JULIAN CASABLANCAS IN CONVERSATION WITH JOE TALBOT

Photography DANIELLE LEVITT | Styling SHARON CHITRIT | Hair & Make Up ANNA BERNABE

Moderation CASSIDY GEORGE

In the wake of the release of their album Like All Before You and the more recent single Blue Demon, The Voidz frontman Julian Casablancas — also, famously, of The Strokes — opened up to fellow musician and Idles lead singer Joe Talbot; ahead of The Voidz's European tour this Spring, the two friends spoke about fatherhood, snail sacrifices and the quotidian realities of life as a certified rockstar.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity:

Julian Casablancas: How’s it going?

Joe Talbot: I’m alright, it’s one of those days that was supposed to be a day off, but I ended up doing lots of stuff.

JC: Oh yeah, tell me about it. I somehow have nothing going on, yet I am so insanely busy all of the time. I guess this is modern life. 

JT: It is! It will get philosophical really quick, but sometimes I wonder if I'm just not okay with being still. 

JC: Are you on tour right now?

JT: We’re in between right now. I’ve been Daddy Monday to Thursday and then I’ve been touring Friday to Sunday. It was a bit weird, learning how to juggle flying back on a Monday and picking my daughter up from school. 

JC: Your performances are pretty intense. Do you just ease into it? Like a little bit before the music starts? Or do you need to psych yourself up and scream in the mirror and cut yourself before you go out there?

JT: Like a WWF star?

JC: Or is it classical music and meditation? 

JT: I need about half an hour. I went to this voice coach because I was worried I was going to start losing my voice on the new albums, because I am both singing and screaming on them. He asked if I do warm ups and I said no and he said, “Well it would be insane to start now.” He told me what I can do is get into my singing voice, which is in your head. You start talking louder and project, and do it mentally as well. 

If I’m pissed off about something that day, that’s how I want to go out on stage. I want everyone to know in the songs. Same if I’m really happy. I want everyone to know that, even in the violent, horrible, dark ones. I just want it to be honest. I try to be as present as possible and as vulnerable as I can be. When I get into my singing voice, I’m not thinking about anything or anyone else — or about people trying to get on the guest list 20 minutes before the show or where the parking is. It’s about switching into being in the moment. 

It always comes out. Deep down, I find that the men in my friendship group have a lot of stuff that they haven’t quite talked about. I think things like singing in a band really helps. The more I give to people, the more I get back, I find. So I just go for it every night. 

The Voidz

JC: Honesty is good. Although there’s a fine line between being rehearsed and prepared and staying natural. I relate to trying to keep it honest with whatever mood you’re in. There’s not a “ladies and gentlemen” moment or certain thing I say after song 1 or song 4. Sometimes you’re talking a lot, sometimes not. I like to go with the flow of what the music is doing and let the music do the main work. 

JT: With experience you learn how to deal with all of the bullshit, like technical difficulties. Over time, have you grown to enjoy performing more with the Voidz? Or are you just more proficient at it and that allows you to be more comfortable? Do you even love it? Do you even like it?

JC: I’m figuring it out. There’s a lot more technical issues in the Voidz that are new, like using autotune on and off, which I’ve never quite figured out. Finally with this tour someone is going to help me out and do it professionally. I’m using this pedal for lo-fi autotune that has one major flaw: it goes half a step in the wrong key randomly. 

JT: It is a patented thing or is it a custom pedal you had built?

JC: It’s the TC Helicon. I do enjoy playing with the Voidz a lot because playing old songs can be pretty boring. When we’re making shit up — that’s the most excited I feel on stage. I’m overall pretty jaded in general, with the good, bad, dramatic, negative and positive things. Experience, I guess, has made me jaded, but I’m still having a good time overall. 

JT: Would you like me to somehow shock you when I see you next time? I could push you into a river or something. Or hire someone to scare the shit out of you. I could fake my death and then you could grieve me for a bit. How long would you grieve me for Julian?

JC: Ten—

JT: Ten years?

JC: Ten thousand years!

JT: Oh, I was excited for a second because I thought it was real. Now I know it’s a lie. Can I just be really honest and annoying for a second? I have never been jaded in my life. It may seem like a lie for someone that works on a stage to say it, but it’s true. I’m like a human antidepressant. I don’t have the gene at all. Even when my mom was really super ill and I was going in between really bad drug spirals and looking after her and then DJing at night and then another bad drug spiral. I was not enjoying that and I was sad watching my life fall apart, but at the same time I always had a purpose and I always have something I’m working towards — whether it’s the band or just the weekend. 

JC: You’re lucky because I was torturously sad.

JT: There’s some part of my brain that just knows where the nearest exit is. Even when everything is fucked, I’m like “this is alright.” I just know how to get out and work through it. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in some horrible places and done some really fucking terrible things. 

JC: Have you ever killed a man?

JT: Not one who didn’t deserve it, Julian! I killed a snail yesterday by accident.

"Well, you always have to sacrifice a virgin if you’re gonna write a hit song. Everyone knows that."

JC: This might be weird to ask, but did you ever consider not singing in an English accent? Do British musicians all have to ask themselves that question at some point? 

JT: I never questioned it. I knew I was always going to sing in my voice. But it is a thing and it's always a conversation. Often I'll listen to a song be like, "Why the fuck are they singing in an American accent?". How weird is that? 

JC: Well, the Beatles kind of pioneered it, right?

JT: In the sixties, it was very common to put on RP, which is “Received Pronunciation.” It was a universal media accent that everyone put on because it neutralized the classicism in our country. Here, local accents are massively different across very small changes in geography. So bands naturally did it. It was a cultural aspiration not to sound working class back in the 1960s. The Rolling Stones for example have more of a BBC accent, a kind of Queen’s English, but not necessarily posh. They sang neutrally to get away with American audiences. If I was in a band and they asked me if I would consider singing in an American accent, I would either leave the band or kick them out. 

I remember on the new Voidz album, I think it’s track 3. It’s almost like an opus. It goes through 4 different modes like an opera. It’s like Bob Segar did a super yacht rock opera with a lightsaber! 

JC: Prophecy of the dragon? Probably that one. I’ve been a melody, harmony obsessor for a long ass time and I’ve also been obsessed with the style of people singing in quarter tone or half step harmony, like Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston or Bruce Springsteen. 

JT: I remember this from your old demos back in the early 2000s. Do you still write like that? 

JC: I’ve been reverting to old ways because I used to just base things on memory and would work on one or two songs at a time, then I started recording everything and now I’m like a digital hoarder.

JT: I always write just in my head or I’ll play bass guitar, but I’ll never sit and jam out. I just come up with ideas in my head and then flesh them out, either on my own or with one of the other Pokemon. Sometimes I’ll listen to a song 100 or 200 times before I figure out the melody and lyrics. The song eventually creates a theme for me and then I sing whatever the song tells me to. Certain modes just naturally sound dark or ominous, or maybe happy. If you listen to something enough it will remind you of something — for example, a time you were a prick to a girl, and then you write about that. 

JC: Do you need to sacrifice a snail?

JT: Can we not talk about the snail please! The others are still outside right now. 

JC: Well you always have to sacrifice a virgin if you’re gonna write a hit song. Everyone knows that. 

Jackets BLKDNM, shades Jacques Marie Mage

JT: That’s why I haven’t made it, Jules.

JC: Neither have I. I don’t think the Daft Punk bit really counts. 

JT: Is [“Instant Crush”] your only hit Julian? 

JC: I don’t even know if it’s a hit, it's just popular. 

JT: Can I have a look and tell you? 

JC: Maybe there’s a Strokes song that’s big. 

JT: You have a clear winner.

JC: “Reptilia”? 

JT: Your highest is” Instant Crush,” with 607 million. 

JC: Yeah, that’s what I was saying, Daft Punk. 

JT: Let’s check the Strokes. 

JC:  Yeah, I really don’t know. I don’t exactly study the stats. 

JT: Yeah I can’t imagine you do. Oh! You know what — this is really hard to read without my glasses on — but, you’re not right. Your most popular song on Spotify is “Last Night” with 667 million thingies. 667 million virgins. 

JC: That’s probably a weirdly accurate number.

JT: How do you write a song, Julian?

JC: I don’t know anymore. The problem is that I have writeilitus. If you give me a theme or an artist, I can just write. I just go. I have actively tried to stop writing songs because I have too many ideas that I don’t have time to even get to. It gets frustrating. It takes 10 seconds or 10 minutes to write a song, but then it takes 5 months to get it mastered.  I just have hundreds and hundreds of unfinished ideas and this makes me overwhelmed and frustrated, so I try and limit it. 

JT: What’s your attention span like and how does that vary from day to day to life — like with writing music versus watching a film or reading a book? 

JC: I’m the worst multitasker in the world, but I might be one of the best unitaskers. I can laser focus on something. I can go hard and deep, but when I’m distracted I’m pretty useless. 

JT: I have no attention span. I can hyper focus on writing a song, but I can’t think of anything else I can hyper focus on. Maybe when I’m in a boxing ring because I don’t like getting punched in the nose. 

JC: That would be a bad time to zone out. When Wales plays against England in sports, who do you root for? Is that a loaded political question I just threw at you? I meant it as a sports question. Which terrorist will kill me if I answer the wrong way? [Laughs] 

JT: I’m English, so I’m more worried about them, but the Welsh are definitely tougher. In soccer, I support both teams. I hate football normally, but when the World Cup is on, it’s quite fun. 

JC: Did you watch England versus Spain?

JT: I missed it. 

JC: So, lean Wales then, because if it was Wales versus Spain, you would have watched. 

JT: If Wales got past the qualifiers, I would get a Welsh dragon tattooed on my neck. Wales is always going to be the underdog. We have some great boxers, though. 

JC: Anyone I would know?

JT: Joe Calzaghe is probably the only one. Last question: what’s the best thing you’ve ever done?

JC: My children are my masterpieces.

JT: Congrats. Well I ask because you asked because you’re so jaded.

JC: I still get passionate and excited and happy. Talking to you about the new Voidz record, for example, is a cool thing.

The Voidz and Idles will both be playing at Idles Presents Block Party Festival on August 2 in Bristol’s Queen Square.

Find the extended story and others in the Breach Issue 01 print edition, now available in our store.