Julian Casablancas Complains About How LA Made Him Broke

When Julian Casablancas came to LA to try out some of his new matieral and put on a residency, we welcomed him with open arms and ears. However, many things didn’t go according to plan. His solo album, Phrazes of the Young, didn’t get the critical praise he had expected to recieve as the front man of The Strokes. Although The Strokes’ Is This It was named album of the decade by NME, the story went a little different once Casablancas ventured off to do this own thing.

Apparently, the LA residency which took place at the Downtown Palace Theatre was “a fiasco” and the Strokes singer is now “broke” because of it. He’s lead singer of The Strokes. Julian Casablancas is not broke. However, he had a lot more to complain about during a recent interview with New York Magazine. He really, really complained.

LA Weekly has taken excerpts of the New York Magazine interview with Casablancas and we have to agree with our fellow local publication. Casablancas has stepped into some bad lighting with his words. His exact words on his residency with the Magazine went as such:

“It was a constant struggle with the venue, managers, lighting guys, video people. I went broke doing it.”

There’s that word again:”Broke.” For those of us who went to see Casablancas, we all remember how elaborate his sets were. We were blinded by all the unnecessary frills that tried to make up for the lack of preparation when it came to making his album. Casablancas wanted to make a big splash on the west coast. We could see that but putting pouring all the money into these four shows instead of putting it into the album probably wasn’t a great idea.

He also went on to complain about RCA, the label that put out Phrazes of the Young:

“…They’re not the label I signed with. The people change all the time. They’re nice, they’re cool, but honestly they don’t do shit [...] You have all these dreams. I still like the plan, but it was executed terribly.”

Casablancas had been very disappointed. The interview stresses this, but was it really everyone else’s fault? Could he have done this all much better all by himself like so many local bands do every day? He seemed to think so. Although he lists “not enough time” as a reason, he says the following on his “sticky” situation:

“I don’t like the business side so much, but it’s a necessity because I also don’t like the way other people do the business side for me.”

In the interview, Casablancas talked about how he planned to redeem himself with a few shows in New York  (one was yesterday and one is tonight – January 15), and that it wouldn’t be anything like his Los Angeles’ experience. He’ll have “none of that.”

As for the rest of Los Angeles, outside of recording and his failed residency, his oh-so-nice thoughts were summed up in four sentences:

“L.A. is a vortex. The weather there tricks you into thinking you’re on vacation, even when you’re working fourteen hours a day. But when I came back, I was like, ‘Whoa! What the hell was I … I’m glad I got out of there.’ ”

It sounds like Mr. Julian Casablancas is having a hard time dealing with the real world. We’ll let him cool off for a bit. Maybe then, Los Angeles citizens can forgive him this time around.

What do you think of Julian Casblancas and his reasons for being “broke?”