Who

Lead singer of The Strokes, Casablancas is a privileged child of the fashion industry whose downtown slumming and cryptic brooding earned him brief billing as the Voice of a Generation.

Backstory

The son of noted lothario John Casablancas, the founder of Elite Model Management, and Danish model Jeanette Christiansen, Julian was raised by his mother and step-father (Ghanaian-born artist Sam Adoquei) before being shipped off to boarding school at Le Rosey in Switzerland. He returned to New York to attend the private school Dwight, dropping out before graduating and puttering around for a while as a bartender. Teaming up with kindergarten friend Nikolai Fraiture and boarding school pal Albert Hammond Jr., the trio started recording music at home. With the addition of Fabrizio Moretti and Nick Valensi, The Strokes launched the neo-New Wave movement with their 2001 album Is This It, and the rumpled Casablancas completed his transformation from prep school kid to bar-crawling rock rapscallion.

Of note

While the band may squeeze out another hit before it eventually disintegrates, it's unlikely they'll ever eclipse their zeitgeisty first record. The band's second and third albums, 2003's Room on Fire and 2006's First Impressions of Earth, earned reasonably good reviews but failed to make much of a cultural impression or achieve anything approaching Is This It's commercial success. The New York Times's Kelefa Sanneh described First Impressions, for example, as "consistently smart and interesting," but continued, "you'll notice those aren't words people ever use to describe their favorite records."

The look

In addition to helping to reintroduce the skinny tie-bedhead-Converse look, Casablancas has a tattoo of a tarantula on his arm.

Vice

Cigarettes (which he's quit), booze (he's sober-ish), and pot. Casablancas was caught drinking at an early age, which earned him a spell in the rehab facility Phoenix House. His alcohol problems later threatened to break up the group in 2004.

Personal

In 2005 Casablancas married Juliet Joslin, the assistant manager of his band; the reception was held at Tavern on the Green. Casablancas lives in a one-bedroom on East 7th Street, in the same building as alt-country troubadour Ryan Adams.