Albert Hammond Jr has revealed that The Strokes‘ ‘Angles’ originally sounded “more Stones-y”, but said it ultimately ended up “flat” and “all over the place”.
The guitarist looked back on the New York band’s 2011 fourth album – the follow-up to 2006’s ‘First Impressions Of Earth’ – during a new interview on Rick Rubin‘s podcast, Tetragrammaton.
Rubin produced The Strokes’ latest two records, 2020’s ‘The New Abnormal’ and this year’s ‘Reality Awaits’ – the latter of which was released last week.
Looking back on the fractured process of making ‘Angles’, Hammond Jr remembered: “Well, it was like two parts; we did a whole version of the album with [producer] Gus [Oberg], who does our front of house [sound].
“It felt more Stones-y; it was really cool. All in a room, in a rehearsal space, like this, really live, dirty, but I think we were afraid to put it out.”
But this version wasn’t what fans ended up hearing on the final album. “Afterwards, it was like, ‘I wish it was like that’,” Hammond Jr continued. “I think we were trying to polish something too much.”
According to the musician, The Strokes made ‘Angles “three times” – including a version they created at NYC’s Avatar Studios with “a producer we ended up not getting along with”.
“We spent a lot of money. We were there from 11 until nine; it really felt like work,” Hammond Jr went on.
The only song that made it onto the final album from the Avatar Studios sessions was ‘Angles’ closer ‘Life Is Simple In The Moonlight’, produced by Joe Chiccarelli.
The guitarist also recalled frontman Julian Casablancas being absent from the sessions, as he was out on a solo tour in support of his debut solo album, 2009’s ‘Phrazes For The Young’. Casablancas later recorded his parts separately.
“We were doing it the four of us. We already had the songs, but doing it as a band without him,” he told Rubin. “It was the first time that his voice wasn’t in there when someone was challenging us in a room.”
‘Angles’ marked the first Strokes album on which each member was given songwriting credits, rather than Casablancas being the primary writer – as was the case with their first three LPs.
The group used backing vocals for the first time, too, notably on the lead single ‘Under Cover Of Darkness’.
He also said Casablancas did show up to do “10 minutes of vocals and the guy said one thing”, resulting in him leaving and eventually recording his vocals at Hammond Jr’s studio.
Speaking about the mixed reaction to ‘Angles’, the guitarist said this was down to the album being anticipated as their “big comeback” after a five-year hiatus. He reasoned that this put “too much weight” on the record.
“So, as your big comeback, as a band that had that excitement at 21 years old, it’s just going to feel flat because it’s all over the place,” he shared.
Hammond Jr shouted out the synth-heavy, ’80s-sounding cut ‘Games’ as “production-wise very cool”, but admitted: “As a whole, it’s just all over the place.”
In 2011, guitarist Nick Valensi shared his negative feelings around the making of ‘Angles’. “It was awful – just awful,” he said. “Working in a fractured way, not having a singer there.”
He added: “75 per cent of this album felt like it was done together and the rest of it was left hanging, like some of us were picking up the scraps and trying to finish a puzzle together.”
Hammond Jr has called ‘Reality Awaits’ his “favourite album” that the band have ever made. “I can’t express how beautiful it is,” he said. “I listen to the whole thing and wanna start from the beginning again. It grows and grows and becomes intoxicatingly good.”
In a previous interview, he recalled the sessions with Rubin in Costa Rica for what would become The Strokes’ “looser” new album. Fans recently got a behind-the-scenes look at the making of ‘Reality Waits’ in the min-doc In Transit: Part II.
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