Julian Casablancas wants to make "edgy" music mainstream.
The Strokes frontman has revealed his latest solo album ‘Tyranny’ – which was released last month – is an attempt to normalise underground music and "make it popular" in its own time.
He told The Guardian newspaper: "If anything I want to make edgier, interesting stuff mainstream. I’m not trying to be weird, I’m trying to make cool things, that are usually underground, popular.
"A lot of what I do is to try and make cool things popular in their own time. But I’m not trying to be new or different. It’s just the same as ever – creative ideas come in my mind and I just execute them."
The ‘Someday’ singer also described the record – which features the tracks ‘M.utually A.ssured D.estruction’, ‘Off to War’ and ‘Take Me in Your Army’ as a "protest" and is a social comment on what he believes to be the failings on modern society.
He explained: "I guess it’s kind of a protest record. It feels like one to me. It’s more to do with morality than politics. We have the sense that we’ve moved on from the system where the centres of wealth arbitrarily decide what is law and what wars we fight, etc. But I really don’t think that we are removed from that.
"I was actually tapping into the notion of profits at the expense of humanity that I see everywhere. The general human struggle. The point of the record is to try and illustrate the total illusion that we’re somehow beyond that sort of thing, in this so-called era of freedom and justice."
The father-of-one confessed he was even close to tears while working on a track ‘Human Sadness’ and "felt swallowed up" by the emotional message behind the music.
He said: " It was very intense to work on. I’ve never worked on a song where the people were close to tears.
I wasn’t quite crying, but it was really intense. It’s like being on the operating table – you’re working on making it emotional. But this was a rare time when I felt swallowed up by it."
Julian Casablancas: I want to make edgy mainstream
