Here at Riffraf our recurring column Songwriting 101 focuses on the craft of songwriting. Ray LaMontagne, Leonard Cohen and Martin Rivas have all discussed their influences and the ways in which they work.
With this particular column we often consult American Songwriter as a source. The following interview with The Strokes' frontman Julian Casablancas was conducted by journalist Skip Matheny in the August issue of American Songwriter.
Do you work better in isolated environments?
Definitely. Totally. I need to. If I’m working on stuff [now], it’s “You know you’ve got to soundcheck… You’ve got to…” I’m looking forward to a time where, yeah [pauses] I need at least two, three weeks, with nothing, at home. And still, my mom will call (laughs) or I’ll still have stuff to do, you know, walk dogs or — I’ll still be busy somehow, other than just working on music. But that’s the funnest thing for me, is working on music. I think it has to be, if you’re gonna do that for real. It can’t feel like work. That’s the problem with touring in the past for me. You get kind of tired. You don’t do anything tiring. But somehow you’re tired and you don’t have that natural energy to pick up the guitar and play. You wanna watch TV or lay down. I don’t remember the original question now… I kind of derailed…
Oh no, it was great. I was asking if you worked better in isolated settings.
Oh yeah alone for sure. I mean before this record, we like escaped. We’d been talking about taking a vacation for a long time. And we went to Aruba. I’d never been. We went there for like a week and half, just so people would not bother me, while I was getting all the lyrics together and stuff.
Are there any songwriters in particular you always go back to?
Probably Bob Marley is my one guy who has a body of work. That’s probably number one by far on the list. As far as bands go I’d have to say Velvet Underground is number one, but in general, probably number two under Bob Marley. I think Lou Reed too. Also again, you know the drug thing. I don’t know if that maybe made things weird, you know after the Noise Machine record or whatever but before that, he was pretty on the money. Actually, before we were starting out, I mean we had a band, but we hadn’t done anything yet. People had school, jobs whatever. We were still rehearsing. But we were at this bar, and Lou Reed was doing this book signing at a Barnes and Noble across the street. We went there and I got a book of his to sign, as he was walking out. So anyway I had no idea, until I was reading the book, how amazing his lyrics were. ‘Cause I always thought they were cool, but like, they’re amazing. He’s kind of underrated lyrically.
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