Since taking a break from his day-job as Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr has surprised and charmed with his plaintive indie-pop. Not that he likes to really compare the two experiences.
She's swapped her Cardigans for a blanket of mid-life melancholia. From her new home in Harlem, Swedish indie-babe Nina Persson talks about her downbeat new album as A Camp,
hooking up with a former Smashing Pumpkin and why life in a band can be like a prison sentence.
An overnight success story that was years in the making, The Strokes have been dismissed as flagrant hype and lauded as the saviours of rock 'n' roll. Eamon Sweeney, a journalist who has spent more time in their company than most, gets the fullest account yet of the rise and rise of New York's band of brothers. "Whatever happens, we'll be there together," they tell him. "we won’t let each other fall."
No, The Strokes aren’t splitting up, insists guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. Still, he’s enjoying a rare taste of artistic freedom with his debut solo album.
Often so dull as to be mesmerising, Paper Tigers is the kind of album you’d rather not write about at all; the 30 seconds it takes to glance through a review is 30 more than the music under discussion deserves. Here’s a hint, so you can get on with your lives: the claim goes that Caesars are “A garage band for the digital age”.
So what happens when an indie band goes major league? how can you stay cool when your date’s a Charlie’s Angel? how important is the boy/girl song in a flag-waving time? and like Alexander The Great, do you weep when you have no more worlds to conquer? in addressing these and other pressing questions of the day, The Strokes salute John Lennon, Bob Dylan and their own undying band of brotherliness.
