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Photo credit to CRX and Tony Corella<\/i><\/p>\n
The Strokes\u2019 Nick Valensi recently debuted an album with his new band, CRX entitled New Skin. Right before the start of their US tour, WTBU DJ Kristen Lay got to chat with Valensi about creating this new project and getting back into playing live music. CRX will be coming to Brighton Music Hall on Nov. 20, and their album, New Skin, is out now on Columbia Records.<\/p>\n
Was the title New Skin chosen as a sort of symbol of this new part, or project, in your life, or would you say you feel like you\u2019re in a \u201cnew skin\u201d?<\/b><\/p>\n
Sure, I guess. At the risk of sounding corny, this is my new band, my new project, so that\u2019s why the word \u201cnew\u201d is there I guess. Just doing this new thing, singing, I\u2019ve got a new role in this band. I just felt that title was appropriate and there\u2019s something kind of reptilian about it as well.<\/p>\n
What was this experience like for you to create something different with other people, and something that could be entirely your own?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s been really good, it\u2019s been really fun. It dawned on me that I didn\u2019t realize, but this is the first time that I\u2019m launching a new project and being a part of this new thing for the first time in fifteen or twenty years since I did it the first time around with The Strokes. It\u2019s been really exciting, the reception\u2019s been really positive and I\u2019m just really looking forward to starting this tour. We\u2019re leaving on tour in a couple of days, and going on tour, being on stage is one of my favorite things about being a musician, and it\u2019s kind of the reason why I wanted to start this new project in the first place. So, I\u2019m kind of getting ready to bear the fruits of my labor.<\/p>\n
On November 20, CRX will be coming here to Boston, playing at Brighton Music Hall, which is a really small venue compared to these large scale shows at huge venues and festivals that you\u2019ve been used to doing. What do you miss about playing at these smaller shows and what are you looking forward to most about playing them?<\/b><\/p>\n
Playing club shows is cool because there\u2019s kind of a more immediate connection with the audience, just by virtue of them being so close. With The Strokes, for the most part we do these big summertime festival shows, which is really cool and fun, but it\u2019s just a different feeling. I guess for me the coolest thing about having this new band and going across the country and playing these clubs is just that I haven\u2019t done that in a long time. I guess I was just looking for some balance from these super big stages where the audience is like fifty feet away from the band and it\u2019s a little tougher to make that connection. I just wanted to do something different. I think that if I only had the experience of playing clubs for ten years and only touring around the world doing these small clubs, I\u2019d probably be really excited to get on some bigger stages, do some theaters, do some festivals, arenas, stadiums, whatever. But just because it\u2019s been a while now with The Strokes where we\u2019ve just been exclusively doing this particular kind of show, I was feeling a little out of balance and I wanted to be able to play all kinds of shows. It\u2019s kind of like, you know you have some actors who do the summertime comic book blockbuster movie, but then they also do more indie pictures and other stuff, and I suppose that\u2019s an appropriate analogy.<\/p>\n
Yeah it\u2019s nice to kind of find that balance.<\/b><\/p>\n
Yeah, I mean I feel like life in general is all about balance. You can\u2019t have too much of one thing and only that one thing because, inevitably, you\u2019re gonna get sick of it.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve spent a lot of time with the members of The Strokes, but with CRX you\u2019re with all these new people. Were they exactly new to you, or how did you guys come together and decide you wanted to start this?<\/b><\/p>\n
No, these guys have all been good friends of mine for a long time. They don\u2019t feel new to me, we\u2019re all buddies, and that\u2019s actually how the band kind of came together. It was just very natural and organic. Once I put it in my head that I wanted to start something new and that I wanted to sing on it and put together a project to take on the road, I started demoing songs basically by myself at home on my laptop and just started putting all of the material together. I did that for a while\u2014almost a year\u2014pretty much by myself working in secret. And then, the way people do working by themselves, I kind of hit a wall and lost perspective on what I was doing and it got to a place where I felt a little stuck and was having trouble progressing. I think it\u2019s probably because I\u2019m used to being in a band and I\u2019m used to the dynamic of a room full of people to bounce ideas off of. This new environment of working by myself was, at first, very necessary and important for me to do, but after a year of doing that it was really hard and really lonely and I got stuck. So, that\u2019s when I reached out to some friends of mine who live in L.A,., kind of close to me, people who I\u2019ve known for a while, who I respect musically, and opened the door to some collaboration to have these guys come in and help me finish up a couple of songs, finish up some lyrics on certain tracks where I was having trouble finishing all the lyrics. The guys who I reached out to are, for the most part, the guys who are now in the band with me, and once they came on board and we started writing together, things really started to feel like a band. That\u2019s why this is a band, that\u2019s why we\u2019re presenting it that way because it feels that way. We all write on the record, and I figured it\u2019d be cooler to go out as a band as opposed to some solo project.<\/p>\n
When you guys were all working on this album and you were trying to figure out what kind of style or sound you wanted, did you try to steer away from any influences from The Strokes, or was it sort of inevitable? What kind of influences did the other members of your band bring?<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u2019t really think about stuff like that when I\u2019m in the middle of the process. I never sit down to write a song with this intention in mind of \u201coh, I want to be influenced by this\u201d or \u201cI want to not do something like this.\u201d I actually consciously try to shut off the part of my brain that is telling me where to go, or any kind of critical or editorial function of my brain. I do my best to turn it off and try to be a bit more free creatively, especially in the early stages of writing. For me I can\u2019t really tell what things are influenced by until it\u2019s done, and once I\u2019ve written it and recorded it and it\u2019s finished and I can listen back to it, that\u2019s when it dawns on me, like, \u201coh, this sounds like it was pretty heavily influenced by The Cars because it kind of sounds like a Cars song.\u201d I mean sure, it probably was influenced The Cars, I love The Cars and I listen to them, but that certainly wasn\u2019t what I was trying to do when I wrote the song.<\/p>\n
What do you think is the most important part of creating songs and putting together an album?<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s any most important part, it\u2019s all really important to me. I\u2019m pretty methodical that way, I scrutinize every little detail about things. I don\u2019t know that one is more important than the other. But having said that, it does mean like a really good singer can help a mediocre song to shine and I don\u2019t know that it works the other way around. If the singer\u2019s bad, then the song just kind of tends to be bad. Vocals are really important and I\u2019ve learned that through this process, it is an element that most people are gonna put their focus on, so it\u2019s really important. I\u2019m the kind of person who puts just as much weight on the tone of the hi-hat as I do on the tone of the lead vocal, so I guess I\u2019m weird like that.<\/p>\n
You worked with Josh Homme in producing this album; what was it like to work with him?<\/b><\/p>\n
It was great working with him. We\u2019ve been friends for a long time so I\u2019m always happy to get a chance to hang out with him. To be working with him in this professional setting was really cool and really eye opening. He puts emphasis on a lot of things that I never thought to. I guess the things that he keeps an eye for detail out on are slightly different from the ones that I do. He placed a lot of attention on the drums, and not the sounds of the drums so much as the feel of the drums, and that was something that I do too and I\u2019ve always known was important, but the way that he scrutinized the feel of the drums was just interesting and new to me. He\u2019s a great guitar player and songwriter but he\u2019s also a pretty damn good drummer, and I think it probably comes from that.<\/p>\n
One song that I find interesting from the album is \u201cSlow Down\u201d, and in the song you sing about wanting to stop time and, as the title suggests, slow down. Do you feel that life moves too fast or, even more specifically, that your own life has moved too fast, especially with what success you\u2019ve had at a young age?<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, the short answer is yes. I feel when I compare myself to other people I feel like I\u2019m a slow person. I really take my time with things, I don\u2019t like to rush through a meal, I don\u2019t like to rush through my morning, just getting ready to get out of the house. I\u2019m really kind of a deliberate, methodical person and sometimes I feel like the world is speeding up and getting faster and faster and I\u2019m still kind of taking my time. That song was just a reaction to those feelings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Photo credit to CRX and Tony Corella The Strokes\u2019 Nick Valensi recently debuted an album with his new band, CRX entitled New Skin. Right before the start of their US tour, WTBU DJ Kristen Lay got to chat with Valensi about creating this new project and getting back into playing live music. CRX will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[26,40,29,41,42,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}