Interview: Julian Casablancas On His Cologne Ad, Milli Vanilli and Strokes V

by Eric Van Dril on August 8, 2011 · 45 comments

Update: Read the entire translation of this interview here (thank you Lulu). And read the translation of a small interview with Albert that ran in a French magazine here (Thanks Brian). UPDATED

Julian Casablancas recently did an interview with a French publication to promote his Decibel cologne advertisement (preview the track here). Reader Sarah was kind enough to translate some of the highlights of the interview, which reflects how positive Julian feels about The Strokes and, more generally, his life as he approaches his mid-30s.

Oh yeah, and Julian doesn’t listen to Phoenix. What’s up with that?

Here’s what Sarah wrote…

Ok, ok, as I feel bad for not having talked about the Strokes, here’s a link to a French recent article with Julian interviewed:
http://www.parismatch.com/People-Match/Musique/Actu/Julian-Casablancas-un-Strokes-au-parfum-318187/

I translated only his quotes (I tried…there’s surely a lot of loss from what he said originally, due to multiple translations) :

About Angles: « It hasn’t been painful to record, contrary to what has been said in the media. We had to learn to compose together, listen to everyone wishes ».

About the ad : « I wouldn’t accepted it at the end of the 90s, but uh….they asked me first a song, then pictures…And the Strokes had already accepted ads before, it’s not that terrible, isn’t it? And it flattered me ». « I didn’t participate to the creation’s process ».

About music: « That’s what brings us together. We never split up. But each one has his own life; we don’t see each other every day… I chose to favour my long term happiness. I’m still having fun, but differently, I don’t go out anymore ». « I have others activities. I try to draw folding electric bicycles ».
He says he likes to listen to Milli Vanilli, « I’m serious. They were great, even if they didn’t sing». He listens to: « Sébastien Tellier, Daft Punk. » And Phoenix? « I do not listen to those who play like us » and « The Dum Dum Girls, The Misfits, Small Black… »

About futur : During the interview he takes out of his pocket a little recording: « I’ve got 4 months of work on it after the tour… I have to select into 2 000 pieces of music in it, to make them songs. There will be another Strokes’ album ».

Tagged as: eric van dril, julian casablancas french interview, julian casablancas french interview advertisements, julian casablancas french interview cologne advertisement, julian casablancas french interview decibel cologne, julian casablancas french interview milli vanilli, julian casablancas french interview paris match, julian casablancas french interview translation, the strokes news

{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }

1 H August 8, 2011 at 4:38 pm: Awesome. Thanks for the translation.

On another note, what’s that about drawing electric folding bicycles in his free time? Sounds interesting.
2 Jack August 8, 2011 at 4:47 pm: I wonder what other bands he doesn’t listen to because they play ‘like’ The Strokes.
3 C August 8, 2011 at 5:37 pm: The ad part sounds like he’s rationalising his decision.
4 Steve August 8, 2011 at 5:38 pm: He listens to Milli Vanilli and The Dum Dum Girls, but he doesn’t listen to Phoenix? I wonder if he knows that their debut album came out a year before Is This It…
5 Bobby August 8, 2011 at 6:20 pm: I can definitely understand why he wouldn’t want to listen to other bands that sound like The Strokes. I sure haven’t heard too many good ones.
6 Deirg August 8, 2011 at 7:01 pm: This is really great news! I’m so happy for the guys… it seems like they’re in a really good place and I’m sooooo excited to hear that he’s so positive about Strokes V. Keep it up guys =)
7 KEVIN August 8, 2011 at 8:55 pm: @Steve – At least to me, Phoenix sounds like they were influenced by the Strokes, no matter when their debut album came out. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which I think is a fantastic album, would never happened had The Strokes never came along.
8 Rosencrantz August 8, 2011 at 9:50 pm: “I’ve got 4 months of work on it after the tour… I have to select into 2 000 pieces of music in it”

Oh YES!
9 Rosencrantz August 8, 2011 at 9:53 pm: Btw, google translate does an okay job I think. I like the last line, “He’s the boss.” haha.
10 Ben August 8, 2011 at 11:31 pm: Kind of off topic but sort of apropos: I discovered a blog totally devoted to analyzing the minute details of the Strokes’ fashion: http://strokescouture.tumblr.com. Maybe some of you have already seen it, but its news to me. Amusing.
11 Will August 9, 2011 at 2:20 am: Well, Arctic Monkeys sounds like The Strokes and he listens to them i think.Hasn’t he said that before? They always talk like they love each other those two bands
12 Becky August 9, 2011 at 2:35 am: Okay, yeah, cannot get over the electric folding bicycles. Is JC crazy now? Cool! “Yeah, just really gonna hunker down & just really focus on this whole drawing electric folding bicycles deal. I’m sure it’ll pay off big time someday.” Please, god, let there have been something lost in translation there.
13 Becky August 9, 2011 at 3:00 am: Sorry, uh, drawing electric folding bicycles whilst listening to Milli Vanilli. Can’t help but feel like I’m on to something here with my JC/crazy theory…
14 annie August 9, 2011 at 3:26 am: This was interesting – i’m glad he’s positive but I was kind of sad to read that he stays in a hotel pretty far off from the rest of the band and that he didn’t join them for the party after the gig – it all sounds kind of lonerish… i wish he wouldn’t take himself so seriously sometimes. He was presumable joking about drawing folded electic bicycles… whatever the hell that actually means. I also wish he’d phrased his comment about Phoenix a bit differently, he made it sound like he doesn’t like their music or as if they’re somehow just copyists when I think he really meant that he prefers to listen to music from other genres. Anyway, i’m glad he’s happy and they do seem to have become far more comfortable with each other in the gigs over the summer. I also think he dealt with the whole perfume promotion pretty well – I was relieved that he straight up admitted he had nothing to do with picking the scent, and he didn’t really try to sell it too much either.
15 Jimmy Page August 9, 2011 at 3:45 am: Small Black is awesome!!
16 nixon August 9, 2011 at 4:29 am: @Steve Phoenix debut album United was release in 2000 and the kind of music they were making back then is so much diferent to the kind of music they are making today. Here’s a review:
“On their debut album for Astralwerks/Source, Phoenix applies a slick electronica aesthetic to traditional pop/rock songwriting, resulting in a quite adventurous album capable of re-organizing perceptions about 1980s-style verse-chorus-verse guitar pop”
17 Brianstorm August 9, 2011 at 5:08 am: Little interview by Albert from a French magazine. Sorry for the Google traduction problems…
*How would you describe your relationship with Julian Casablancas ?
People say we get away. I see that in a different way: every band has ups and downs. Julian and I first met in highschool; few years later, he offered me to join the band. We are still bound.

*Memories from your first album ?
Everytime I think about Is This It, I feel like reliving my first kiss. We wanted to give everything to make it work! I sometimes remind it like a movie, like if I was only watching it…I took a lot of drugs those days, but I stopped.

*About the stage?
Really early, we started to play on big stages. The press was one of the major reasons for that. At this time, we said yes, without really thinking about it, and they put us in front of hundreds of people…Ten years later, it’s still both strange and magic.

*and The Strokes?
We are a family, with disagreements, distances, egos…everything that happened is part of us now… Today, we’re better musicians than ever. We were just kids during our first contract: things are going to change with our next album. I look forward to it!
18 H August 9, 2011 at 6:14 am: Hey Ben thanks for the recommendation. The website seems like a fun read. Bookmarking it for future reference.

Annie- yeah now tt you mentioned it, for an article that was supposed to promote the fragrance, he hardly even talked about it at all.
19 J August 9, 2011 at 7:53 am: ”The scent feels very young person who wants to hide a lack of soap.”
I couldnt stop laughing
20 Lulu August 9, 2011 at 9:45 am: Here is the full translation of the interview.

We discuss fragrances with Julian Casablancas. Does he prefers the wooded smells fresh? He looks down, laughs, and says he does not care. This charming young man, is the face of the fragrance of Loris Azzaro Decibel although he does not look like a model. The Strokes singer joins the ranks of other musicians such as Justin Timberlake who have applied their fame to promote luxury products. The scent seems like a fragrance of a strong young person who would like to hide a lack of soap. {Can this be right???}

Is this commercialization of his popularity in the media disappointing? This is surprising from someone who seems to forget to wear fragrances, and it gives the image of a rocker who supposedly to wants to break everything.

But feeling good … Julian Casablancas talks softly, with laughter scattered between his phrases. “I would not have accepted this job of promotion the late 90′s, but hey … they first asked me to write a song for the product and only afterwards asked me to represent and promote the product. “I was flattered, ” but he admits:” I was not involved producing the scent.”

There is little doubt that the smell of money was a compelling factor in his decision. But, after all, better to fill the pockets of Julian than Justin Bieber. Because the Strokes are still with us and remain an exciting, representation and identity of rock ‘n’ roll for the decade of 2000 rock. The White Stripes have separated.

Music was the focus of the five members of the Strokes who were childhood friends, the sons of middle-class New Yorkers and fans of Velvet. Their first album, “Is This It”, was released in 2001.

The fourth album, “Angles,” was released earlier this year. Julian, being diplomatic in his response to my question regarding dissension between The Strokes and the album responded, “Angles was not painful to record, contrary to what was written in the press. We had to learn to work together again while listening to the desires of everyone.”

The album represents a compromise in the band, but for a good cause, music. That’s what brings us together. We did not separate prior to recording this album. But we have our lives, we do not see each other every day … I have chosen to focus on my long-term happiness. I have chosen to participate in different activities, I do not go out … ”

Married to his former manager and the father of Cal, a year and a half old now, he seems relieved to no longer live a dissolute life as he did for a number of years. “I have other occupations. I try to draw folding electric bikes.”

It is funny when he confesses his appreciation for Milli Vanilli, a group”dance” of the 90′s which were ridiculed for miming their lyrics. “I’m serious. They were super good, even if they did not sing! Casablancas other tastes in music include: “Sebastien Tellier, Daft Punk, the French side. “And Phoenix? “I do not listen to bands who are too similar to The Strokes. [I also like] The Dum Dum Girls, The Misfits, Small Black … ”

He never says a word throughout the interview about the Strokes, even though he is lodging in a hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Pres while the other members of the band are lodged at the Park Hyatt, “I love this neighborhood. In the evening, at the after show in a box in Paris, musicians Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond and Fabrizio Moretti arrived. No Julian, as usual.

During the interview, the singer, wearing bright yellow sneakers, took from his pocket a small recorder, “I work four months after the tour. I have to sort out 2000 pieces of music contained in this recorder and turn them into songs. There will be another album of Strokes. If” he said, “he is the boss.” SHOULD PROBABLY BE MORE LOOSELY TRANSLATED TO IF HE HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT.
21 Sarah August 9, 2011 at 9:57 am: I really like :
- the blog you linked Ben: it’s so great to see more of Fab and Nick..they’re so lacking these days,
- the idea of a folding electric bicycle (whether it’s true or not),
- that there will be more Strokes’ music in the future,
- but what I prefer most of all is their friendship: Albert replying to a quote on Twitter: Virtual JC: “Ladies and gentlemen from LA, CA, AHJr”… Twitter AHJr :” love when he does that/the original version we recorded for the album had that/makes me smile & laugh”
22 Beth August 9, 2011 at 10:04 am: The “box” the other members hang out in is actually the slang for nightclub in french, incase anyone was confused by the image of julian drawing pictures of bicycles while the others have a wild time sitting in a cardboard box. I can’t think of anything to excuse julian’s bicycle thing though!
23 Steve August 9, 2011 at 2:15 pm: @nixon
Phoenix’s debut album isn’t far off from their latest. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, if anything, is just a much more polished, perfected version. Too Young could easily be on their latest album.

@KEVIN
I agree, but I also think it’s very much a give and take. Some tunes on Angles reminds me of Phoenix’s work, but leaning towards more rock influences instead of pop influences.
24 Molly St Clair August 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm: Julian said in an interview for Phrazes that he enjoyed learning to build bicycles…it was a YouTube interview that I can’t find immediately, but he’s mentioned the bike thing before. Probably just a low-key hobby…sounds fun!
25 C August 9, 2011 at 3:04 pm: I’d heard of folding bikes, but I had no idea this was a thing:

http://www.nycewheels.com/electric-folding-bike.html

Huh. Drawing electric folding bikes… neon green frame, I guess?
26 tyler August 9, 2011 at 5:01 pm: ” I have to select into 2 000 pieces of music in it, to make them songs. There will be another Strokes’ album”

GOOD HOPE THIS TIMES HE ISNT FUCKING AROUND.
27 heather August 9, 2011 at 7:52 pm: The man is an enigma. You just can’t figure him out sometimes. His whole Milli Vanilli thing is very facinating to me. I’m intrigued by this…
28 Sarah August 10, 2011 at 4:42 am: Hey, I don’t get it about the comments on the drawing of bicycles, you have the right to think so, but I can’t see where it’s a bad thing.

Why should anyone being confined to do always the same thing? The creativity and imagination have no limits and rationalisation , plus it’s sad to stop yourself not doing something because you think it’s not your field. And it’s sometimes the unexpected persons that create the most original things, because they don’t have the pressure, the expectations, the shackles…Anyway…

I mean I’ll never defend an ad that brings nothing to the world, but the will to do something new and the process to create are so respectful (even if it’s not true or does not come out).
29 karinaa August 10, 2011 at 6:45 am: i don’t know about the rest of you guys, but i REALLY wanna learn how to draw electric folding bicycles.
30 Will August 10, 2011 at 9:40 am: I REALLY wanna learn how to be Julian. Most be pretty awesome
31 tyler August 10, 2011 at 12:07 pm: @heather I would like to see another group like those guys come around again. They reminded me slightly of Boy George.
32 Deirg August 10, 2011 at 1:52 pm: Karina I’ll teach you how to draw electric folding bicycles sometime…. I can’t believe you didn’t know that was one of my biggest hobbies …you asshole
33 karinaa August 10, 2011 at 2:26 pm: ….pwhell….i just thought like, you drew people and stuff, like elephants on your hand and like bands you like, ya know, like our favorite band…(nockolbock)…and stuff…sorry if i, like, insulted you or anything…gosh.
34 Deirg August 10, 2011 at 2:31 pm: Yah well you did man. Im so disappointed in you… =( and I have a correction to make. My favorite band is creed not nockolbock (totally kidding if anyone is actually reading this)
35 karinaa August 10, 2011 at 2:37 pm: WITH ARMS WIDE OPEN, UNDER THE SUNLIGHT, WELCOME TO THIS PLACE I’LL SHOW YOU EVERYTHING WITH ARMS WIDE OPEN!!!!
36 Deirg August 10, 2011 at 2:39 pm: Hahahaha! Oh god those are probably the 2 worst bands in existence! Ugh… Their names shouldn’t even be spoken on this site! What were we thinking?!
37 karinaa August 10, 2011 at 2:43 pm: i know ..sometimes i get a bit carried away and forget im not talking to you through the phone
38 Deirg August 10, 2011 at 2:53 pm: Haha that’s okay bud =) except for the fact that anyone who reads this is going to think we’re absolutely crazy
39 karinaa August 10, 2011 at 3:30 pm: well….it’s true.
40 Olivia August 10, 2011 at 5:30 pm: *He never says a word throughout the interview about the Strokes, even though he is lodging in a hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Pres while the other members of the band are lodged at the Park Hyatt, “I love this neighborhood. In the evening, at the after show in a box in Paris, musicians Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond and Fabrizio Moretti arrived. No Julian, as usual.

This part was confusing for me, could someone explain?!?
41 Tank August 10, 2011 at 5:31 pm: so the boys are on their way to Japan. Are any of the shows gonna be streaming?
42 j August 10, 2011 at 6:38 pm: @Tank

I was going to ask that.. Summer Sonic is always broadcasted on japanese TV. I guess is going to be some link to watch it.
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Interview: Julian Casablancas On His Cologne Ad, Milli Vanilli and Strokes V

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