It was a pretty good year for the Strokes. They were featured on the covers of most major music mags, their second album, Room on Fire, sold over 126,000 copies its first week on shelves and their concerts were some of the hottest tickets in Hipster Central. And the bandmembers will likely remain on fire as they head into 2004.
They've just chosen "Reptilia" to be the follow-up single to "12:51," and they're currently searching for a director for the video. "I like that song," drummer Fabrizio Moretti said. "It's pretty balls-to-the-wall. It has an exciting opening and it has got some really great lyrics that make you feel like you're listening to something in a very specific time and place."
The next time the Strokes play that song in North America will be a specific time and place — midnight at their New Year's Eve concert in Las Vegas. "That should be fun," Moretti said. "Maybe we'll do some gambling while we're there, but hopefully not too much because you know what they say — if you do something when the New Year comes in, you'll be doing it for the rest of your life."
In January the band will play the Big Day Out festival in New Zealand and Australia; after that the Strokes will return to North America for a tour in February and March, according to their publicist.
As the Strokes become ever more ubiquitous, a certain portion of their fanbase continues to bail because the band has become too mainstream for their taste. Moretti has only sympathy for these often scathing ex-fans. "I feel sorry that maybe there are some people out there that think our integrity is a little spoiled because we have a bigger fanbase now, but what can you do?" he said. "I never understood the whole, 'This band is mine' [philosophy]. The 'I found this music, so you can't listen to it' thing. I'm happy that as many people who wanna listen to us can listen to us."
