Different Strokes this time round

The Strokes (clockwise, from top left: Nikolai Fraiture, Julian Casablancas, Fabrizio Moretti, Albert Hammond jnr and Nick Valensi) have started to delve more into their own lives for inspiration.

It's one big celebration at the Strokes' HQ in New York City. Drummer Fab Moretti has just spilt red wine on his crotch while singing the praises of band frontman Julian Casablancas.

Then Casablancas stumbles through the door and interrupts him to say the room stinks of alcohol. To this Moretti raises his voice and yells at the singer: "That's probably because I spilt it all over myself when I was talking about your beautiful vocal cords."

It's true, 27-year-old Casablancas doesn't sound his usual lazy self on the band's new album, First Impressions of Earth.

"He really did take it up a notch with his singing, and lyrically as well," says Moretti, who goes out with actress Drew Barrymore and is arguably the world's sexiest drummer.

"Julian always had it in him, in my humble opinion he was always a great vocalist but he really wanted to celebrate this time, and we wanted to celebrate it too," he says from the band's studio in the New York City Music Building.

This is the same place the band - also made up of Nikolai Fraiture (bass, 26) Nick Valensi (guitar, 24) and Albert Hammond jnr (guitar, 25) - first started jamming together back in 1998. It's also where they recorded the new album.

It is a different sounding Strokes from 2001's breakthrough Is This It and 2003's Room On Fire. Not only is Casablancas sounding more committed, his band has solidified its attack compared with its sometimes foppish earlier offerings - take Juicebox on the new album with its cross between Batman, blaxploitation and dangerous rock'n'roll.

"It was one of those songs that Julian brought in and it just fell into place. I guess we were all in a rockin' kind of mood that day," he laughs.

Then there's Ask Me Anything's mid-album interlude with mellotron - a distinctive early electric keyboard which dates back to the Beatles era - that sounds like an experiment. But Moretti disagrees: "It's stripping the band's sound to the most minimalistic version. It's a melody I would expect to hear from Julian, but it's played in a way you can really celebrate that."

The Strokes' approach to First Impressions also has a lot to do with their new producer David Kahne whose past credits include the Bangles and Paul McCartney. "He totally like inspired us to revamp our sound - you can still tell that the heart is still the Strokes but the limbs are a little different," says Moretti.

Former producer, Gordon Raphael had some involvement on the new album "but then Gordon was like, 'You know, I think I'm gonna bust a move'," says Moretti.

According to him, Raphael was a "free spirit" whereas Kahne is "more of a boss". "He really knew how to fill up the space, and get around sounds, and not just have them smash into your face."

There was something ever so cool about the Strokes' debut - the three-track demo-cum-EP The Modern Age released in early 2001. Its three songs excited rock'n'roll fans around the world with its nods to the Beatles and fellow New Yorkers Television and the Velvet Underground. By the time of Is This It, the hype was huge.

The five styley scruffs from New York City lived up to it. Inevitably, though, they became just as well-known for their girlfriends and silver spoon upbringings (Casablancas is the son of Elite model agency boss John Casablancas), as they were for the music.

Then, with the release of Room On Fire - the "difficult" second album - the feedback was mixed. But Moretti defends it.

"I think, even if I do say so myself, Room On Fire is a pretty [expletive] good record. But I think it was a step that we needed to take to be able to get here. And as much as I love the first two records, they're like old girlfriends. You respect them for having pleased you a while ago but now you gotta focus on your new woman, unless you want it to go awry.

"I don't even think getting the press we got was intentional in the first place. It's just part of the flow of things. It's like the ocean, it crashes on the beach and then it recoils, and then it crashes later on."

He hopes it breaks with a big smack on the shore for First Impressions of Earth. "I think we have done all that we can do to make the music we want to make, and hopefully people will like it, and if they don't, so be it."

Nowadays the Strokes have settled down a bit. "We've learned the values of not being crazy all the time and just really enjoying the endearing moments of life. I think we've all learned to strip each other's egos, to be closer, and be more productive," he says.

And musically? "We started out just trying to figure out what we wanted to do [as a band]. During the Modern Age EP we were young and happy to figure these new things out, and now I think we're a little more together as a unit. And more and more we're starting to find inspiration within each other and our lives, and less from listening to stuff that has been recorded before. It's more about us and our lives."

Right from the start the Strokes have always said they will make music until they die. And Moretti still believes it. "Absolutely. I mean regardless of what kind of success we have, this is one of the most gratifying things in the world - to work with your friends, and make good music, by our standards."

LOWDOWN

Who: The Strokes.

Line up: Julian Casablancas (vocals); Fabrizio Moretti (drums); Nikolai Fraiture (bass); Nick Valensi (guitar); Albert Hammond jnr (guitar).

Formed: 1998, New York.

Past albums: Is This It (2001); Room On Fire (2003).

New album: First Impressions of Earth (out January 3).