When his big frame fills the doorway, heads turn and folks mutter. On a weekday evening none of the New Yorkers in the International Bar on 3rd and 7th in Manhattan expected to be sipping their drinks next to "the coolest man in rock". Doe-eyed, floppy-haired Julian Casablancas takes his place in as unassuming way as you can when you have been told so often that your music represents this very city.

But perhaps the frisson of cool abates a little when he opens his mouth. You see, Casablancas doesn't sound like the ultimate hipster. He has slipped in at 6pm for an early-evening drink after a photo shoot and he orders a Coke in a distinctly nerdy nasal tone. On record with his band, The Strokes, Casablancas's vocals often sound as if they were recorded down an ancient, buzzing telephone line. It comes as quite a shock to realise that these are not special studio effects. This is what he sounds like in real life.

"I'm trying to shrug off a cold I think," he says. He's ordering "soft" because of this but also because he no longer likes boozing it up. Also, his wife, Acacia, is expecting their first child within four weeks. Besides, Casablancas famously got into his rock 'n' roll meltdown quite early. He was 13 when he first got drunk, and his father John Casablancas, the founder of the Elite modelling agency, sent him for counselling and then packed him off to his own former private school, Le Rosey in Switzerland.

"Ah, they thought I had an issue but I did it because I thought it was fun," he says. "Or because I was bored. I was a teenager and that's what kids did then. It was seen as a rite of passage. But now I know that the benefits of drinking are very, very short term and as you get older all you remember are the hangovers." Casablancas, 31, is not what you'd expect from anyone remotely associated with "the coolest man" tag. There's no sneer or attitude or self-mythologising. He is friendly and mellow, a little shy or wary perhaps. But most of all he is thoughtful and a bit of a philosopher.

His recent solo album, Phrazes For The Young, is a playful manifestation of this. In song and in the sleevenotes Casablancas sets himself up as a grizzled rock 'n' roll vet handing down stories and epigrams to the next generation. He can sound like a grizzled bluesman talking with the authority of several liver transplants behind him. Sometimes he can even sound like an Ancient Greek. For example, "Drunkenness is cowardice. Sobriety is loneliness," he intones on the album sleeve. Does he really sit around in the studio thinking this stuff up?

"Yeah, and I stand by that. Being drunk can give you the illusion of not being alone. There comes a point where you're better off just facing it, the loneliness or the fear or whatever it is. Alcohol is definitely not your friend, though it acts like it sometimes. It's a pretty obvious insight to have into alcohol but it's true." As the founder and writer of The Strokes, Casablancas is the man credited with lighting the touch paper on an indie rock revolution nearly 10 years ago. Prior to The Strokes, the charts were dominated by Eminem, Limp Bizkit and Korn. Forming an indie band seemed a grimly retro thing to do.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/casablancas-it-makes-me-laugh-when-people-say-we-are-cool#ixzz2iB1KwmFv
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook