Sometimes it feels like my generation – I'm a xenial, by the way, and if you don't know what that means where the hell have you been? – never had one of those shuddering JFK, WTF moments. Nor an Elvis one either. "Everyone remembers where they were when they heard such and such had died." It's the sort of thing I used to hear my parents, baby boomers, talk about. Or in movies starring Dustin Hoffman or Gene Hackman.
Perhaps the closest thing for my friends – a memory of a famous death linked with a specific location – was when Michael Jackson passed suddenly due to complications involving acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication at his home in Los Angeles on 25 June 2009. I remember vividly where I was because I was at Glastonbury Festival and Bruce Springsteen has been bouncing around on the Pyramid Stage for what seemed like years. Bruce may not have aged but I did that night; the specific moment I found out of Jacko's OD, I'd actually returned to my tent exhausted by the sheer endurance of The Boss' set.
When the news travelled around the festival – slowly like those continual whispers of a secret Radiohead set you'd always get every year – first came disbelief, then genuine melancholy. Rightly or wrongly, that particular emotion flooded the litter- and glitter-strewn fields, despite the heinous allegations being well known. Of course, then came the sound over the systems: that night at Glastonbury it seemed every tent and stage played some remix of “Bad”, “Billie Jean” or “Smooth Criminal”. The saucer-eyed ravers mourned by moonwalking in muddy fields in Hunter wellies as one huge collective euphoric gurn.
Much in the same seismic way – although with less rain and fewer soggy crotch grabs in the stone circle – I remember where I was when I first heard (and saw) a copy of The Strokes’ debut LP, Is This It. I was working for The Face magazine, fresh out of university in the summer of 2001, a time when music was dominated by, well, anything other than great guitar bands. Good music came in the form of Daft Punk and a great deal of hip hop, but for those who wanted riffs and youthful guttural vocals there wasn't much in the way of bright shiny talent.
The Strokes, steered musically by the doe-eyed Julian Casablancas, changed all that, ushering a whole new wave of pretty-dirty guitar heroes into our lives, bands that looked good and sounded better. First The Strokes released The Modern Age EP (although the NME had given away an MP3 of “Last Night” shortly prior to this), which was a collection of three songs that sparked a bidding war, one eventually won by Geoff Travis at Rough Trade. Travis heard (and saw) what we all did: a band that could write and play a three-minute tune about as well as they could rock a grey blazer and a salmon-pink tie. As someone astute once said of the band, “You either wanted to be The Strokes or fuck them – either would do.”
Photographer Colin Lane was, much like the band, based in New York City at the time and was commissioned by The Face to take photographs of this hot new mess everyone was buzzing about. His first session with The Strokes (seen here) went a long way to telegraphing and also influencing both how the wider world would see (and fall in love with the band), but also how the band would want themselves to be seen.
In anticipation of the band going back on the road this year, not least with a summer gig at All Points East in London in May, we caught up with Lane to talk about working with The Strokes and also his seminal ”ass ’n’ glove shot” that was used, almost by chance, for the cover of Is This It. All together now... “Last night, she said...”
GQ: How did you get that first gig with The Strokes?
Colin Lane: "For 15 years I had an agent in London (Blunt Management). They were able to hook me up with The Face. Shooting The Strokes was my first commission from them. I didn’t know who The Strokes were, but I was just excited to be shooting for that magazine."
What were you first impressions of The Strokes when you met them?
"Really nice guys. Smart, funny, confident. Not cocky but confident. By the time I met them there was probably already a bidding war going on for them [mid 2001] so they knew good things were right around the corner. They came over to my apartment on 16th Street and we started the session there."
What was lead singer, Julian Casablancas, like back then?
"Julian was the aloof one. He was the hardest to get to know but we ended up becoming pretty good friends. I later shot his wedding and we played on an indoor soccer team together – with Nikolai and Andy Samberg! Julian also organised baseball games in Central Park and later the two of us played in a regular pickup soccer game in Chinatown."
Was there already a buzz around when you first met them?
"I’m sure there was but I didn’t really know at the time. I hadn’t heard of them. As I said, I’m sure there were a ton of labels battling it out to get them. Geoff Travis at Rough Trade probably had already signed them in London at that point, because I was sent their song ‘The Modern Age’, the one Travis had famously listened to for a mere 30 seconds before deciding to sign them."
There's that ionic shot of the band up on a roof of a building, the sun setting behind them with the Empire State Building in the background. How did you get this shot?
"I had a loose plan to get on a roof but not that one. I used to sneak on roofs a lot and my favourite was the roof of the Essex House hotel on Central Park South. I used to take out-of-town visitors up there a lot. Amazing views of Central Park to the north and Midtown to the south. You could just walk into the lobby and take the elevator to the top floor, find the stairwell and walk up two flights and you’d be in the elevator engine room that had a door leading to the roof.
"There were huge red letters spelling out the name of the hotel that you could climb up to if you wanted, but when I took The Strokes up there for the first time I got busted. There was some employee taking a cigarette break. I felt like an asshole but I knew one more roof to go to. The Lincoln Building is right across the street from Grand Central and I think it’s 55 stories tall. I used to live in a building owned by Helmsley Spear (of Leona Helmsley fame) and their offices were on the top floor of The Lincoln Building. I was often late with my rent and would hand-deliver my cheques to them. Once I asked to use their bathroom and saw that the view was amazing from the window in there.
"So I did the same thing that day; I found the stairwell and walked up to the roof. Pre 9/11 it was pretty easy to sneak up on roofs. I couldn’t believe The Strokes agreed to try a second rooftop but it worked out perfectly. It had been an overcast day but by the time we reached the Lincoln Building the sun had sunk below the clouds and then the Empire State Building turned on the green lights while we were shooting. Lucky!"
So what's the secret to getting a great band portrait?
"I wish I knew. I guess the first thing is to try to establish a bit of a rapport somehow. I remember I was so broke when I shot The Strokes but I went out and bought some beers and some snacks for them. I played Link Wray and some other good tunes for them. We hung out and talked a bit first. I try to have a few locations in mind for backup. It’s important to stay loose and be spontaneous. You never know what a band is going to be up for or what they will want to do or where they will want to go. I’ll go to the ends of the earth for a shot but most bands won’t.
"Luck plays a big part. But I have to say The Strokes were so easy to shoot. Just stick them anywhere and they look good. (Funny, though, when I did the press shoot for ‘Room On Fire’ [their second LP], we were in a studio all day – too famous for the streets by then. One thing I did was put them on a white cyc and set the camera on a tripod. I gave them a remote control for the camera and told them to take pictures of themselves. I stood off to the side and shot them shooting themselves. When I shoot those guys they would just stand there and look cool, but as soon as I gave them the keys and equipment they started goofing around and doing silly things, just having fun. I was like, ‘Why don’t you do that for me?’”
How did The Strokes get to use one of your older photographs for their first album, Is This It? The image of the naked woman and that black leather glove?
"Was I talking about luck? The day of the press shoot was between three and six months after I had met them. I’d done The Face shoot, gone to one of their Mercury Lounge gigs and also gone down to Philadelphia to shoot a gig down there, but they still hadn’t seen my work. This was pre-website days. So the day of the press shoot I decided I’d bring my portfolio with me. Just to show them what I do. Unbeknownst to me they were leaving the very next day for their first UK tour, and Australia, I think.
"Tracy Boychuk and Brett Kilroe were the art directors at RCA that were handling the album and they were freaking out that the guys hadn’t picked a cover shot yet. At lunchtime we were on the RV we had for the day and I asked Julian if he wanted to look at my book. The ‘ass shot’ was in there. I’d shot it the year before. It’s my ex-girlfriend. When Julian saw it he was like, ‘That would be a cool cover, would you mind if we used it?’ I was speechless for a second but of course said yes.
"So everybody was super happy. The shoot was going great and they’d picked a cover. Tracy and Brett loved it. The next day they left on tour. As the story goes, however – and I’ve never asked Julian about this – when they got to Australia, Julian was flipping through a book and saw the image that became the American LP cover, a closeup of atoms colliding, I think.
"Well, Julian fell in love with it and liked it more than my ‘ass shot’. Luckily for me, though, my photograph was already at the printing presses and I guess they’d already printed a ton of albums. So RCA told Julian they could have that other cover with the atoms for North America but it was too late for the rest of the world. If Julian had found that image a day earlier I might not have the career I have now – lucky. Years later I was at a thrift shop going through their CD bin and I found an Eighties New Age album by some unknown musician that used the exact same image of the atoms that Julian picked. Slightly different crop but exact same image. I’ve never told The Strokes that…"
**Ever revealed the name of the woman in the shot? She was your then girlfriend, right? **
"Nope!"
So do you still own the glove?
"I actually never did. I had done some fashion shoot for the Observer's Sunday magazine and the stylist left all the clothes at my apartment to be picked up the next day. Piles and piles [of clothes]. We hadn’t used the Chanel gloves but I saw them just as my girlfriend was getting out of the shower. I asked her if we could shoot a few pictures. Just the gloves. She really wasn’t in the mood and really didn’t want to but I begged and pleaded and she let me shoot one pack of Polaroids, so ten shots. There are nine ’alternate’ ass shots. A collector in London bought a 5-inch print of the ass shot and also bought all nine alternates as 16x20s. I think he’s going to hang them in a grid. It’s going to look awesome. He owns The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. I always thought Chanel should use that image as an ad, or at least buy a print from me…"
What's next project-wise for you, Colin?
"I’ve been doing a lot of street photography lately, up in the Times Square area. Most of my favourite photographers are street photographers, William Klein, Helen Levitt, Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Daidō Moriyama, Robert Frank, Bruce Gilden. I’ll see where this takes me. I’m also about to start teaching a photography class to fourth and fifth graders at my son’s school. I’m very excited – and nervous, as I’ve never taught before. Of course my own son has no interest in taking my class!"
How come these images of The Strokes have endured so, after all these years?
"Well, they’re really good photographs, but I’m convinced my blind grandmother could have taken good pictures of those guys in 2001. The real reason is because Is This It is one of those perfect albums that only come once or twice in a generation. Every song is a winner. And the real, real reason is just because those guys were so cool in 2001 – and they still are. They captured the imagination of the world. They just had that 'it' factor that is undefinable. I was just in the right place at the right time with the right band. A thousand other photographers could have gotten that job but I got the call. Lucky."
For more of Colin Lane's work and images of The Strokes go to colinlane.com, or head to Snap Galleries, London, where you can buy high-end limited-edition The Strokes prints. snapgalleries.com
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