Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) Movie Script
1
Day upon day,
and year upon year, O city,
walking your streets.
Give me faces and streets!
Give me comrades
and lovers by the thousands!
Let me see new ones every day!
Let me hold new ones
by the hand every day!
Give me such shows!
Give me the streets
of Manhattan!
People, endless, streaming,
with strong voices,
passions, pageants.
Manhattan streets,
with their powerful throbs,
with the beating drums, as now,
the endless and noisy chorus.
Manhattan crowds with
their turbulent musical chorus.
Manhattan faces and eyes
forever for me.
Welcome to New York City.
Sleeping in a van
Between A and B
Sucking dick for ecstasy
Paid a 70 year old hooker
To make out with me
Now the get-high shack
is just a memory
Downloading porn with Davo
Downloading porn with Davo
Put a latch on the door
So Mama don't know
That I'm downloading porn
With Davo
- Perfect!
- Perfect!
You guys wanna be
in a documentary?
We're making a documentary.
- Documentary that's... All right.
- Cool.
It's a documentary
of the hallway.
- Yeah.
- Great.
How you doing?
Hello. I'm your new neighbor.
- You guys be our audience.
- We're singing songs.
All right. Cool.
- We're singing songs.
- Cool guys!
- Who left you people alone tonight?
- That's what I wanna know.
My parents thought of us
as a delusional experiment
where we didn't know
how to play our instruments.
We came to New
York to try to prove
we were a real band,
The Moldy Peaches.
Tonight, we're going
to a birthday party
for the Queen
of fucking France.
We just wanted to find
a place to play music.
Hi!
Hi.
- Hi. Hi.
- Hi.
The Lower East side
was more or less barren,
delis and boarded up places.
Most places we
found were sort of
a more bougie club scene.
We'd walk into these rooms
and be like, "Oh, oops."
It felt like
all of that wild,
weird eclecticness had
drained out of the city.
I remember thinking maybe
New York isn't the kind
of city anymore
that produces iconic bands.
Even MTV was filled
with super dry pop-rock.
And the winner for best rock is
The Offspring!
Blink 182.-
Limp Bizkit, Rollin.
Friday, 2:12 p.m.
- Hey, Adam, what's up?
- It's...
Somebody told me,
"You should check out"
the open mic at Sidewalk Cafe,
and that's where we found
the anti-folk scene.
Yeah.
This community
of musicians
that didn't have
a place to play.
Oh, yeah.
There's a car traveling down
a lone Texas highway
Rams into a giant back
Spirit of the bat fills your
fragile eggshell mind
Yeah
Maybe we could fit in here.
When the worlds
got you down
Rainy Sundays, sunny town
Tropicana, canned foods
Botulism, damaged goods
See the hipsters in the park
Hair so styled,
clothes so dark
Prefab molded hamburgers
I don't want
a bite of yours
These burgers are crazy
These burgers are crazy
Let's hear it
for The Moldy Peaches!
We were
immediately embraced.
Send the tip jar around.
It became our home.
This shy girl
called Karen
lived across the street
from the Sidewalk Cafe.
She'd come down
to play these quiet
acoustic guitar songs.
I was grateful
playing at any venue
in New York City,
but it just wasn't
exciting me.
I was skulking around
the music scene
trying to sniff out some blood.
The last big wave
of New York bands
was a long time passed.
I wanted something
explosive to happen
without understanding
what that was.
One day, me and Kimya were
at our friend's party.
This drunk guy called Julian
comes over...
and he's in the bathroom doing
drugs with this young lady,
he breaks the shower.
Somebody said he
was a singer in a band
called The Strokes.
- This guy's crazy.
- I've gotta see this band.
We're sitting here
with The Strokes live
in WF Music Studios.
You guys were hot last night.
Scorching!-
Yeah.
Hey, Jules,
when did you guys start up?
We started playing
New York a year ago.
The last few months
we've been tearing stuff up.
You're looking
pretty serious.
I am serious, man,
I'm always serious.
- Am I ever not serious?
- You're more serious...
I don't know what's fuck...
That felt good.
Now it's my turn
to break the camera.
The way I met this band,
too many things
happened exactly right,
that it seems so hard
for it to be just luck.
Four, three, two! Oh, shit.
- Hey, Julian.
- Oh, man.
I ran into Julian
on the street
seven years after I'd met him
in boarding school.
Then I met everyone.
I just felt it.
The closeness.
We were like brothers.
They were so tight and together,
and are such good friends.
It just feels like
the five of them
make up one person.
Just one solid person on stage.
By now, most people
have heard of Y2K,
the anagram shorthand
for the year 2000
computer problem.
Americans have proven
they can handle
even the most devastating
natural disaster.
But can we survive a man-made
technological meltdown?
It's now time to
begin stockpiling
essential survival items.
Military meals,
gas masks to knives.
When your kids are standing
there cold and hungry,
and they come up
to you and say,"Mommy,
Daddy, why didn't you get ready?
"What are you gonna tell them?"
With every tick
of the clock toward midnight
in Times Square,
emergency officials are
watching for Y2K problems.
The dawning of a new millennium
now just minutes away.
We celebrate the future.
What will the story
of the 21st century be?
Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one...
From the City Command Center
at the World Trade Center,
the Deputy Mayor Joseph
Lhota said computer systems
have been checked.
The city
is functioning normally.
A friend of mine had a big crush
on this guy Nick.
She dragged me to the Mars Bar
where he hung out.
I felt this very visceral
reaction towards him.
I needed to be connected
to this person.
She talked
like a valley girl
but said that
she was from Jersey.
Every other word was "dude".
I'd never met
anybody like that.
When you're young
and in New York
and you find
like-minded people,
you just end up doing
things together every night.
Karen played me songs
that she had written.
I was just completely
blown away.
I may be dead, honey
But I was left with my eyes
And underneath, sugar
Well, I've been sunk
by your lies...
One night, Karen said,
- "- Trust me.
- We should start a rock band."
We're the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
and, um...
we're from New York City,
Brooklyn, and, um...
We, uh...
We've, um...
Do you wanna continue?-
In one night,
we wrote six songs.
We were bragging about
how amazing we were
to our friend
who was The White Stripes
booking agent.
He called our bluff
and offered us the opening slot
for The White Stripes show
in the Mercury Lounge.
Karen was really insistent
that we get her friend
Brian to play drums.
I was really nervous,
and I had
four margaritas lined up.
Knocking one back
after the other.
Something was
completely unleashed,
I was shocked.
I grew up in New Jersey,
very shy,
half Korean, half white.
And when you're a halfie,
you don't feel like the whites,
you don't fit in
with the Koreans.
I was just used
to being on the outside.
But on stage,
I was free of that feeling.
Once I'd had tasted that,
I just wanted
to lose myself in that.
- You guys should get a manager, you know.
- Do you guys have a manager?
He's over there,
you should point the camera...
It's Ryan Gentles.
That's not a manager,
that's, like, a cute little kid.
The first time
I saw The Strokes,
I was watching a band
that just was born a band.
I was the booker
at the Mercury Lounge,
the best club for local bands
in New York City.
I booked them immediately.
We're live here
with The Strokes.
I know you guys
are really hot.
They've been playing
every Wednesday night
in December
at the Mercury Lounge.
Hello, yeah, we're The Strokes
and we're from New York City.
You just felt it.
The audience was excited
that we existed.
Me and Kimya
opened for The Strokes.
The first week,
we also played with
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
So, it was The Moldy Peaches,
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
and The Strokes.
More people
crammed in each week.
There was a hysteria
in the audience.
These guys were like sex gods.
Suddenly, there were
bands everywhere in New York.-
The Strokes
launched a fireball.
New York City
is like a graveyard
It all happened so fast.
All the corpses like
the way I play my guitar
Totally DIY.
You gotta be cute
if you wanna get far...
Zero interest from record labels
or magazines.
New York City
is like a graveyard
All the tombstones
sky scrapin'
All the rock stars
double dating
We got it
Blue eyes last forever
Real light it never fades
Real life is a gamble
Pardon me?
So don't give your ace
I desperately
wanted to participate
in the scene...
But I'm working
at Yeshiva University
in the admissions office
stuffing envelopes...
Knowing there's
five dudes out there
that are cool as fuck,
writing insanely awesome music
and they are cooler
and better than you are.
I was also the singer
in a band called Interpol.
We sent our demos to
every single record label
I could think of.
No record label
showed any interest at all.
It was like all of those
guidance counselor meetings
where they're, like,
"What do you wanna do?"
And I said,
"I wanna be a rock star,"
and they said,
"Don't be a jackass."
I was experiencing
very deep depression.
I felt like I was slipping
out of existence.
Surprise sometime
Will come around
I will surprise you sometime
I'll come around
I will surprise you sometime
I'll come around
When you're down
Get in the fucking van!
Hello, The Strokes!
I sent The Strokes' demo
to everyone I could think of
in the industry saying,
"This is the best unsigned band
in New York City."
Geoff Travis at Rough Trade
called the day he received it.
He said, "I wanna sign this
and fly the band to England
for a tour."
It was insane!
- It seems so weird.
- We're going to England to play music.
Let's go to England!
Oh...
You don't wanna
get too carried away.
I'm, like, I'm trying
to like just hang with it.
Pretty exciting.
American tourist in England.
Fuck.
Me and Kimya went on tour
opening for The Strokes.
We would always
joke around and be like,
"We're The Strokes fluffers."
Take your passion
And make it happen
You can come alive
you can dance right through...
I was quite
a bit older and sober.
I would say to those guys,
"Are you sure"
you wanna get wasted?
"You don't wanna remember
how cool this is?"
- We're ready, right team?
- Go team.
- Go team. All right.
- Yay.
Strokes, hello.
- Hello.
- Hi.
- Hello.
- - I think, first off,
because you're
unknown in the U.K.,
just introduce yourselves.
Julian.-
Julian was dealing
with a lot of nervousness.
- I was, like, "How is he scared?
- He's so good."
But he wrote
all of the songs.
His nervousness came out
of that perfectionism.
Last night she said
Oh, baby, don't feel so down
Oh, it turns me off
when I feel left out
So I
I turn around
Oh, baby
gonna be all right
It was a great big lie
'Cause I left
that night, yeah
Oh, people
They don't understand
No, girlfriends
They don't understand
Not before coming here. No.
Oh, it's just so weird.
I don't even know what's
going on right now, man.
I'm just, you know,
it's all...
It's all crazy and cool
and bizarre and... you know.
- What's going on?
- - You gotta get off here, please.
Keep going. Keep going.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Please, please.
Holy shit!
- Get up! Get up!
- Get up! Get up! Get up!
- Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
- What?
Mayor Giuliani, I wonder
if you could give us an update?
Well,
the first thing I'd like to do
is take this opportunity
to tell everyone
to evacuate Lower Manhattan.
Mayor Giuliani,
do you have any sense
of the order of magnitude
of injuries and deaths?
I do not, except to say
that it's horrendous.
When the buildings fell,
my impression was clearly
there won't have been
people in that building.
We walked in the ashy streets
picking up papers.
Once they said on the radio,
"You should go to the hospitals
"and try and give blood,"
it started to dawn on me.
Thousands have lost their life.
It's 1-800-GIVE-LIFE.
For blood.
You can call up to give...
I remember feeling
how fragile life actually is.
There's anthrax
in the envelope
I opened in my dream
Dream the sky is red
And little kids are running
screaming in the street
I try to run and save them
But I have molasses feet
I keep having nightmares
and I'm scared to go to sleep
In Montreal I got so mad
Someone broke into the van
Stole my guitar
and Aaron's bag
Then we turned on CNN
watched the towers fall again
Realized that our lives
aren't so bad
The air is filled
with computers and carpets
Skin and bones and telephones
and file cabinets
Coke machines, firemen
Landing here and cement
They say that it's okay
but I say don't breathe in
I was grieving for my city.
I felt deep trauma.
But when I perform,
I could be somewhere else.
Almost, you know,
like a split personality.
You're pretty
You're pretty
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Hey, hey
Fear and anxiety have
become a very real
part of American life.
This, of course is Halloween,
a day when fright
is manufactured for fun.
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You look like shit
You take your time
You take your time
You take it
T-T-T-Time
You take your time
You take your time
You take it
At Fort Campbell,
Kentucky, today,
President Bush rallied
the army's 101st Airborne
heading off to support the war
in Afghanistan,
and carved up a turkey,
right along with Osama Bin Laden
and his Al-Qaeda forces.
We will never tire,
and we will hunt them down!
A grim task of trying to find
remains of those killed.
Anxiety and fear...
Terrorist training camp...
Cruise missiles...
- Holy war...
- Mass murder...
Casualties-
MALE REPORTER 5: Taliban-
- Airstrike...
- Terrorists...
Destroyed.
New York felt
really claustrophobic.
So much paranoia.
Everyone's confused and scared.
The artists and musicians
moved in droves
out of Manhattan
across to Williamsburg.
A lot of people
quit their jobs,
and just were like,
"Fuck it, I'm gonna
play music full-time."
The rent was so cheap
that you could afford
to take risks.
You could fail
and it didn't matter.
There is a big
difference between
Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Brooklyn was about
potential and freedom.
Abandoned buildings
and warehouses
became practice spaces.
Outside of public attention
and expectation.
That's what nurtured us.
We could all be weirdos
in the best way possible.
The main bands were
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Onida,
and Sightings,
Liars, and TV On The Radio.
This is an excuse for us
to hang out with our friends
and...
- Blah, blah, blah, blah.
- Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, this guy.
Come and bust our balls
during an interview, man.
He said, "Can you play drums?"
"Yeah, maybe."
Whatever drummer...
Whatever, drummer.
What brought
TV On The Radio together
is the fact that
we're all nerds.
I'm not a very social person,
I don't go out.
When I became
friends with Tunde,
he was like,
"You have no clothes
and no furniture,"
"but you have pain
and drum machines."
I was, like, "Yeah,
that's kind of the vibe."
I always
wanted to make music.
When you're the offspring
of immigrants, and you say,
"I wanna be an artist,"
you might as well say,
"Thanks for all of this
but I'm gonna put on
a pair of clown shoes."
But I've gotta get whatever
energy that's in me out.
Writing music
felt like a prayer.
Your ooh
Slim frame
Your eager eyes
Your wild mane
So they keep me
Where I belong
I'm strung out in song
Oh, I will be your accident
If you will be my ambulance
So I will be
your screech and crash
If you will be
my crutch and cast
And I will be
your one more time
If you will be
my one last chance
Oh, sweet tree fall for me
Julian of The Strokes,
there is an element
of make believe,
isn't there, in the band...
There's an element of
make believe, isn't there?
Swiss schools,
elite modeling agency?
- Yes.
- Lee? What...
There's an element of
make believe in the band.
That's pretty cool.
Meeting at Swiss schools,
that's cool.
That's like realistic,
it's not make believe,
it's not pretend,
it's not fiction.
It's true to life.
I think that's really cool
though, like Swiss.
I've never been to a place
they call Swiss,
but you guys have,
and you met there,
and your dad is, like,
John Casablancas.
That's pretty cool and
I think he's in some
hot water now, eh?
I don't know. I think...
I don't know, it's weird.
I live with my mom,
you know, they divorced
when I was young, so.
I think just... I think life felt
a little more normal.
- That was the weirdest part.
- That was the weirdest stage of my life.
And it's my great pleasure
to introduce to you
the President
of the Elite Modeling Agency,
Mr. John Casablancas.-
Julian wasn't really
comfortable with fame.
He was always talking
about how he wanted
to make underground music.
But he also wanted
the music to be popular.
He had this tension
inside of him.
So, we're in the U.K.
I have to say...
It's a party in the U.K.,
I have to say.
You rock.
What's more important, Dave,
a good sound or a good time?
- A good time.
- Yeah, I agree, do you agree?
Sounding good
having a good time.
Every woman fronting a band
in, like,
the 30 years before me were pioneers
and I felt like a pioneer.
For men in rock,
there's a fucking code,
there's a way you do things.
I just realized for me,
there's no code.
I could do whatever
I wanted to do up there.
I didn't give a fuck.
Oh, I'm rich
Like a hot noise
Rich, rich, rich
I'll take you out, boy
So stuck up
I wish you'd stick it to me
Flesh ripped off
Ha
Ah
Turn it beating no beat
The walls are
always speaking
No want, no want
No want no speaking at all
On the very
first night in the U.K...
it was pandemonium.
Every club that we would play
would be sold out.
People knew
our songs word-for-word.
It was super crazy.
- $5...
- - Which shirt do you want?
- This one is the last one.
- Let me, uh, sign it for you.
- Hope you had a good time tonight?
- - It was fandabidozi.
All the magazines are saying you
are the best band ever.
Right. You are fantastic.
Those are, uh,
those are big words.
They're fucking right though.
It was extremely exciting,
and we were all so drunk
on that ravenous fanaticism.
- Funny.
- What's that?
- Where's Brian?
We need Brian to sign it.
Oh, oh, oh.
- Brian, you wanna sign this?
- Is Brian back there?
- Write an essay on my shirt.
- I am girl.
I know this band's the future.
My name's Carlos, uh,
Carlos D. Uh...
I play bass in Interpol.
So, we pooled all of our money
together and forced this tour of the U.
K.
I'd never been to England.
This is where
The Smiths are from.
This is where New Order
is from.
I was on fire.
Somehow,
we got booked to play this,
like, little festival
called Crucifest.
Next, we're booked in Manchester
on fucking Easter.
You don't play at Uni town
on a holiday.
There was, like,
five people there.
Oh, you know what,
it's not on.
Every person that we met said,
"Do you know The Strokes?"
"Are you friends
with The Strokes?"
She says it helps
with the lights out
Her rabid glow
is like braille to the night
She swears
I'm a slave to the details
But if your life
is such a big fuckin' joke
Why should I care?
- No one knew who we were.
- We shouldn't have been there.
Where do we go from here?
The year after 9/11,
the Parking Lot Show
was a manifestation
of appreciation
and love
for the Brooklyn Community.
A real assembly of the best
of the Brooklyn bands.
Liars played just before us.
That child...
Oh
That child...
That child throws...
Just throw it out
Just throw it out
Just throw it out
There he is!
There he is!
And next!-
There have been
times in my life
where I really wanted
to fit in and I just didn't.
But you could feel
the love from the community.
It was just like
a current flowing through me.
It's our time
Our time, our time
It's our time
Our time, it's our time
To be hated, all right
Well, it's the year
to be hated, all right
You know it's the year
to be hated, all right
It's the year
to be hated, all right
It's the year to be hated
All the stuff we
were hearing about
what was going on in Brooklyn
and we were in Manhattan.
I was never really
part of any scene.
I'd been recording bands
for years.
I had engineered some
perfectly engineered records,
but people
didn't really hire me.
Loads of crap.
Suddenly this big named
Irish techno DJ
- shows up in New York to make a record.
- And that's David Holmes.
When I was DJ,
I was Iggy Pop.
Just living it.
David didn't seem
to know how to play
any musical instruments.
James didn't understand
dance music.
And I'm super
uptight about this.
Oh, yo, yo...
James had been in a few
second-tier Indie Rock bands.
He lived in the office.
He had a small stereo system
and an inflatable mattress.
That decade had defeated him.
The first thing
I wanted to do
was make a record
that sounded like Can.
Wait a second.
Can were people
that worked at the Mozartian.
The most prestigious
classical music school.
Herman Smidt won
the young conductors award,
traveled to New York,
seized The Velvet Underground,
blew his mind,
went back and formed a band
with the best free jazz drummer
in Europe.
They live
in a weird old castle.
They played together
eight hours a day.
You're gonna sit there
and sample your way into Can?
At this point,
I'm going insane.
But the truth is,
without David Holmes
DFA, LCD,
none of that happens, none of it.
None of it.
New York,
how's the scene happening.
Are you conscious of being
a part of something right now?
Well,
everyone says that there's the scenes,
so that's kind of cool,
you know,
and I feel very proud to be put into
the same sentence or
whatever with those bands.
Out of the blue,
we got given a record deal.
I just couldn't believe it.
This was actually happening.
Finally making a record.
The only studio we could afford
was in the attic
of someone's house
in Connecticut.
It really was great
to get out of the city
and get away from distractions.
Be it alcohol or cocaine
or girls, or whatever
and just focus on the music.
But social life
was very important to Carlos.
He didn't wanna miss out.
Which is why
I'm very, very obsessed
with the movie
Leaving Las Vegas.
Because to me,
Nicholas Cage in that movie
almost embodies me.
I wanted to be
in New York City
where, like, everything
was happening.
Everybody's name is on it?
Don't you have...
There was a lot
of tension in the studio.
We couldn't have a conversation
for more than 10 minutes
without telling each other
to fuck off.
The fact that this
was a collaboration,
I really didn't care.
The most important thing
was the song writing dynamic
between me and Daniel.
The best moment really were when
we just didn't talk.
And when Carlos played,
it just negated anything else.
I remember being
in the studio the last morning
listening to what we had done.
Wow.
I just couldn't believe
how good it was.
Driving home from
Connecticut to Manhattan,
everything felt
totally different.
When I was 17
It was a very good year
It was a very good year
For small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was 17
New York is
bracing itself tonight
for one massive blizzard.
When I was 21
It was a very good year...
It was a very good year
for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was 21
- Whoo!
- Yeah!
- Hallelujah!
- All right!
Halle-fucking-lujah, man!
The way
we've been portrayed.
New York City
good looking dude.
- A bunch of rich kids...
- - Who think they're really cool.
If I heard of a band like that,
I'd think they were assholes.
Excuse me. Excuse me.
In New York,
I was like a wild animal
out of its cage.
My gang was just getting up
to no good five nights a week.
I don't dance,
I barely drink.
I don't wanna
embarrass myself.
I remember
talking him into it.
- "- You gotta try it.
- This is gonna change everything."
People were touching me,
chanting my name.
I'm experiencing this music
in this totally new way.
I really enjoyed dancing.
It is not the drug.
This is actually me...
and my life
is forever changed.
- Tim was the producer and programmer.
- For David Holmes.
He and I would be the ones
stuck in the room
having to sort through the shit
after everyone's left.
He taught me how to use
the computer to experiment.
Working with him
was perfect.
After watching what Holmes
could wind up doing,
it just seemed obvious to us.
What if we did something
of our own?
Something that
makes people
who didn't normally
dance, dance?
But if we were
going to be a label,
we really needed to find a band.
A band that we believed in.
So, the name of our band
is The Rapture.
The name of our band
is The Rapture.
- What's your name?
- Matt.
- And your name?
- Gabriel.
The band
started on the west coast.
We lived in this suburb
of San Diego,
where there's nothing
going on.
We just decided
to pack up the band,
book a tour
to get out to New York.
I mean,
I was legitimately, like,
19 years old.
Very green.
- We were broke.
- We had no money at all.
I came to New York
as a complete leap of faith.
New York, it's almost like
this white chalk outline,
it's like,
"Do whatever you want in here,"
"be as, like, as free
and as angry as you want."
I would go on Avenue A
to this magazine store
and buy copies of "NME"
and I'd be like,
"Dude, like, this is all
happening around me"
"and eventually
they're gonna find me."
One, two, three, four
Five, six, seven
Come dance with me...
The first time I
saw The Rapture,
I was completely smitten.
Luke looked insane
and had this amazing,
weird voice.
He was super charismatic.
James Murphy and Tim
were just fuckin' nuts.
And I loved that.
We were a punk
band that was trying
to make dance music.
We had similar goals,
just coming at it
from different angles.
James and Tim felt
like the only other people
on the planet
who had the same ideas.
And DFA was like
a clubhouse.
Euphoric party nights.
We'd listen to records,
wrote songs, drank too much.
We felt like we were
gonna take over the world.
MTV wanted The Strokes
to play a concert.
A 30-minute live
broadcast special.
It was a big deal.
It was exposure.
But a lot of those things
come with,
"Well, if you don't do this,
you're never gonna get
played on here again."
It's not working.
Just...
I would just remember
there will be people
behind you,
so just don't forget
to address the back, too.
Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, rolling.
Ladies and gentlemen,
here they are.
The Strokes.
No choice now
It's too late
Lisa said take time for me
Dropping him
down to his knees
He knows it's justified
to kill to survive
He then in dollars
makes more dead than alive
Let's suck more blood
Let's run three hours a day
The world is over
but I don't care 'cause
Take two.
Rally forward!
- Guys, take three.
- Rally forward.
Rally forward.
- Take five.
- Four. Two.
The first time
it happened too fast
The second time
I thought it would last
We all like it
a little different
The first
"NME" cover that we did,
the caption was
"Cool! Sexy! Drunk!"
Three words that
don't just make much
sense together.
And one of the things
that started to surface
with the press
was a sort of predatory gaze.
Photographers were
boys being in the front row
at our shows.
Arm outstretched,
weird expression on their face,
trying to get like crotch shots
under my skirt.
I just remember feeling
very protective about Karen.
Being a woman
fronting a rock band,
I was sensationalized.
But I was also struggling
to be taken seriously
as an artist.
That costume
that you were wearing,
the yellow, it's almost like
an Elvis jumpsuit.
That was sort of...
Have you ever had the
same sex experience...
- Do you have any thoughts on chastity?
- - Chastity?
Karen, have you ever experienced
Madonna syndrome?
Do you
remember your first kiss?
Is it a tough
kind of thing to be so cool?
Have you
received any death threats?
- What's your favorite meal?
- My favorite meal?
So, let me, uh, let me hear all
the ladies out there tonight.
All right.
Let me hear all the
boys out there tonight.
Okay, let me hear
all the men out there tonight.
I'm here to represent
for the ladies.
It's all or nothing.
I wanna date with the night
When we made
House Of Jealous Lovers
it wasn't necessarily
like fun in the studio.
House of jealous lovers
First,
we recorded everything live.
And then Tim and I
started ripping it apart.
I can get really
anxious if I feel like
I'm compromising my music.
I feel compulsion
to make the music
exactly the way
I think it should be.
James was the first person I met
who was more alpha than me.
I had all these
ideas in the studio,
he had all these ideas.
I couldn't bulldoze him.
I was
never good at friends.
I was so lonely
and so self-conscious.
I wanted connection
and friends,
but I'd always
end up in fights.
There was just
something wrong with me
that wasn't wrong
with other people.
So, I made music
fucking alone.
- He was really pushing me.
- I was in a lot of pain.
Get rid of the drum,
face the bass...
Get rid of
the guitar completely.
Me and Tim
just kept telling him
and everyone around him
was just like,
"You're domineering,
and you need to make
your own fucking record!"
There was a part of James
that wanted to be in the band.
Wanted it to be his band.
He didn't have his own outlet.
They really freaked out
about the production.
They thought everyone
was gonna hate
that it was a house song.
- He was really just like, "No.
- It's perfect, we're not fixing it."
House of jealous lovers
House of jealous lovers
People went
fucking crazy for it.
People just called us
the disco Strokes.
House of jealous
lovers shakedown
Goldsworthy
and engineer James Murphy
are the production team whose
fusion of minimal electronic
and post-punk rock
continue to thrill
critics and listeners
worldwide.
You know,
half the people, you know,
someone told them it was cool.
You know what I mean?
"Cause theoretically,"
we're... cool.
Nobody else was
playing the records
I was playing.
That was like my thing.
One hand ties the other
House of jealous lovers...
Pure idolism,
ridiculous mess.
I had my first E,
and lost my virginity
at the same DFA party.
We weren't downtown
New York cool kids,
and we weren't Brooklyn
Art School kids either,
but somehow,
we had a scene.
How do you guy
sit down and write a song?
Because I know you write
the lyrics, but do you-
No, Julian does the lyrics.
- Yeah.
- He writes the song.
- Oh, and the songs?
- Oh, yeah.
- Okay...
- And the guitar solos,
everything, dude.
- Really?
- Sure. Yeah.
That's... Yeah.
I always
wanted to write songs.
The most frustrated
I ever got,
I had a song and
thought it could
really work in the band.
I was super-excited about it.
But Julian had
a very precise vision.
The only thing I have control on
is having good songs.
Even if everyone loves it,
I always go home thinking,
"Is it good enough?"
It's a struggle.
It was a lot
of pressure on Julian
to get another album
out there as soon as possible.
We had been praised
as "Rock's Saviors",
but all we had ever recorded
was a half hour record.
Ready?
We got back from
touring and spent a month
in our rehearsal space...
and just worked.
Why were we rushing?
What is the ideal place
for somebody to listen
to your new record
for the first time?
I hadn't thought of that.
Read their last rights.
No, I don't know.
Nikolai, man, help me out.
I don't know, man,
we just finished it today,
you know.
How do you guys
feel about it?
- I...
- Tense but confident.
You sound
incredibly down on yourself.
It's odd to hear
you guys feel intimidated.
Feel like you guys aren't
gonna end up sizing up and...
think that you
guys are ultimately
gonna be forgotten.
I don't wanna
let people down.
- Karen rules...
- She's very good.
- She's the coolest
person on earth-
-And Nick.
- And she's a God.
- Nicks amazing.
She just does
what she wants,
- and she doesn't care about anyone else.
- -Yeah.
She's sexy!
- Her hair, her face, everything.
- Her voice.
I'd do her.
I'd do her.
She seems shy, like,
offstage, but she puts on this
crazy character.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
are going on in five minutes.
Can you please return?
I had set myself up
as being a pretty
spectacular
self-destructive persona.
I was needing
to live up to that,
and I was beating myself up
out there night after night.
I was seeing
the fanaticism around Karen.
The press, freaky fans.
And just seeing
how fragile she was off-stage...
I was worried.
Ah, this fuckin' hurts.
Do you know what I'm saying?
It's like fucking shit!
- Who the fuck cares?
- Do you know what I'm saying.
Do not fucking tread on me!
I really did want
to speak to someone
who could relate
to how I was feeling.
But my experience
was so different
from the men around me.
It was incredibly lonely.
It's just wearing me down,
the lifestyle,
the physical aspect of it,
the repetition of it.
The business of it
and the bullshit of it
and the press
and the attention.
- Can we have sound, speed?
- Roll cameras, please.
- Roll joints.
- Do speed.
Ready.
We're still waiting
for the...
It's a rehearsal
so let's just do it, right?
Do you need to play?
- It's just a rehearsal.
- Can we just start?
Okay, we are rolling.
Julian had dreams that
he just maybe assumed
we'd all just follow.
Room on Fire
sold, like, 650,000 records
and everybody
wants to write about
what a big failure it was.
By what it was built up to be,
it was supposed
to sell millions.
That's when
friends, girlfriends,
strangers started coming in.
"Julian's slowing
everyone down."
"You should be
a bigger band."
I felt that distance
between me and Julian.
- Well, its Ryan Adams.
Look at you.
-Hey, man.
- The most difficult man in rock and roll.
- -Oh, geez.
Ryan Adams was really,
really into The Strokes.
Enamored by them.
We're gonna play a
song by The Strokes
called Last Night.
Yeah, it's our best song.
He'd always come and
like wake me up at two
in the morning to have drugs.
So, I would just kind of,
like, do the drugs
and kind of numb out.
I remember Julian
threatening to beat him up
if he hung out with me.
I knew I would shoot up drugs
from a very young age.
When it came, it wasn't, like,
"What am I doing here?
It was kind of like,
"I made it."
I was home.
Number one.
The win immunity,
we're number one, watch this.
After House Of Jealous Lovers
blew up,
we had all this attention.
But we were touring
the world on a single.
It was so fun.
The Rapture,
me and Tim were a gang.
We felt invincible.
We had just finished Echoes,
this album that we really loved.
And then compound that
with the music industry
feeding frenzy in New York,
and it was just
this perfect timing.
But in the beginning,
DFA was more about concept
than an actual
functioning label.
DFA spent a year
trying to find a distributor
and failed to do so.
The clock was ticking.
I wish we had just put
fucking Echoes out.
That was a fucking mistake.
The songs
that are on the record,
we've been playing
them out for like a year
and a half, like...
So, it's just like...
It's just time
for it to come out, like...
I was more scared
than I'd ever been
in my entire life.
It's gonna fucking disappear,
it's gonna be over.
I know they had to,
but when they left,
the crushed me.
I cried.
I just cried.
We were Rapture Records.
That's what DFA was.
But they left.
We didn't want to leave DFA.
Those were, like,
our closest friends.
But we needed
to get our record out.
We hit 40,000 records sold.
Our record company
was, like, "Whoa!"
We had this incredible
energy between us,
this kinetic energy.
We nailed the second record
straightaway.
This is the record
that we've been waiting for.
Three months
before release date,
we were out at some bar.
A complete stranger
comes along singing lyrics
from the second record.
What the hell's going on?
The record had leaked.
I couldn't believe that
this was actually happening.
I went
to this club, Brownies,
which I used to play at
all the time.
There was a kid DJ-ing,
playing ESG,
and he plays
a Liquid Liquid song.
What the fuck?
These records
took me years to find,
and now some kid
can just download it?
Wait a second.
You didn't write them,
you just play them,
you just own them,
you can't be proud of yourself
for owning it.
But I know that kid
was at one of my parties.
Even if this person
went to one of our parties,
I have no rights here.
It's the fucking
closest I've ever been
to cool in my life
and this fucking kid
can take it?
I was playing
that six months ago.
First of all,
it's not your record,
you didn't make it.
What's worse
than that guy?
I'm disappointed
with myself.
- Its stupid and embarrassing.
- - I'm a total hipster
jackass,
I have been my entire life.
I'd really wasted
30 years of my life.
And I would
lock the studio...
sing a song
about losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge...
How humiliating it is to be me.
To the kids
From France and from London
I'm losing my edge
It was the first time
I made music
where I wasn't trying
to be another thing
that I thought
I'm supposed to be.
Yeah, I'm losing my edge
I'm losing my edge
To kids
I'm coming up from behind
But I was there
I was there in 1968
I was there at the first
Can show in Cologne
But I was there
I was the first guy playing
Daft Punk to the rock kids
I played it at CBGB's
Everybody thought
it was crazy
We all know
I hear everybody
that you know
Is more relevant
than everybody that I know
I came upstairs
and played it for Tim.
He said, "You don't wanna put"
this out, man.
"You really don't want people
to hear this."
But I've lived in fear
my whole life...
and I had nothing to lose.
Julian always wanted
the whole band together.
I'd show up late
in the studio.
And smoke too much crack
before coming in
and had to take a bunch of pills
just to calm down.
I wasn't playing that well.
I've tried everything
to get fired.
Remember that girl
that was downstairs,
that said she didn't care
about The Hives and The Strokes,
and she just wanted
like a big rock riff?
- I think that ought to do it.
- We are, um, we're back.
We had a little nap,
and we are really staying up
for 24 hours and...
not many people
in this room do drugs.
We're in a corporate
environment.
Come here, come here.
Courtney Love was
doing a take over
of MTV for 24 hours.
- Show us your.
- Come on!
- Yes!
- I'll do it if you do it!
She texted me,
"Do any of The Strokes
wanna pop up?"
I called Albert.
You're fucked up
and the idea's funny.
Oh, yeah, I'll go up there
and, like, see Courtney Love.
- Wait, what are we doing?
- Why are we?
I was so fucked.
Her and Ryan were
just doing their thing
what Ryan always does.
When things go bad,
you just want it to get worse.
When the band catch you
out of it.
I can be sitting here with
my eyes open and just...
gone.
There's so many times
where I was just so close to...
to dying.
It could be over.
We could be over, you know.
Out of nowhere I got an offer
from Arthur Baker.
He'd heard our record
and he wanted us to come
play a show in London.
There's no way I can do this.
I can't do it.
- I don't have a band.
- It's just me and a toy boom box.
I did the only thing I could do,
call the people that I knew.
Tyler, the base player
in Out Hud,
Pat, the drummer
in Les Savvy Fav,
Phil Mossman,
guitar player, who had done
the David Holmes' record,
and Nancy, my drinking buddy,
took piano as a kid.
Deciding to start a band
in your 30's
seemed absurd.
We only had
10 days to rehearse.
This was his first
time as a front man
singing in front of people.
Nothing terrified me like
watching footage of John Lydon.
It made me feel
so uncomfortable.
I realized this would be
my problem.
The people that are dancing...
and he just
doesn't exude himself.
Oh, my God.
I don't know
what to do with myself.
James wanted to set up very,
very close
together on stage.
So, he was
totally surrounded.
Protected.
Go ahead...
Well, Daft Punk is playing
at my house, my house
I'll show you the ropes kid,
show you the ropes
I got a bus and a trailer
at my house, my house
I'll show you the ropes kid,
show you the ropes
'Cause Daft Punk is playing
at my house, my house
You've got to set them up,
set them up
My house
My house
You've got to set them up,
set them up
The song "This is it,"
is that a sarcastic reference
to The Strokes?
No, no, no, no, no!
I've heard that from many people
and it's like,
"Damn, if I were gonna write
a song about The Strokes,"
"I would probably go
a little further."
That's just the name
of the song.
But I can see
why people think that.
It goes to show
you how influential
The Strokes guys are.
That these guys
are just great.
Hello.
I wanted to ask you
about this before we left.
I think it's awesome.
- What?
- Yes... The holster.
Well, thanks, thanks a lot.
And I don't know if anyone's
ever done that before.
Um, to my knowledge,
they haven't.
But it wasn't, you know,
me trying to be an innovator.
It wasn't me trying
to be an innovator to...
to wear the holster.
If I get followers, so be it.
- Yeah, so be it, exactly.
- I'm not gonna, like, stop them.
We're Interpol,
and you're watching MTV2.
You've had stuff's
thrown at you, like,
there's been panties
thrown at you, Carlos?
Uh,
there was an occasion where panties
were thrown at me, yes.
It seems like
you've been touring constantly.
It seems like you've hardly
really had a break.
What's fans reactions been
to this new album?
Wherever we've gone,
it's been just kind of, like,
a similar sort of
excitement and enthusiasm.
Before Napster,
we would have made
a shit load of money.
But actually...
I didn't really care.
Because people from
all around the world
found out about our music.
I remember thinking
back to all of those
guidance counselor meetings...
when I said,
"I wanna be a rock star."
Yeah, but nobody searches
And nobody cares somehow
When the loving
that you've wasted
Comes raining from
a hapless cloud
And I might stop
and look upon your face
Disappear
in the sweet, sweet gaze
See the living
that surrounds me
Dissipate in a violet place
Can't you see what you've done
to my heart and soul
This is a wasteland now
We spies, we slow hands
Put the weights
around yourself
We spies, oh, yeah
We slow hands
We retire like nobody else
We spies
intimate slow hands
Killer for hire
you know not yourself
After falling from
the stage in a show
in Australia last month,
Karen O, the tough front woman
of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
still managed to
compose herself enough
to perform Maps.
Pack up
I'm straight
Enough
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Just wait
They don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Just wait
For they don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Just wait
They don't love you
like I love you
- I'm so annoyed with this dude.
- - What dude?
So, here it's just things like,
"I'm sad because
I had a show booked with LCD."
"The date, like, all U.S. dates
got canceled."
There was no fucking U.S. tour.
We never had a U.S. tour.
Are you responding to it?
- Yeah.
- What are you gonna say?
I have to say this
shit sounds a lot like
a fucking guilt trip.
What are you, my mother?
Eat it.
Fucking baby.
Why are you
getting so angry?
I...
Just the concept of emailing somebody
is so alien to me.
So, you're tied up?
- Oh, I don't wanna do this.
- I hate this so much.
James, I'm serious,
lip sync to a different song.
Sing a different song.
- I'm doing that now.
- It's called talking.
I can talk all day.
Those years
were the big bang of my life.
I finally found my friends.
Can we do claps again?
Yes!
I felt safe.
The Brooklyn Waterfront
will likely be getting
a makeover.
Mayor Bloomberg wants
to rezone part of the area...
The neighborhood
has had a rebirth
and now it's a choice location
for commerce and for living.
It is no longer
a well-kept secret.
What began with a
trickle has turned into
a flood of Manhattanites
crossing the East
River into Brooklyn's
Williamsburg neighborhood.
- Many of them drawn...
- - Our rent had tripled in three years.
The landlords cleared out
whole fucking buildings.
Pushing families out.
I was grieving
the dissipation of the scene.
I don't want to stick around
and just watch it go away.
I left New York City.
I felt too nostalgic for it
when everything happened.
See now,
everybody was just playing music,
you know what I'm saying.
- It's nuts, yeah, good music.
Everywhere.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
It was like a flash.
When we first met,
that's what we bonded over,
It was...
the belief that we
could accomplish
anything we wanted to.
Everything was so innocent,
and somehow
you lose it through time
and then you spend a lot of time
chasing that same innocence,
that feeling of
just being young.
Day upon day,
and year upon year, O city,
walking your streets,
Keep your splendid silent sun.
Keep your woods, O Nature,
and your corn-fields
and orchards.
Give me faces and streets!
Give me comrades
and lovers by the thousand!
Let me see
new ones every day!
Let me hold new ones
by the hand every day!
- Give me such shows!
- Give me the streets of Manhattan!
People, endless, streaming,
with strong voices,
passions, pageants.
Manhattan streets,
with their powerful throbs,
with the beating drums, as now.
The endless and noisy chorus.
Manhattan crowds with
their turbulent musical chorus.
Manhattan faces
and the eyes forever for me.
Many years since I was here
On the street
I was passing my time away
To the left
and to the right
Towers tumble to the sky
It's out of sight
In the dead of night
Here I am again in the city
With a fistful of dollars
And, baby,
you better believe I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
In the New York groove
In the New York groove
In the back of my Cadillac
A wicked lady
sittin' by my side
Sayin', "Where are we?"
Stopped at Third
and Forty-three
Exit to the night
It's gonna be ecstasy
This place was meant for me
I feel so good tonight
Who cares about tomorrow
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
In the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
Day upon day,
and year upon year, O city,
walking your streets.
Give me faces and streets!
Give me comrades
and lovers by the thousands!
Let me see new ones every day!
Let me hold new ones
by the hand every day!
Give me such shows!
Give me the streets
of Manhattan!
People, endless, streaming,
with strong voices,
passions, pageants.
Manhattan streets,
with their powerful throbs,
with the beating drums, as now,
the endless and noisy chorus.
Manhattan crowds with
their turbulent musical chorus.
Manhattan faces and eyes
forever for me.
Welcome to New York City.
Sleeping in a van
Between A and B
Sucking dick for ecstasy
Paid a 70 year old hooker
To make out with me
Now the get-high shack
is just a memory
Downloading porn with Davo
Downloading porn with Davo
Put a latch on the door
So Mama don't know
That I'm downloading porn
With Davo
- Perfect!
- Perfect!
You guys wanna be
in a documentary?
We're making a documentary.
- Documentary that's... All right.
- Cool.
It's a documentary
of the hallway.
- Yeah.
- Great.
How you doing?
Hello. I'm your new neighbor.
- You guys be our audience.
- We're singing songs.
All right. Cool.
- We're singing songs.
- Cool guys!
- Who left you people alone tonight?
- That's what I wanna know.
My parents thought of us
as a delusional experiment
where we didn't know
how to play our instruments.
We came to New
York to try to prove
we were a real band,
The Moldy Peaches.
Tonight, we're going
to a birthday party
for the Queen
of fucking France.
We just wanted to find
a place to play music.
Hi!
Hi.
- Hi. Hi.
- Hi.
The Lower East side
was more or less barren,
delis and boarded up places.
Most places we
found were sort of
a more bougie club scene.
We'd walk into these rooms
and be like, "Oh, oops."
It felt like
all of that wild,
weird eclecticness had
drained out of the city.
I remember thinking maybe
New York isn't the kind
of city anymore
that produces iconic bands.
Even MTV was filled
with super dry pop-rock.
And the winner for best rock is
The Offspring!
Blink 182.-
Limp Bizkit, Rollin.
Friday, 2:12 p.m.
- Hey, Adam, what's up?
- It's...
Somebody told me,
"You should check out"
the open mic at Sidewalk Cafe,
and that's where we found
the anti-folk scene.
Yeah.
This community
of musicians
that didn't have
a place to play.
Oh, yeah.
There's a car traveling down
a lone Texas highway
Rams into a giant back
Spirit of the bat fills your
fragile eggshell mind
Yeah
Maybe we could fit in here.
When the worlds
got you down
Rainy Sundays, sunny town
Tropicana, canned foods
Botulism, damaged goods
See the hipsters in the park
Hair so styled,
clothes so dark
Prefab molded hamburgers
I don't want
a bite of yours
These burgers are crazy
These burgers are crazy
Let's hear it
for The Moldy Peaches!
We were
immediately embraced.
Send the tip jar around.
It became our home.
This shy girl
called Karen
lived across the street
from the Sidewalk Cafe.
She'd come down
to play these quiet
acoustic guitar songs.
I was grateful
playing at any venue
in New York City,
but it just wasn't
exciting me.
I was skulking around
the music scene
trying to sniff out some blood.
The last big wave
of New York bands
was a long time passed.
I wanted something
explosive to happen
without understanding
what that was.
One day, me and Kimya were
at our friend's party.
This drunk guy called Julian
comes over...
and he's in the bathroom doing
drugs with this young lady,
he breaks the shower.
Somebody said he
was a singer in a band
called The Strokes.
- This guy's crazy.
- I've gotta see this band.
We're sitting here
with The Strokes live
in WF Music Studios.
You guys were hot last night.
Scorching!-
Yeah.
Hey, Jules,
when did you guys start up?
We started playing
New York a year ago.
The last few months
we've been tearing stuff up.
You're looking
pretty serious.
I am serious, man,
I'm always serious.
- Am I ever not serious?
- You're more serious...
I don't know what's fuck...
That felt good.
Now it's my turn
to break the camera.
The way I met this band,
too many things
happened exactly right,
that it seems so hard
for it to be just luck.
Four, three, two! Oh, shit.
- Hey, Julian.
- Oh, man.
I ran into Julian
on the street
seven years after I'd met him
in boarding school.
Then I met everyone.
I just felt it.
The closeness.
We were like brothers.
They were so tight and together,
and are such good friends.
It just feels like
the five of them
make up one person.
Just one solid person on stage.
By now, most people
have heard of Y2K,
the anagram shorthand
for the year 2000
computer problem.
Americans have proven
they can handle
even the most devastating
natural disaster.
But can we survive a man-made
technological meltdown?
It's now time to
begin stockpiling
essential survival items.
Military meals,
gas masks to knives.
When your kids are standing
there cold and hungry,
and they come up
to you and say,"Mommy,
Daddy, why didn't you get ready?
"What are you gonna tell them?"
With every tick
of the clock toward midnight
in Times Square,
emergency officials are
watching for Y2K problems.
The dawning of a new millennium
now just minutes away.
We celebrate the future.
What will the story
of the 21st century be?
Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one...
From the City Command Center
at the World Trade Center,
the Deputy Mayor Joseph
Lhota said computer systems
have been checked.
The city
is functioning normally.
A friend of mine had a big crush
on this guy Nick.
She dragged me to the Mars Bar
where he hung out.
I felt this very visceral
reaction towards him.
I needed to be connected
to this person.
She talked
like a valley girl
but said that
she was from Jersey.
Every other word was "dude".
I'd never met
anybody like that.
When you're young
and in New York
and you find
like-minded people,
you just end up doing
things together every night.
Karen played me songs
that she had written.
I was just completely
blown away.
I may be dead, honey
But I was left with my eyes
And underneath, sugar
Well, I've been sunk
by your lies...
One night, Karen said,
- "- Trust me.
- We should start a rock band."
We're the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
and, um...
we're from New York City,
Brooklyn, and, um...
We, uh...
We've, um...
Do you wanna continue?-
In one night,
we wrote six songs.
We were bragging about
how amazing we were
to our friend
who was The White Stripes
booking agent.
He called our bluff
and offered us the opening slot
for The White Stripes show
in the Mercury Lounge.
Karen was really insistent
that we get her friend
Brian to play drums.
I was really nervous,
and I had
four margaritas lined up.
Knocking one back
after the other.
Something was
completely unleashed,
I was shocked.
I grew up in New Jersey,
very shy,
half Korean, half white.
And when you're a halfie,
you don't feel like the whites,
you don't fit in
with the Koreans.
I was just used
to being on the outside.
But on stage,
I was free of that feeling.
Once I'd had tasted that,
I just wanted
to lose myself in that.
- You guys should get a manager, you know.
- Do you guys have a manager?
He's over there,
you should point the camera...
It's Ryan Gentles.
That's not a manager,
that's, like, a cute little kid.
The first time
I saw The Strokes,
I was watching a band
that just was born a band.
I was the booker
at the Mercury Lounge,
the best club for local bands
in New York City.
I booked them immediately.
We're live here
with The Strokes.
I know you guys
are really hot.
They've been playing
every Wednesday night
in December
at the Mercury Lounge.
Hello, yeah, we're The Strokes
and we're from New York City.
You just felt it.
The audience was excited
that we existed.
Me and Kimya
opened for The Strokes.
The first week,
we also played with
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
So, it was The Moldy Peaches,
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
and The Strokes.
More people
crammed in each week.
There was a hysteria
in the audience.
These guys were like sex gods.
Suddenly, there were
bands everywhere in New York.-
The Strokes
launched a fireball.
New York City
is like a graveyard
It all happened so fast.
All the corpses like
the way I play my guitar
Totally DIY.
You gotta be cute
if you wanna get far...
Zero interest from record labels
or magazines.
New York City
is like a graveyard
All the tombstones
sky scrapin'
All the rock stars
double dating
We got it
Blue eyes last forever
Real light it never fades
Real life is a gamble
Pardon me?
So don't give your ace
I desperately
wanted to participate
in the scene...
But I'm working
at Yeshiva University
in the admissions office
stuffing envelopes...
Knowing there's
five dudes out there
that are cool as fuck,
writing insanely awesome music
and they are cooler
and better than you are.
I was also the singer
in a band called Interpol.
We sent our demos to
every single record label
I could think of.
No record label
showed any interest at all.
It was like all of those
guidance counselor meetings
where they're, like,
"What do you wanna do?"
And I said,
"I wanna be a rock star,"
and they said,
"Don't be a jackass."
I was experiencing
very deep depression.
I felt like I was slipping
out of existence.
Surprise sometime
Will come around
I will surprise you sometime
I'll come around
I will surprise you sometime
I'll come around
When you're down
Get in the fucking van!
Hello, The Strokes!
I sent The Strokes' demo
to everyone I could think of
in the industry saying,
"This is the best unsigned band
in New York City."
Geoff Travis at Rough Trade
called the day he received it.
He said, "I wanna sign this
and fly the band to England
for a tour."
It was insane!
- It seems so weird.
- We're going to England to play music.
Let's go to England!
Oh...
You don't wanna
get too carried away.
I'm, like, I'm trying
to like just hang with it.
Pretty exciting.
American tourist in England.
Fuck.
Me and Kimya went on tour
opening for The Strokes.
We would always
joke around and be like,
"We're The Strokes fluffers."
Take your passion
And make it happen
You can come alive
you can dance right through...
I was quite
a bit older and sober.
I would say to those guys,
"Are you sure"
you wanna get wasted?
"You don't wanna remember
how cool this is?"
- We're ready, right team?
- Go team.
- Go team. All right.
- Yay.
Strokes, hello.
- Hello.
- Hi.
- Hello.
- - I think, first off,
because you're
unknown in the U.K.,
just introduce yourselves.
Julian.-
Julian was dealing
with a lot of nervousness.
- I was, like, "How is he scared?
- He's so good."
But he wrote
all of the songs.
His nervousness came out
of that perfectionism.
Last night she said
Oh, baby, don't feel so down
Oh, it turns me off
when I feel left out
So I
I turn around
Oh, baby
gonna be all right
It was a great big lie
'Cause I left
that night, yeah
Oh, people
They don't understand
No, girlfriends
They don't understand
Not before coming here. No.
Oh, it's just so weird.
I don't even know what's
going on right now, man.
I'm just, you know,
it's all...
It's all crazy and cool
and bizarre and... you know.
- What's going on?
- - You gotta get off here, please.
Keep going. Keep going.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Please, please.
Holy shit!
- Get up! Get up!
- Get up! Get up! Get up!
- Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
- What?
Mayor Giuliani, I wonder
if you could give us an update?
Well,
the first thing I'd like to do
is take this opportunity
to tell everyone
to evacuate Lower Manhattan.
Mayor Giuliani,
do you have any sense
of the order of magnitude
of injuries and deaths?
I do not, except to say
that it's horrendous.
When the buildings fell,
my impression was clearly
there won't have been
people in that building.
We walked in the ashy streets
picking up papers.
Once they said on the radio,
"You should go to the hospitals
"and try and give blood,"
it started to dawn on me.
Thousands have lost their life.
It's 1-800-GIVE-LIFE.
For blood.
You can call up to give...
I remember feeling
how fragile life actually is.
There's anthrax
in the envelope
I opened in my dream
Dream the sky is red
And little kids are running
screaming in the street
I try to run and save them
But I have molasses feet
I keep having nightmares
and I'm scared to go to sleep
In Montreal I got so mad
Someone broke into the van
Stole my guitar
and Aaron's bag
Then we turned on CNN
watched the towers fall again
Realized that our lives
aren't so bad
The air is filled
with computers and carpets
Skin and bones and telephones
and file cabinets
Coke machines, firemen
Landing here and cement
They say that it's okay
but I say don't breathe in
I was grieving for my city.
I felt deep trauma.
But when I perform,
I could be somewhere else.
Almost, you know,
like a split personality.
You're pretty
You're pretty
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Hey, hey
Fear and anxiety have
become a very real
part of American life.
This, of course is Halloween,
a day when fright
is manufactured for fun.
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You make we wanna
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
You look like shit
You take your time
You take your time
You take it
T-T-T-Time
You take your time
You take your time
You take it
At Fort Campbell,
Kentucky, today,
President Bush rallied
the army's 101st Airborne
heading off to support the war
in Afghanistan,
and carved up a turkey,
right along with Osama Bin Laden
and his Al-Qaeda forces.
We will never tire,
and we will hunt them down!
A grim task of trying to find
remains of those killed.
Anxiety and fear...
Terrorist training camp...
Cruise missiles...
- Holy war...
- Mass murder...
Casualties-
MALE REPORTER 5: Taliban-
- Airstrike...
- Terrorists...
Destroyed.
New York felt
really claustrophobic.
So much paranoia.
Everyone's confused and scared.
The artists and musicians
moved in droves
out of Manhattan
across to Williamsburg.
A lot of people
quit their jobs,
and just were like,
"Fuck it, I'm gonna
play music full-time."
The rent was so cheap
that you could afford
to take risks.
You could fail
and it didn't matter.
There is a big
difference between
Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Brooklyn was about
potential and freedom.
Abandoned buildings
and warehouses
became practice spaces.
Outside of public attention
and expectation.
That's what nurtured us.
We could all be weirdos
in the best way possible.
The main bands were
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Onida,
and Sightings,
Liars, and TV On The Radio.
This is an excuse for us
to hang out with our friends
and...
- Blah, blah, blah, blah.
- Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, this guy.
Come and bust our balls
during an interview, man.
He said, "Can you play drums?"
"Yeah, maybe."
Whatever drummer...
Whatever, drummer.
What brought
TV On The Radio together
is the fact that
we're all nerds.
I'm not a very social person,
I don't go out.
When I became
friends with Tunde,
he was like,
"You have no clothes
and no furniture,"
"but you have pain
and drum machines."
I was, like, "Yeah,
that's kind of the vibe."
I always
wanted to make music.
When you're the offspring
of immigrants, and you say,
"I wanna be an artist,"
you might as well say,
"Thanks for all of this
but I'm gonna put on
a pair of clown shoes."
But I've gotta get whatever
energy that's in me out.
Writing music
felt like a prayer.
Your ooh
Slim frame
Your eager eyes
Your wild mane
So they keep me
Where I belong
I'm strung out in song
Oh, I will be your accident
If you will be my ambulance
So I will be
your screech and crash
If you will be
my crutch and cast
And I will be
your one more time
If you will be
my one last chance
Oh, sweet tree fall for me
Julian of The Strokes,
there is an element
of make believe,
isn't there, in the band...
There's an element of
make believe, isn't there?
Swiss schools,
elite modeling agency?
- Yes.
- Lee? What...
There's an element of
make believe in the band.
That's pretty cool.
Meeting at Swiss schools,
that's cool.
That's like realistic,
it's not make believe,
it's not pretend,
it's not fiction.
It's true to life.
I think that's really cool
though, like Swiss.
I've never been to a place
they call Swiss,
but you guys have,
and you met there,
and your dad is, like,
John Casablancas.
That's pretty cool and
I think he's in some
hot water now, eh?
I don't know. I think...
I don't know, it's weird.
I live with my mom,
you know, they divorced
when I was young, so.
I think just... I think life felt
a little more normal.
- That was the weirdest part.
- That was the weirdest stage of my life.
And it's my great pleasure
to introduce to you
the President
of the Elite Modeling Agency,
Mr. John Casablancas.-
Julian wasn't really
comfortable with fame.
He was always talking
about how he wanted
to make underground music.
But he also wanted
the music to be popular.
He had this tension
inside of him.
So, we're in the U.K.
I have to say...
It's a party in the U.K.,
I have to say.
You rock.
What's more important, Dave,
a good sound or a good time?
- A good time.
- Yeah, I agree, do you agree?
Sounding good
having a good time.
Every woman fronting a band
in, like,
the 30 years before me were pioneers
and I felt like a pioneer.
For men in rock,
there's a fucking code,
there's a way you do things.
I just realized for me,
there's no code.
I could do whatever
I wanted to do up there.
I didn't give a fuck.
Oh, I'm rich
Like a hot noise
Rich, rich, rich
I'll take you out, boy
So stuck up
I wish you'd stick it to me
Flesh ripped off
Ha
Ah
Turn it beating no beat
The walls are
always speaking
No want, no want
No want no speaking at all
On the very
first night in the U.K...
it was pandemonium.
Every club that we would play
would be sold out.
People knew
our songs word-for-word.
It was super crazy.
- $5...
- - Which shirt do you want?
- This one is the last one.
- Let me, uh, sign it for you.
- Hope you had a good time tonight?
- - It was fandabidozi.
All the magazines are saying you
are the best band ever.
Right. You are fantastic.
Those are, uh,
those are big words.
They're fucking right though.
It was extremely exciting,
and we were all so drunk
on that ravenous fanaticism.
- Funny.
- What's that?
- Where's Brian?
We need Brian to sign it.
Oh, oh, oh.
- Brian, you wanna sign this?
- Is Brian back there?
- Write an essay on my shirt.
- I am girl.
I know this band's the future.
My name's Carlos, uh,
Carlos D. Uh...
I play bass in Interpol.
So, we pooled all of our money
together and forced this tour of the U.
K.
I'd never been to England.
This is where
The Smiths are from.
This is where New Order
is from.
I was on fire.
Somehow,
we got booked to play this,
like, little festival
called Crucifest.
Next, we're booked in Manchester
on fucking Easter.
You don't play at Uni town
on a holiday.
There was, like,
five people there.
Oh, you know what,
it's not on.
Every person that we met said,
"Do you know The Strokes?"
"Are you friends
with The Strokes?"
She says it helps
with the lights out
Her rabid glow
is like braille to the night
She swears
I'm a slave to the details
But if your life
is such a big fuckin' joke
Why should I care?
- No one knew who we were.
- We shouldn't have been there.
Where do we go from here?
The year after 9/11,
the Parking Lot Show
was a manifestation
of appreciation
and love
for the Brooklyn Community.
A real assembly of the best
of the Brooklyn bands.
Liars played just before us.
That child...
Oh
That child...
That child throws...
Just throw it out
Just throw it out
Just throw it out
There he is!
There he is!
And next!-
There have been
times in my life
where I really wanted
to fit in and I just didn't.
But you could feel
the love from the community.
It was just like
a current flowing through me.
It's our time
Our time, our time
It's our time
Our time, it's our time
To be hated, all right
Well, it's the year
to be hated, all right
You know it's the year
to be hated, all right
It's the year
to be hated, all right
It's the year to be hated
All the stuff we
were hearing about
what was going on in Brooklyn
and we were in Manhattan.
I was never really
part of any scene.
I'd been recording bands
for years.
I had engineered some
perfectly engineered records,
but people
didn't really hire me.
Loads of crap.
Suddenly this big named
Irish techno DJ
- shows up in New York to make a record.
- And that's David Holmes.
When I was DJ,
I was Iggy Pop.
Just living it.
David didn't seem
to know how to play
any musical instruments.
James didn't understand
dance music.
And I'm super
uptight about this.
Oh, yo, yo...
James had been in a few
second-tier Indie Rock bands.
He lived in the office.
He had a small stereo system
and an inflatable mattress.
That decade had defeated him.
The first thing
I wanted to do
was make a record
that sounded like Can.
Wait a second.
Can were people
that worked at the Mozartian.
The most prestigious
classical music school.
Herman Smidt won
the young conductors award,
traveled to New York,
seized The Velvet Underground,
blew his mind,
went back and formed a band
with the best free jazz drummer
in Europe.
They live
in a weird old castle.
They played together
eight hours a day.
You're gonna sit there
and sample your way into Can?
At this point,
I'm going insane.
But the truth is,
without David Holmes
DFA, LCD,
none of that happens, none of it.
None of it.
New York,
how's the scene happening.
Are you conscious of being
a part of something right now?
Well,
everyone says that there's the scenes,
so that's kind of cool,
you know,
and I feel very proud to be put into
the same sentence or
whatever with those bands.
Out of the blue,
we got given a record deal.
I just couldn't believe it.
This was actually happening.
Finally making a record.
The only studio we could afford
was in the attic
of someone's house
in Connecticut.
It really was great
to get out of the city
and get away from distractions.
Be it alcohol or cocaine
or girls, or whatever
and just focus on the music.
But social life
was very important to Carlos.
He didn't wanna miss out.
Which is why
I'm very, very obsessed
with the movie
Leaving Las Vegas.
Because to me,
Nicholas Cage in that movie
almost embodies me.
I wanted to be
in New York City
where, like, everything
was happening.
Everybody's name is on it?
Don't you have...
There was a lot
of tension in the studio.
We couldn't have a conversation
for more than 10 minutes
without telling each other
to fuck off.
The fact that this
was a collaboration,
I really didn't care.
The most important thing
was the song writing dynamic
between me and Daniel.
The best moment really were when
we just didn't talk.
And when Carlos played,
it just negated anything else.
I remember being
in the studio the last morning
listening to what we had done.
Wow.
I just couldn't believe
how good it was.
Driving home from
Connecticut to Manhattan,
everything felt
totally different.
When I was 17
It was a very good year
It was a very good year
For small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was 17
New York is
bracing itself tonight
for one massive blizzard.
When I was 21
It was a very good year...
It was a very good year
for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was 21
- Whoo!
- Yeah!
- Hallelujah!
- All right!
Halle-fucking-lujah, man!
The way
we've been portrayed.
New York City
good looking dude.
- A bunch of rich kids...
- - Who think they're really cool.
If I heard of a band like that,
I'd think they were assholes.
Excuse me. Excuse me.
In New York,
I was like a wild animal
out of its cage.
My gang was just getting up
to no good five nights a week.
I don't dance,
I barely drink.
I don't wanna
embarrass myself.
I remember
talking him into it.
- "- You gotta try it.
- This is gonna change everything."
People were touching me,
chanting my name.
I'm experiencing this music
in this totally new way.
I really enjoyed dancing.
It is not the drug.
This is actually me...
and my life
is forever changed.
- Tim was the producer and programmer.
- For David Holmes.
He and I would be the ones
stuck in the room
having to sort through the shit
after everyone's left.
He taught me how to use
the computer to experiment.
Working with him
was perfect.
After watching what Holmes
could wind up doing,
it just seemed obvious to us.
What if we did something
of our own?
Something that
makes people
who didn't normally
dance, dance?
But if we were
going to be a label,
we really needed to find a band.
A band that we believed in.
So, the name of our band
is The Rapture.
The name of our band
is The Rapture.
- What's your name?
- Matt.
- And your name?
- Gabriel.
The band
started on the west coast.
We lived in this suburb
of San Diego,
where there's nothing
going on.
We just decided
to pack up the band,
book a tour
to get out to New York.
I mean,
I was legitimately, like,
19 years old.
Very green.
- We were broke.
- We had no money at all.
I came to New York
as a complete leap of faith.
New York, it's almost like
this white chalk outline,
it's like,
"Do whatever you want in here,"
"be as, like, as free
and as angry as you want."
I would go on Avenue A
to this magazine store
and buy copies of "NME"
and I'd be like,
"Dude, like, this is all
happening around me"
"and eventually
they're gonna find me."
One, two, three, four
Five, six, seven
Come dance with me...
The first time I
saw The Rapture,
I was completely smitten.
Luke looked insane
and had this amazing,
weird voice.
He was super charismatic.
James Murphy and Tim
were just fuckin' nuts.
And I loved that.
We were a punk
band that was trying
to make dance music.
We had similar goals,
just coming at it
from different angles.
James and Tim felt
like the only other people
on the planet
who had the same ideas.
And DFA was like
a clubhouse.
Euphoric party nights.
We'd listen to records,
wrote songs, drank too much.
We felt like we were
gonna take over the world.
MTV wanted The Strokes
to play a concert.
A 30-minute live
broadcast special.
It was a big deal.
It was exposure.
But a lot of those things
come with,
"Well, if you don't do this,
you're never gonna get
played on here again."
It's not working.
Just...
I would just remember
there will be people
behind you,
so just don't forget
to address the back, too.
Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, rolling.
Ladies and gentlemen,
here they are.
The Strokes.
No choice now
It's too late
Lisa said take time for me
Dropping him
down to his knees
He knows it's justified
to kill to survive
He then in dollars
makes more dead than alive
Let's suck more blood
Let's run three hours a day
The world is over
but I don't care 'cause
Take two.
Rally forward!
- Guys, take three.
- Rally forward.
Rally forward.
- Take five.
- Four. Two.
The first time
it happened too fast
The second time
I thought it would last
We all like it
a little different
The first
"NME" cover that we did,
the caption was
"Cool! Sexy! Drunk!"
Three words that
don't just make much
sense together.
And one of the things
that started to surface
with the press
was a sort of predatory gaze.
Photographers were
boys being in the front row
at our shows.
Arm outstretched,
weird expression on their face,
trying to get like crotch shots
under my skirt.
I just remember feeling
very protective about Karen.
Being a woman
fronting a rock band,
I was sensationalized.
But I was also struggling
to be taken seriously
as an artist.
That costume
that you were wearing,
the yellow, it's almost like
an Elvis jumpsuit.
That was sort of...
Have you ever had the
same sex experience...
- Do you have any thoughts on chastity?
- - Chastity?
Karen, have you ever experienced
Madonna syndrome?
Do you
remember your first kiss?
Is it a tough
kind of thing to be so cool?
Have you
received any death threats?
- What's your favorite meal?
- My favorite meal?
So, let me, uh, let me hear all
the ladies out there tonight.
All right.
Let me hear all the
boys out there tonight.
Okay, let me hear
all the men out there tonight.
I'm here to represent
for the ladies.
It's all or nothing.
I wanna date with the night
When we made
House Of Jealous Lovers
it wasn't necessarily
like fun in the studio.
House of jealous lovers
First,
we recorded everything live.
And then Tim and I
started ripping it apart.
I can get really
anxious if I feel like
I'm compromising my music.
I feel compulsion
to make the music
exactly the way
I think it should be.
James was the first person I met
who was more alpha than me.
I had all these
ideas in the studio,
he had all these ideas.
I couldn't bulldoze him.
I was
never good at friends.
I was so lonely
and so self-conscious.
I wanted connection
and friends,
but I'd always
end up in fights.
There was just
something wrong with me
that wasn't wrong
with other people.
So, I made music
fucking alone.
- He was really pushing me.
- I was in a lot of pain.
Get rid of the drum,
face the bass...
Get rid of
the guitar completely.
Me and Tim
just kept telling him
and everyone around him
was just like,
"You're domineering,
and you need to make
your own fucking record!"
There was a part of James
that wanted to be in the band.
Wanted it to be his band.
He didn't have his own outlet.
They really freaked out
about the production.
They thought everyone
was gonna hate
that it was a house song.
- He was really just like, "No.
- It's perfect, we're not fixing it."
House of jealous lovers
House of jealous lovers
People went
fucking crazy for it.
People just called us
the disco Strokes.
House of jealous
lovers shakedown
Goldsworthy
and engineer James Murphy
are the production team whose
fusion of minimal electronic
and post-punk rock
continue to thrill
critics and listeners
worldwide.
You know,
half the people, you know,
someone told them it was cool.
You know what I mean?
"Cause theoretically,"
we're... cool.
Nobody else was
playing the records
I was playing.
That was like my thing.
One hand ties the other
House of jealous lovers...
Pure idolism,
ridiculous mess.
I had my first E,
and lost my virginity
at the same DFA party.
We weren't downtown
New York cool kids,
and we weren't Brooklyn
Art School kids either,
but somehow,
we had a scene.
How do you guy
sit down and write a song?
Because I know you write
the lyrics, but do you-
No, Julian does the lyrics.
- Yeah.
- He writes the song.
- Oh, and the songs?
- Oh, yeah.
- Okay...
- And the guitar solos,
everything, dude.
- Really?
- Sure. Yeah.
That's... Yeah.
I always
wanted to write songs.
The most frustrated
I ever got,
I had a song and
thought it could
really work in the band.
I was super-excited about it.
But Julian had
a very precise vision.
The only thing I have control on
is having good songs.
Even if everyone loves it,
I always go home thinking,
"Is it good enough?"
It's a struggle.
It was a lot
of pressure on Julian
to get another album
out there as soon as possible.
We had been praised
as "Rock's Saviors",
but all we had ever recorded
was a half hour record.
Ready?
We got back from
touring and spent a month
in our rehearsal space...
and just worked.
Why were we rushing?
What is the ideal place
for somebody to listen
to your new record
for the first time?
I hadn't thought of that.
Read their last rights.
No, I don't know.
Nikolai, man, help me out.
I don't know, man,
we just finished it today,
you know.
How do you guys
feel about it?
- I...
- Tense but confident.
You sound
incredibly down on yourself.
It's odd to hear
you guys feel intimidated.
Feel like you guys aren't
gonna end up sizing up and...
think that you
guys are ultimately
gonna be forgotten.
I don't wanna
let people down.
- Karen rules...
- She's very good.
- She's the coolest
person on earth-
-And Nick.
- And she's a God.
- Nicks amazing.
She just does
what she wants,
- and she doesn't care about anyone else.
- -Yeah.
She's sexy!
- Her hair, her face, everything.
- Her voice.
I'd do her.
I'd do her.
She seems shy, like,
offstage, but she puts on this
crazy character.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
are going on in five minutes.
Can you please return?
I had set myself up
as being a pretty
spectacular
self-destructive persona.
I was needing
to live up to that,
and I was beating myself up
out there night after night.
I was seeing
the fanaticism around Karen.
The press, freaky fans.
And just seeing
how fragile she was off-stage...
I was worried.
Ah, this fuckin' hurts.
Do you know what I'm saying?
It's like fucking shit!
- Who the fuck cares?
- Do you know what I'm saying.
Do not fucking tread on me!
I really did want
to speak to someone
who could relate
to how I was feeling.
But my experience
was so different
from the men around me.
It was incredibly lonely.
It's just wearing me down,
the lifestyle,
the physical aspect of it,
the repetition of it.
The business of it
and the bullshit of it
and the press
and the attention.
- Can we have sound, speed?
- Roll cameras, please.
- Roll joints.
- Do speed.
Ready.
We're still waiting
for the...
It's a rehearsal
so let's just do it, right?
Do you need to play?
- It's just a rehearsal.
- Can we just start?
Okay, we are rolling.
Julian had dreams that
he just maybe assumed
we'd all just follow.
Room on Fire
sold, like, 650,000 records
and everybody
wants to write about
what a big failure it was.
By what it was built up to be,
it was supposed
to sell millions.
That's when
friends, girlfriends,
strangers started coming in.
"Julian's slowing
everyone down."
"You should be
a bigger band."
I felt that distance
between me and Julian.
- Well, its Ryan Adams.
Look at you.
-Hey, man.
- The most difficult man in rock and roll.
- -Oh, geez.
Ryan Adams was really,
really into The Strokes.
Enamored by them.
We're gonna play a
song by The Strokes
called Last Night.
Yeah, it's our best song.
He'd always come and
like wake me up at two
in the morning to have drugs.
So, I would just kind of,
like, do the drugs
and kind of numb out.
I remember Julian
threatening to beat him up
if he hung out with me.
I knew I would shoot up drugs
from a very young age.
When it came, it wasn't, like,
"What am I doing here?
It was kind of like,
"I made it."
I was home.
Number one.
The win immunity,
we're number one, watch this.
After House Of Jealous Lovers
blew up,
we had all this attention.
But we were touring
the world on a single.
It was so fun.
The Rapture,
me and Tim were a gang.
We felt invincible.
We had just finished Echoes,
this album that we really loved.
And then compound that
with the music industry
feeding frenzy in New York,
and it was just
this perfect timing.
But in the beginning,
DFA was more about concept
than an actual
functioning label.
DFA spent a year
trying to find a distributor
and failed to do so.
The clock was ticking.
I wish we had just put
fucking Echoes out.
That was a fucking mistake.
The songs
that are on the record,
we've been playing
them out for like a year
and a half, like...
So, it's just like...
It's just time
for it to come out, like...
I was more scared
than I'd ever been
in my entire life.
It's gonna fucking disappear,
it's gonna be over.
I know they had to,
but when they left,
the crushed me.
I cried.
I just cried.
We were Rapture Records.
That's what DFA was.
But they left.
We didn't want to leave DFA.
Those were, like,
our closest friends.
But we needed
to get our record out.
We hit 40,000 records sold.
Our record company
was, like, "Whoa!"
We had this incredible
energy between us,
this kinetic energy.
We nailed the second record
straightaway.
This is the record
that we've been waiting for.
Three months
before release date,
we were out at some bar.
A complete stranger
comes along singing lyrics
from the second record.
What the hell's going on?
The record had leaked.
I couldn't believe that
this was actually happening.
I went
to this club, Brownies,
which I used to play at
all the time.
There was a kid DJ-ing,
playing ESG,
and he plays
a Liquid Liquid song.
What the fuck?
These records
took me years to find,
and now some kid
can just download it?
Wait a second.
You didn't write them,
you just play them,
you just own them,
you can't be proud of yourself
for owning it.
But I know that kid
was at one of my parties.
Even if this person
went to one of our parties,
I have no rights here.
It's the fucking
closest I've ever been
to cool in my life
and this fucking kid
can take it?
I was playing
that six months ago.
First of all,
it's not your record,
you didn't make it.
What's worse
than that guy?
I'm disappointed
with myself.
- Its stupid and embarrassing.
- - I'm a total hipster
jackass,
I have been my entire life.
I'd really wasted
30 years of my life.
And I would
lock the studio...
sing a song
about losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge...
How humiliating it is to be me.
To the kids
From France and from London
I'm losing my edge
It was the first time
I made music
where I wasn't trying
to be another thing
that I thought
I'm supposed to be.
Yeah, I'm losing my edge
I'm losing my edge
To kids
I'm coming up from behind
But I was there
I was there in 1968
I was there at the first
Can show in Cologne
But I was there
I was the first guy playing
Daft Punk to the rock kids
I played it at CBGB's
Everybody thought
it was crazy
We all know
I hear everybody
that you know
Is more relevant
than everybody that I know
I came upstairs
and played it for Tim.
He said, "You don't wanna put"
this out, man.
"You really don't want people
to hear this."
But I've lived in fear
my whole life...
and I had nothing to lose.
Julian always wanted
the whole band together.
I'd show up late
in the studio.
And smoke too much crack
before coming in
and had to take a bunch of pills
just to calm down.
I wasn't playing that well.
I've tried everything
to get fired.
Remember that girl
that was downstairs,
that said she didn't care
about The Hives and The Strokes,
and she just wanted
like a big rock riff?
- I think that ought to do it.
- We are, um, we're back.
We had a little nap,
and we are really staying up
for 24 hours and...
not many people
in this room do drugs.
We're in a corporate
environment.
Come here, come here.
Courtney Love was
doing a take over
of MTV for 24 hours.
- Show us your.
- Come on!
- Yes!
- I'll do it if you do it!
She texted me,
"Do any of The Strokes
wanna pop up?"
I called Albert.
You're fucked up
and the idea's funny.
Oh, yeah, I'll go up there
and, like, see Courtney Love.
- Wait, what are we doing?
- Why are we?
I was so fucked.
Her and Ryan were
just doing their thing
what Ryan always does.
When things go bad,
you just want it to get worse.
When the band catch you
out of it.
I can be sitting here with
my eyes open and just...
gone.
There's so many times
where I was just so close to...
to dying.
It could be over.
We could be over, you know.
Out of nowhere I got an offer
from Arthur Baker.
He'd heard our record
and he wanted us to come
play a show in London.
There's no way I can do this.
I can't do it.
- I don't have a band.
- It's just me and a toy boom box.
I did the only thing I could do,
call the people that I knew.
Tyler, the base player
in Out Hud,
Pat, the drummer
in Les Savvy Fav,
Phil Mossman,
guitar player, who had done
the David Holmes' record,
and Nancy, my drinking buddy,
took piano as a kid.
Deciding to start a band
in your 30's
seemed absurd.
We only had
10 days to rehearse.
This was his first
time as a front man
singing in front of people.
Nothing terrified me like
watching footage of John Lydon.
It made me feel
so uncomfortable.
I realized this would be
my problem.
The people that are dancing...
and he just
doesn't exude himself.
Oh, my God.
I don't know
what to do with myself.
James wanted to set up very,
very close
together on stage.
So, he was
totally surrounded.
Protected.
Go ahead...
Well, Daft Punk is playing
at my house, my house
I'll show you the ropes kid,
show you the ropes
I got a bus and a trailer
at my house, my house
I'll show you the ropes kid,
show you the ropes
'Cause Daft Punk is playing
at my house, my house
You've got to set them up,
set them up
My house
My house
You've got to set them up,
set them up
The song "This is it,"
is that a sarcastic reference
to The Strokes?
No, no, no, no, no!
I've heard that from many people
and it's like,
"Damn, if I were gonna write
a song about The Strokes,"
"I would probably go
a little further."
That's just the name
of the song.
But I can see
why people think that.
It goes to show
you how influential
The Strokes guys are.
That these guys
are just great.
Hello.
I wanted to ask you
about this before we left.
I think it's awesome.
- What?
- Yes... The holster.
Well, thanks, thanks a lot.
And I don't know if anyone's
ever done that before.
Um, to my knowledge,
they haven't.
But it wasn't, you know,
me trying to be an innovator.
It wasn't me trying
to be an innovator to...
to wear the holster.
If I get followers, so be it.
- Yeah, so be it, exactly.
- I'm not gonna, like, stop them.
We're Interpol,
and you're watching MTV2.
You've had stuff's
thrown at you, like,
there's been panties
thrown at you, Carlos?
Uh,
there was an occasion where panties
were thrown at me, yes.
It seems like
you've been touring constantly.
It seems like you've hardly
really had a break.
What's fans reactions been
to this new album?
Wherever we've gone,
it's been just kind of, like,
a similar sort of
excitement and enthusiasm.
Before Napster,
we would have made
a shit load of money.
But actually...
I didn't really care.
Because people from
all around the world
found out about our music.
I remember thinking
back to all of those
guidance counselor meetings...
when I said,
"I wanna be a rock star."
Yeah, but nobody searches
And nobody cares somehow
When the loving
that you've wasted
Comes raining from
a hapless cloud
And I might stop
and look upon your face
Disappear
in the sweet, sweet gaze
See the living
that surrounds me
Dissipate in a violet place
Can't you see what you've done
to my heart and soul
This is a wasteland now
We spies, we slow hands
Put the weights
around yourself
We spies, oh, yeah
We slow hands
We retire like nobody else
We spies
intimate slow hands
Killer for hire
you know not yourself
After falling from
the stage in a show
in Australia last month,
Karen O, the tough front woman
of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
still managed to
compose herself enough
to perform Maps.
Pack up
I'm straight
Enough
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Oh, say, say, say
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Just wait
They don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Just wait
For they don't love you
like I love you
Wait, they don't love you
like I love you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Just wait
They don't love you
like I love you
- I'm so annoyed with this dude.
- - What dude?
So, here it's just things like,
"I'm sad because
I had a show booked with LCD."
"The date, like, all U.S. dates
got canceled."
There was no fucking U.S. tour.
We never had a U.S. tour.
Are you responding to it?
- Yeah.
- What are you gonna say?
I have to say this
shit sounds a lot like
a fucking guilt trip.
What are you, my mother?
Eat it.
Fucking baby.
Why are you
getting so angry?
I...
Just the concept of emailing somebody
is so alien to me.
So, you're tied up?
- Oh, I don't wanna do this.
- I hate this so much.
James, I'm serious,
lip sync to a different song.
Sing a different song.
- I'm doing that now.
- It's called talking.
I can talk all day.
Those years
were the big bang of my life.
I finally found my friends.
Can we do claps again?
Yes!
I felt safe.
The Brooklyn Waterfront
will likely be getting
a makeover.
Mayor Bloomberg wants
to rezone part of the area...
The neighborhood
has had a rebirth
and now it's a choice location
for commerce and for living.
It is no longer
a well-kept secret.
What began with a
trickle has turned into
a flood of Manhattanites
crossing the East
River into Brooklyn's
Williamsburg neighborhood.
- Many of them drawn...
- - Our rent had tripled in three years.
The landlords cleared out
whole fucking buildings.
Pushing families out.
I was grieving
the dissipation of the scene.
I don't want to stick around
and just watch it go away.
I left New York City.
I felt too nostalgic for it
when everything happened.
See now,
everybody was just playing music,
you know what I'm saying.
- It's nuts, yeah, good music.
Everywhere.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
It was like a flash.
When we first met,
that's what we bonded over,
It was...
the belief that we
could accomplish
anything we wanted to.
Everything was so innocent,
and somehow
you lose it through time
and then you spend a lot of time
chasing that same innocence,
that feeling of
just being young.
Day upon day,
and year upon year, O city,
walking your streets,
Keep your splendid silent sun.
Keep your woods, O Nature,
and your corn-fields
and orchards.
Give me faces and streets!
Give me comrades
and lovers by the thousand!
Let me see
new ones every day!
Let me hold new ones
by the hand every day!
- Give me such shows!
- Give me the streets of Manhattan!
People, endless, streaming,
with strong voices,
passions, pageants.
Manhattan streets,
with their powerful throbs,
with the beating drums, as now.
The endless and noisy chorus.
Manhattan crowds with
their turbulent musical chorus.
Manhattan faces
and the eyes forever for me.
Many years since I was here
On the street
I was passing my time away
To the left
and to the right
Towers tumble to the sky
It's out of sight
In the dead of night
Here I am again in the city
With a fistful of dollars
And, baby,
you better believe I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
In the New York groove
In the New York groove
In the back of my Cadillac
A wicked lady
sittin' by my side
Sayin', "Where are we?"
Stopped at Third
and Forty-three
Exit to the night
It's gonna be ecstasy
This place was meant for me
I feel so good tonight
Who cares about tomorrow
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
In the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
Back in the New York groove
New York groove
I'm back
New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove
New York groove
- I'm back
- New York groove