Sunday, April 01, 2007
Stroke of Genius
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Albert Hammond Jr. isn’t complaining.
Sure, he’s been on tour almost non-stop since the fall of 2005. Sure, his tour bus caught on fire—twice. Sure, he still gets nervous sometimes before he goes on stage. But Hammond, best known as the curly-haired rhythm guitarist of The Strokes, has plenty to keep him smiling. Scratchie/New Line Records released his first solo album, Yours to Keep, in the United States on March 6. He has spent the past five months traveling the world with a troupe of musician friends to support the record, opening shows for rock icons like Incubus and headlining plenty of his own performances, as well.
Best of all, Hammond’s debut is a lovely, melodic, pop-rock gem; the kind of album you want to listen to over and over again, because the beats are infectious and the jangling guitars coax you to hum along. The songs are simple but not simplistic, sweet but never cloying, and Hammond’s voice has a distinctive timbre - mellow and smooth and cracking every so often when he strains to hit a note. The opening song, “Cartoon Music for Superheroes,” is a two-minute lullaby, complete with a piano track that sounds like the toy keyboard I banged on when I was a kid, and ambling lyrics about dream-world impossibilities. On “Hard To Live in the City,” closer to the end of the album, the guitars are a little noisier, the lyrics a bit scratchier, the sentiments less idyllic, but even still Hammond doesn’t thrash about much. This is a neat, compact album, and it’s a great listen.
You can hear songs from the album on Albert’s myspace page.
Hammond, though, isn’t too concerned with what other people think. I wondered if he felt pressure as the first Strokes’ kid going out on a limb with a solo record. Not so much. “I don’t worry about things I can’t control,” he says on the phone from Toronto, one of six cities where he opened for Brit indie rockers Bloc Party. And his friends, he says, are his best gauge: “When the record was finished, it was like, ‘This is cool. If they don’t like it, they don’t like it.’” But his friends thought it was great, he says, and their encouragement was enough so that he “couldn’t imagine” others wouldn’t dig it, too.
The genesis of the album is just as humble. Hammond created Yours to Keep in a handful of different studios in New York in less than a year and a half, stealing moments in between work (and tours) for the Strokes’ third album. But his solo debut wasn’t originally intended for wide release. It was more an excuse to get outside himself and think about his songs in new ways. “I’ve been writing music [as long as] I can remember, playing music and making demos,” he says, “but I wanted to really be able to focus on the sounds and have someone else to bounce ideas off of.” After he finished the first song and was pleased with it, he just sort of kept going. The tracks appear in the order he recorded them, and feature musical pals like Ben Kweller, Sean Lennon, and Strokes front man Julian Casablancas, in addition to band mates Josh Lattanzi on bass and Matt Romano on drums.
“Having the opportunity to play music for people is fun,” Hammond deadpans. He knows he is lucky to do what he loves for a living. “You deal with whatever feelings you have about being away for so long.” Since his tour is winding down, he’ll have a chance to chill out in New York City again in April, watching movies (he’s a fan), hanging out with friends (picnic in Central Park anyone?)—but never straying too far from his guitar: “It feels nice to pick up the guitar, walk around, play it, watch TV, then play a little more.” Writing music, for him, isn’t about momentary strokes of genius. It’s just something you do every day: “It’s a constant thing. It never leaves you.”
Albert Hammond Jr. played to a packed house last Wednesday at the Orpheum. You can catch him playing tunes from his new record on Late Night with Conan O’Brien April 6 at 12:30am.
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