mistletoe.” All: “Really?” Albert: “Seriously, I’m not kidding!” Fab: “That’s how you met your special lady friend? Wow, that’s great, what did you say?” Albert: “I didn’t say anything. I just went (points up at imaginary mistletoe).” Fab. “That’s so romantic. Was that or after she passed out?” Are there any weird American Christmas traditions we might not know about? Albert: “Forking over the loot.” Julian: “Sodomy.” Albert: “Nah, It’s pretty much the same thing here as you have really.” Nikolai. “You guys have Boxing Day, though.” Fab: “What’s that?” Nikolai: “It’s where they make people go out and fight each other in the street.” Fab: “Really?” Nikolai: “Yeah sure. The day after Christmas they draw white lines on the street and people go crazy like, y’know, ‘RRAAAOOR!’, boxing each other.” Fab. “Are you serious?” Nikolai: “No dude, it’s to do with all the empty boxes.” What were Christmasses like as kids? Julian: “Actually me and Nikolai and our parents used to spend them together.” Nikolai: “Yeah, drinking.” Julian: “That was when we were what, 13?” Nikolai: “I was friends first with Julian and the our parents became friends through us.”   Did his parents get you good presents? Nikolai: “No, they never got me anything, it was me and Julian who used to get each other stuff. The best thing he ever got me was a Nintendo.” All: “Wow!” What, when you were 13? That’s pretty generous… Nikolai: “Yeah, I went round his house to say, ‘Happy Christmas’ and in his hall there was a Nintendo in a bag and a ‘for Nikolai’ tag on it. I wept with joy. The I played Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out forever more.” What’s your favourite Christmas carol? Fab: “The one that goes (in Freddie falsetto) ‘Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the (dropping an octave suddenly) to the newborn king…” Albert: ‘Tis the Season To Be jolly’. No-one knows that one, right?” All: “(In perfect harmony) dum-da-da-dum-dum-da-da-dum-dum”. Ever considered recording a Christmas song of your own? Albert: “Like Jingle Bell Rock?” Fab: (Singing) Jingle-bell, jingle-bell, jingle-bell rock.” Julian: “I want to do one.” What, your own composition or a cover? Julian: “I want to cover the Saturday Night Live Christmas song. It’s called I Wish It Was Christmas Everyday. I like the song, I like the drum beat, I like the melodies, I like the lyrical content.” Is the rest of the band up for that? Julian: “I don’t think so.” Fab: “Let’s do it! Let’s go! Let’s go now!” Er, just before you go… how would you rate 2005 overall for The Strokes? Albert. “There were highs, there were lows. I’d probably give it a 10 and a 0.” Julian: “So that’s –what an average of 5? I’d give it a 7.1.” Fab: “Hold on, I have the equation right here. Ready? If you divide the addition of all our years by the square root of all of our life expectancies then multiply that number by the times I’ve had a beer tonight divided by how many times Albert has taken a hit today, then you have the correct number for The Strokes’ year. Now come on, let’s go and find Kate Moss.” The rest: “Merry Christmas!” Fab:”Yeah, Merry Christmas…”   Extras: Was that it? The Strokes give their first Impressions of major events in 2005 LIVE8 Fab: “We were invited to play Philadelphia but couldn’t do it. We really wanted to, but we’d been recording and hadn’t played in a year.” Julian: “I watched it. I think it did a lot of good.” Nikolai. “It must have done. ’cos Bob Geldof was recently awarded the Peacemaker Of The Year award” Julian: “I’d have given it to Nelson Mandela.” KANYE VS OUR’YA Fab: “I fucking loved what he said! He said George Bush doesn’t care about black people. I think that regardless of what he said or where he was saying it, he’s got some balls and I respect that. And you know what else? I think he’s a very talented young man as well. I also think that he should continue to produce because the shit that he’s produced is really rad. I’d like to work with him.” MODEL KATE IN DRUGS Fab: “Kate Moss is a lovely human being and she should not be chastised for doing what every single person in that fucking industry does. It’s bullshit that she’s being martyred.” Julian: “”Yeah dude. Coke rules.” Nick: “Who cares what Kate Moss fucking does? It’s silly and it’s gossip.” Fab: “Do I think it was Pete Doherty’s fault?” Nikolai: “It’s not like no-one knew Kate and Pete did drugs beforehand. They got it on film, so what?”   출처는 Thestrokes.com 포럼의 streetsmartgirl 입니다. Kanye랑 작업해보고 싶은 밴드 정말 많네요..^^; Franz에 이어 Strokes까지!; 아 글구 Boob Job이라니 Nick 이 녀석!!ㅋㅋㅋ