Julian Casablancas has assured fans of The Strokes that Nick Valensi will be “back soon” following him taking a step back from the group.
The New York indie icons are gearing up to drop the new album ‘Reality Awaits’, the long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s ‘The New Abnormal’.
Their seventh studio album was originally meant to drop on June 26, however, earlier this month the band announced that it had been pushed back to July 24, without providing their reasoning. You can pre-order it here.
After announcing new music and a huge upcoming tour – which will take them across the UK, North America, Europe and Japan and mark their first headline tour in the UK and Ireland in over 20 years – frontman Casablancas and co. confirmed that guitarist Valensi would be taking a “temporary break” from playing live.
“Nick will be taking a temporary break from the scheduled tour, but we look forward to his return,” they shared on Instagram Stories in May.
They did not give a reason for his absence, but they did add that “holding down the guitar in the meantime is our old friend Steve Schiltz, who many of you will remember from the early NY days”.
Julian confirms Nick will come back
byu/ginnoir inTheStrokes
The news of his absence from upcoming shows came as a shock to some fans, and led to many speculating online if Valensi had fallen out with the other band members and whether or not he intends to rejoin the line-up at all.
Now, Casablancas has cleared the air for fans who were not convinced by the announcement of a temporary absence, and said that the guitarist will be back “soon”.
Responding to a fan who claimed on Instagram that the band had “broke up” with Valensi, Casablancas wrote: “He’ll be back soon I’m sure”.
He also added that while the guitarist was not in the recent music video for lead single ‘Going Shopping’ alongside actor Walton Goggins, that was because the “video was supposed to be just me and Walton [but] things just got a little crazy. He’ll be in the next one tho.”
The response has already started to divide some fans on Reddit, with some saying that the comment from Casablancas reassured them that there is no bigger sense of tension in the band, while others seemed less convinced.
“[Everyone has been] overreacting. They always said it was a temporary break. A lot of people didn’t respect him, Nick has a life outside of The Strokes and he needed some time,” one person wrote, while another added that the comment on Instagram is “proving again that we’re overreacting here and reading too much into this”.
“Thank god Julian responded, y’all can delete the conspiracy theory comments now lol,” wrote someone else, while some others were more doubtful. “I will not relax until Nick is fully back, situation is weird,” said one fan on Reddit, and another agreed: “Saying ‘I’m sure’ at the end implies uncertainty and lack of knowledge of all the details about the situation.”
As well as the huge tour, The Strokes have also announced a huge New York show with Beach House, TV On The Radio and Fcukers at Flushing Meadows Corona Park on October 2. Find any remaining tickets here.
While the band didn’t say at the time why they pushed back the album release date, Albert Hammond Jr. later said that the date was changed to match the vinyl release, and also referred to ‘Reality Awaits’ as his “favourite album” that The Strokes have ever made.
So far, the album has only been previewed by two singles, the lead track ‘Going Shopping’ and the heartfelt follow-up ‘Falling Out Of Love’. NME gave the former a three-star review and described it as a song that “doesn’t feel bold” but also “does avoid playing anything safe.”
“You couldn’t definitively place its sound on any of The Strokes’ previous six albums, but the lack of spirit and tenacity – save for a guitar solo at the end – is noticeable,” the review read. “‘If you’re better than me you don’t have to judge me’, signs off Casablancas, with an imaginary raised eyebrow. But perhaps even he would admit that The Strokes are better than this.”