Julian Casablancas is not interested in playing your favourite The Strokes song. The frontman has mused on the tiresome nature of playing the same songs over and over.
Casablancas recently sat down with The Times, where he revealed that he’s become “sick” of playing fan favourite cuts, noting that “the music doesn’t move you” when songs feel overplayed.
“When you’re growing up and imagining playing music, it is for the excitement, but the one aspect of doing it for a living that is a sadness you don’t anticipate is that you play songs so much, you become sick of them,” he revealed.
On The Strokes returning to the stage after taking a break for a while, Julian Casablancas mulled, “We hadn’t played for a while,”
“So it was still fun, but when you start playing 30 or 40 shows, the music doesn’t move you. You feel phoney. To some extent, that’s why I play with Voidz. I couldn’t care less about playing ‘Last Nite.’”
He continued: “Really, it’s similar to listening to a song. I get sick of songs quickly. Even Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata.’ You listen to that enough, you will get sick of it.”
The Strokes released their first new album in seven years, The New Abnormal, in April this year. The band were set to headline the 2020 instalment of Splendour In The Grass, alas, coronavirus had other plans in mind.
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Thankfully, they’re still on board for the 2021 iteration of the festival — set to headline alongside Tyler, The Creator and Gorillaz. If all things work out, and knock wood they do, Splendour in the Grass will return to Byron on July 23 – 25, 2021.
On Saturday, October 31st, The Strokes graced the stage of Saturday Night Live for their first performance on the show in nine years. They performed new album cuts The Adults Are Talking’ and ‘Bad Decisions’.
