albert

Birthday: 9th April 1980

Did you know: the name ALBERT means
"Noble and Bright" School: L'institut
le Rosey, Switzerland

"Albert does everything wildly] ::the
bands fantastically haired
guitarist""

shoe size: us 9 1/2

Favourite flavour ice-cream: Choc
chip cookie dough."

Whats your favourite album?

Albert: "Plastic Ono Band" I got it when I was working in
a record store. It's a really emotional rock'n'roll album. It's
raw"

A happy ending:

Albert Hammond Jr had no idea what he
was letting himself in for when he
moved to NYC from Los Angeles in the
autumn of 1998.

Fresh out of high school, he was
taking a year off befored starting at
NY university and didn't want to
waste his time lounging in LA. He'd
been kicked out of his hometown band
because "the singer thought I
wouldn't be able to perform on
stage", and meanwhile, his friends
were getting lost along the path to
chemical discovery. "I like drugs,
'he says, 'but perhaps not as a full
filling career."

So Albert's plan was to move to New
York early, enrol in a film course,
get to know the city and spend time
practising his guitar without social
distractions. Leaving his new
apartment one day, he ran into an old
school friend exiting his own
building oposite. [Julian]

'Albert arrived in the group like a crazy rocket,' says
Moretti. 'He's like this ball of energy and ideas, and he has
these great clothes. I wouldn't say he's our style guru, but he
definitely made the way we present ourselves more important.
I mean, the guy's belts match his shoes.'

When, Albert first joined the Strokes, he wasn't very good, he
had to practice so hard he ran out of fingertips, so he put
superglue on his fingers, stuck them to his arms, then
ripped them off so he had skin? Like, on the ends of his old
fingertips was superglue then skin on the ends?

Albert is the character within the band
best known for supremely getting into
their live-performances, whether this
is through his inimitable style of
jumping on Fabrizio's drum- platform at
the back of the stage and then leaping
off at a crucial moment during a solo
or climactic finish, or just via his
general instrument-thrashing.

'I got into music eventually when I was about 12, or 13,
but it was a very slow process; it was just like, 'Wow, a
guitar's actually quite cool!' Everyone finds their own
time� Eric Clapton didn't start 'til he was 17, and that's a
fine age to start, because you f**king know what you
really want, just start playing guitar and, within three
years, you're great! 'I played guitar really weird; from 12
to 14, I knew three chords, and then I was about 15, 16
when I started getting some lessons and I started really
practicing, really trying to get the barre-chords right, you
know! It's obviously just moved on from there.' Moving
on from there, indeed, it led to his inclusion in The
Strokes, originally known as Come On, and, of course,
on to recording the debut-LP...

Young Ones: Valensi got his first
acoustic by the age of five or six and
has been strumming ever since, Hammond
first took up the instrument in his
mid-teens, and claims to have only been
playing guitar seriously for the past
couple of years. 'Nick is a really good
guitar player,' praises Hammond. 'He
can play anything, and he learns things
real fast.' Fab began playing drums at
age five)

NICKNAME: The Professional

FAVOURITE FOOD: Sushi

FAVOURITE SIMPSONS CHARACTER: Homer

FIRST RECORD: Billy Joel's "We Didn't
Start the Fire"

FAVOURITE ITEM OF CLOTHING: "A naked
woman. Probably the best thing to wear.
She's always warm."

NAME YOUR HAIRCUT: "The Poodle"

credit: thankyou meg:b

Alberts Guitar: Hammond's admiration of Buddy Holly
led him to purchase an '85 Strat, a Fender Japan reissue
of the '72 model, fitted with 0.012 gauge strings for a fat,
heavy sound. It also sounds so much better when you're
bending notes,' he says. 'You can really feel what you're
doing because it hurts so much!' Hammond's backup
guitar, a Les Paul Junior.

Albert and Nick may have different
guitars but the rest of their setup
is pretty much identical: Fender Hot
Rod Deville 2x12"s for their
'raunchiness', an MXR Microamp as a
tone/volume boost for solos, and a
Jekyll and Hyde for distortion. 'I
had the Jekyll and Nick had the MXR,
and we thought that we could both get
some great sounds out of both of
them, so we went shopping together.'
Albert