Credit: Raph Pour-Hashemi

Julian Casablancas says The Strokes stayed together for “financial reasons”

Fri 8 August 2025 15:11, UK

Julian Casablancas has revealed he formed The Voidz because The Strokes had become motivated by “financial reasons”.

Casablancas is currently touring Europe with The Voidz, recently supporting Idles at their huge hometown show in Bristol. Last year, they released Like All Before You, their first full-length project in six years, and the band is seemingly his creative priority.

They formed in 2013, shortly after the release of Comedown Machine by The Strokes, and Casablancas has been balancing both projects side-by-side over the last 12 years.

Now, in a new interview with Rolling Stone Italia, he explained why he decided to start The Voidz: “When I started making music, becoming passionate about my dreams and vision, I had a very clear idea of how I wanted things to evolve. My journey with the Strokes became something different from what initially attracted me to music. We became a band like many others, like Bon Jovi and Green Day, we could have gone on forever.”

Casablancas continued: “We had entered a mechanism that kept us together solely for financial reasons, pushing the band’s creativity into the background. So I came to the conclusion that wasn’t the way I wanted to develop.”

The Strokes frontman then quoted Miles Davis, who once said, “The real risk is not changing”, before adding, “That’s why I always want to feel like I’m searching for something unexplored. If I make money, that’s fine, but I don’t want to stay still. I’m not looking for security or the status quo. If someone wants to keep creating, they have to be ready for change. Even if it means the death of something they held dear.”

Despite his comments suggesting The Strokes are inactive, they announced two shows earlier this week in Las Vegas and El Paso for later this year, which will act as warm-ups for their headline date at Austin City Limits in October.

Their last album, The New Abnormal, arrived in 2020.