ShareThisBy RACHEL LEIBROCK
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Fabrizio Moretti is glad to have survived the hype.
After all, the New York drummer's band was once held up as the Savior of All Things Rock 'n' Roll.
Not that the members of the Strokes, who are touring, didn't sometimes find themselves buying into the buzz.
Because when every other rock critic declares your band to be at the forefront of (pick your genre) the garage/new wave/modern rock revival, well, sometimes it's a little hard not to listen.
"It got to the point where I was like, 'Are we the new face of rock 'n' roll?' " says Moretti, talking on his cell phone from Los Angeles.
"But that's a bad place to be, and when you find yourself there you have to desensitize yourself."
The Strokes created a big stir in early 2001 when a major-label bidding war broke out, based on the strength of the word-of-mouth media upswell and the release of the quintet's demo, "The Modern Age."
The three-song EP impressed critics with its lean, edgy guitar riffs and icy vocals undercut with candy-sweet hooks.
But later that year, when their first full-length album, "Is This It," was released, the Strokes _ Moretti, singer-songwriter Julian Casablancas, bassist Nikolai Fraiture and guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. _ found themselves trying to live up to myriad expectations.
Their poster-worthy looks and monied Upper East Side pedigree added to the burden and inevitable media backlash. (Casablancas, son of Elite Modeling Agency founder John Casablancas, and Fraiture met at a tony Swiss boarding school, while Hammond is the son of the famous "It Never Rains in California" songwriter.)
During those heady first years, Moretti says, he and his bandmates had to quickly figure out how to outlast and outplay the crazy attention, the mixed reviews and the ever-fickle music-buying public.
"We discovered there were three very specific ways of being in the Strokes," Moretti says. "One was in the studio, one was in the face of the media and the other was playing shows."
Now, five years later, the band has it dialed, he says.
"We've gotten a grasp on fame and tamed it and the media," says Moretti, who, incidentally, is famously engaged to actress Drew Barrymore. "The only concerns we have now are making good music."
The band's third album reflects a calmer, more confident group, he adds.
Recorded on the heels of the band's 2005 tour, "First Impressions of Earth" is the Strokes' first album made without producer Gordon Raphael. Instead, they tapped veteran producer David Kahne (The Bangles, Sugar Ray) to give their trademark sound a more grown-up feel.
"If 'Is This It' was our infancy and (our second record) 'Room on Fire' was the teenage years, then these songs are more mature," Moretti says. "We figured we needed to develop _ not just arrangement-wise, but sonically as well. We had to change the way our albums sounded."
Meeting with Kahne, the band "fell in love" with his ideas and set about making a record in their New York-based home studio. The resulting collection, clocking in at nearly twice the length of the group's previous discs, embodies a more robust sound, he says.
Certainly, songs such "Juicebox" and "Heart in a Cage" employ the Strokes' now-vintage serrated trash-pop melodies, but, Moretti says, the overall sound is decidedly more "3-D."
"David really understands how to build a song _ how to give every instrument its breathing space," Moretti says. "Our first two records have a certain style, but they sound very two-dimensional. David brought out a certain fullness."
Although critical reaction to "First Impressions" was mixed _ Rolling Stone loved it; Pitchfork not so much _ the Strokes are content with their current standing in the modern rock arena, Moretti says.
"We've faced having to live up to the expectations, the repercussions and the backlash," Moretti says.
"Now we love what we do and we're confident that if we played for you or you listened to a song that you'd like our music."
(The Sacramento Bee's Rachel Leibrock can be reached at rleibrock(at)sacbee.com.)
