The Strokes implosion?

If Yours To Keep, the debut solo album from Albert Hammond Jr, signals the end of The Strokes, he’s certainly not letting on.

Though impeccably polite when answering all other enquiries, questions relating to the theoretical demise of the New York new new wave merchants are met with a flat “No.”
Fair enough. But you can’t blame a girl for trying. There are, after all, various logical conclusions to be drawn from his current situation. Though fared rather better with critics than Room On Fire, there was little to match the rapturous reception afforded Is This It, their storming debut album.
Oddly, when I ask him about the comedown, Albert sounds distant, as if speaking about another band altogether.
“I guess Julian felt pressure about the last album,” he tells me. “But I have not really done anything with The Strokes. What I play is what I am asked to play. No one has heard what I would do myself before.”
Hammond, a natural leader who, during the early days, booked shows and harangued record executives while posing as the band’s pseudonymous manager Paul Spencer, must, you think, feel somewhat overshadowed by his longtime friend Julian Casablancas. Playing the mouthpiece, vocalist and primary writer, The Strokes are, as Mr Hammond notes, practically a one-man show.
Ironically, Albert Hammond Jr is the one band member who seems destined for a musical career. His father, Albert Hammond Sr, had a string of hits during the ‘70s including ‘It Never Rains in Southern California’, ‘The Free Electric Band’, and ‘Down By The River’. He also wrote songs for others, including ‘Gimme Dat Ding’ for The Pipkins and ‘The Air That I Breathe’ which was a hit for The Hollies in 1974.
Albert The Younger, however, was not initially inspired to learn the family trade.
“He’d take me down to the studio”, he recalls. “But it was like any kid being taken to work with their dad. I was bored and never paid attention to what was going on. I wish I had. I might be further along with my career now. But back then I wanted to be a scientist so I ended up feeling my way into music in the same way other kids do. I listened to top 40 stuff on the radio until the age of 12. I was 15 before I figured out what I liked. It was crazy for me at that age. I found a lot of music.”
His attempts to take up guitar were similarly conventional. In early adolescence he got hooked on Buddy Holly, whom, he says, “made me feel I could do it”. A typical teen, he got sidetracked by a brief career as a champion rollerskater before being introduced to Guided By Voices.
“Guided By Voices has always been the biggest influence for me,” he says. “They were the reason I started messing around with my dad’s four-track. They made me realise what was possible.”
You can certainly hear as much in the delightful Yours To Keep. Only the rapid staccato fire of the track ‘101’ and a trebly production shudder remind you that this man plays with The Strokes by day. By night, it seems, he’s off listening to The Plastic Ono Band and Television.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve always loved The Plastic Ono Band. Jonathan Richman is also a big influence. It was a really great experience. Just me and my friends playing music we loved in the studio. It’s only after these things are done you start feeling weird about them. While you’re playing, there’s no pressure.”
Happily, despite a decidedly privileged background that saw Albert and Julian hook up in the elite Swiss boarding school Institute De Rosy, there’s no sense that Yours To Keep is a millionaire’s vanity project.
“My dad made a living,” explains Albert. “But he was not a rock star. I was never raised like that. I went to a good school and it was not a struggle but I was never given anything. My first guitar was really basic because my dad wanted me to figure out that you could play on anything. I had to earn a nicer guitar.”
Did he really, as lore has it, practise until he needed to rip skin off his arm with superglue to get said upgrade?
“Oh, that was a Stevie Ray Vaughan thing. He’d play until his fingertips were gone then get out the super glue. I tried it once and it burned so much it never happened again.”