Julian Casablancas is an idiot

There was a time when Julian Casablancas was undeniably cool. He was the lead singer of The Strokes, a band that hit its peak in the early aughts, and he could casually wear a leather jacket while yammering on about The Man and you’d nod along and buy it.

But that was more than a decade ago and, as he will tell you himself in an insightful interview with Vulture’s David Marchese, music has changed while he has remained imprisoned in a cage of garage rock pretension.

And who do we have to blame, according to Grandpa Casablancas? The internet — populism and mainstream culture, too, for that matter. It’s a marvel of a profile and a rather confused glimpse into a musician who may have bought into his own delusions while the rest of the world long moved on.

Casablancas not only manages to express his disappointment with what the future holds, but also references the spoils of capitalism a solid five times. For example, he not only believes that we are living in “an illusion of democracy,” but that “music has been co-opted by some kind of capitalist profit game.”

He also proclaims that David Bowie was “pretty underground” in the 1970s despite 10 of his albums reaching top 10 status in the U. K. that decade, and that Jimi Hendrix “didn’t have hits” during his lifetime or any “commercial success” and that anyone who thinks otherwise is “seeing it through the rearview mirror.”

When Marchese counters that Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland was a No. 1 hit, a year after which he headlined Woodstock, Casablancas simply replies, “Ok.”

The frontman has a deep and profound love for Ariel Pink, who he predicts will be “one of the best-remembered artists of this generation” and should be more successful than Ed Sheeran, the bane of an indie rocker’s existence if there ever was one.

When Marchese suggests Sheeran and Pink have different styles and ambitions — and therefore different parameters of success, Casablancas simply responds, “Everything you’re saying sounds 100 per cent like cultural brainwashing.”

He continues, “I’m not trying to diss Ed Sheeran or any pop star. Ed Sheeran seems like a nice, cool guy and I have nothing against his music. ... But my bigger point is that whether it’s music or politics, right now we’re mired in whoever’s propaganda is loudest.”