‘Ask Me Anything’ by The Strokes was inspired by the Scissor Sisters
The Strokes burst onto the scene in 2001 with their EP The Modern Age, which, at the time, sparked one of the largest bidding wars between record labels in recent memory. Soon, the New York band were signed to RCA Records, releasing their acclaimed debut album, Is This It, later that year. As figureheads of the early 2000s garage rock revival scene, The Strokes defined an era, becoming known for their distinctive style of leather, Converse, and blazers, as well as their refreshing approach to indie rock.
After the success of their debut, The Strokes released Room On Fire in 2003, which was primarily critically praised. Two years later, the band dropped First Impressions of Earth, which was widely regarded as the band’s weakest output of their career. Although the album contains some stellar tracks, such as ‘You Only Live Once’, ‘Heart in a Cage’, ‘Juicebox’ and ‘Vision of Division’, it is fair to say that some of the band’s most forgettable tracks also reside beside them. Cuts such as ‘Killing Lies’, ’15 Minutes’ and ‘Ask Me Anything’, while possessing their own merits, pale compared to the previously listed songs.
Nevertheless, ‘Ask Me Anything’ contains a fascinating backstory involving a bizarre dream about the long-forgotten pop group Scissor Sisters, who were once described as “the best pop group in the world” by Elton John before fading into the ether. During a 2014 interview with GQ, Casablancas discussed how he wrote the song, which includes the repeated lyric, “I’ve got nothing to say”.
He explained: “It’s funny: This is one of those cheesy songwriter ‘I dreamt it’ stories, but I dreamt it was a Scissor Sisters song. And there was just a chorus where they kept saying, I’ve got nothing to say, and it was so hypnotic and weird and fucked with my head. I woke up thinking it was a real song. And then I realized: ‘Oh, wait, I made that up in a dream, so I can just do it, and I’m not plagiarizing.'”
When Casablancas was asked whether the song represents his true feelings, he replied: “No. I just think it’s interesting because there’s something so vain about being in a band and being a singer. So to say ‘I have nothing to say’ seemed like a cool, refreshing kind of concept”.
Furthermore, drummer Fabrizio Moretti shared his thoughts on the track in an interview with Clash in 2006. He shared: “That whole song is like where we confess that we’re just going to do our thing, and we’re going to be a band and live by our own integrity and never compromise. The music industry is like any other business. It’s about trade-offs.”
Moretti continued: “And very often, when you don’t give what people are expecting of you – you know, the powers that be that decide how successful you’re going to be – they’ll fuck you in the ass. I’m not going to name any names but a lot of times we haven’t done things because we feel like we’d be embarrassed to do them and that’s cut off our road with certain people.”
