Julian Casablancas

Julian Casablancas is an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the frontman of The Strokes, one of the defining bands of the early-2000s garage rock revival, and later as the leader of the experimental outfit The Voidz. Born in New York City in 1978, he is the son of modeling agency founder John Casablancas. He spent part of his teenage years at the Institut Le Rosey boarding school in Switzerland, where he met future Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr; the culture shock of that environment is often cited as an influence on the social commentary running through The Strokes debut album, Is This It.

With The Strokes, Casablancas helped popularize a stripped-down, deliberately lo-fi take on rock built around tight guitar interplay, propulsive rhythm and his distinctive, detached, sometimes distorted vocal delivery. During the band's hiatus he released a solo album, Phrazes for the Young, in 2009, which leaned into synth-driven and more eclectic arrangements than his work with the band. He later formed The Voidz, pushing further into noise, psychedelia and genre-blending experimentation.

Across these projects Casablancas has remained a restless, idiosyncratic songwriter, moving between the tightly-wound rock of The Strokes, the synth-pop leanings of his solo work, and the abrasive art-rock of The Voidz, while continuing to write songs like «11th Dimension» and «Glass» that carry his recognizable vocal signature.