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Albert Hammond, Jr. — news, coverage & facts — IJR

The Strokes

After moving to New York City in September 1998, Hammond reconnected with his former school friend Casablancas, who later invited him to join the Strokes. Made up of Casablancas' other schoolmates Nikolai Fraiture, Nick Valensi, and Fabrizio Moretti, Hammond was the last person to join the band in 1999. In the following two years, the band practiced and performed tirelessly, all while Hammond was also attending NYU and working at Kim's Video. The Strokes released their first demo in January 2001, beginning a record label bidding war and years of critical acclaim. Since 2001, Hammond, as part of the Strokes, has released two EPs and seven full-length albums, most recently Reality Awaits in 2026. Hammond converted to Judaism shortly after the release of the Album "Is This It." Hammond has said that he converted so that fellow bandmate Nick Valensi would not be the only Jew in the band.

Hammond is usually seen playing a 1985 '70s reissue Olympic White Fender Stratocaster or a Gibson Les Paul Jr. that is sometimes used by bandmate Nick Valensi. On the majority of the Strokes' songs, he plays rhythm guitar, and solos are played by Valensi. The songs in which Hammond does play solos are "Last Nite", "Trying Your Luck", "Take It or Leave It", "Under Control", "The End Has No End", "Ize of the World", "Threat of Joy", "Vision of Division", and "Drag Queen". His solos tend to focus largely on more emotional, "bluesy"-type melodic work, and the guitar tends to have a cleaner, softer tone in comparison to Valensi's (with a notable exception found in "Vision of Division"). He often holds his guitar in a high horizontal position, similar to Buddy Holly, which he says is so that he can dance better.

Although vocalist Casablancas is the primary songwriter in the Strokes, Hammond co-wrote the track "Automatic Stop" with Casablancas for the group's second album, Room on Fire. He has been credited with writing three mostly instrumental songs ("Swiss Beats", "Holland", and "By the Way") for the band's 2001 tour video titled In Transit. These songs were reworked for his later solo album and have different titles ("Everyone Gets a Star", "Bright Young Thing", "In Transit"). He wrote "Elephant Song" when he was required to record a song for his Sound 101 class during his freshman year and used the school's recording equipment. The song was played at a few shows before the release of the Strokes' debut album. They later re-recorded the song as a special giveaway for fan club members.

Solo career

In October 2005, Hammond and Ben Kweller released a version of "Wait" on This Bird Has Flown – A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul.

Hammond released a solo album titled Yours to Keep in the U.K. through Rough Trade Records on October 9, 2006 and in North America through New Line Records/Scratchie Records on March 6, 2007. Produced by Thin Lizard Dawn vocalist Lattimer and recorded at the Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the album features several musical guests, such as Sean Lennon, Ben Kweller, the Strokes' manager Ryan Gentles, Jody Porter of Fountains of Wayne, Chris Feinstein, Mikki James, Sammy James Jr. (The Mooney Suzuki), and the Strokes' lead singer, Casablancas. Bassist Josh Lattanzi and drummer Matt Romano serve as the backing band, with Hammond on guitar and vocals. The first single taken from the album, "101", was released exclusively through iTunes on September 4, 2006. "101" was the follow-up single to "Everyone Gets a Star". The music video debuted online in March 2007. It was going to be available in general music stores, unlike "Everyone Gets A Star," which was only available through the UK iTunes Music Store. It was released on November 27, 2006. The music video for "In Transit" was directed by Joaquin Phoenix.

Hammond has said to have been "waiting to make a record like this for years". Early support from his bandmates in the Strokes was only evident after Casablancas' role playing bass and back-up vocals on the track "Scared", though all of the members (with the exclusion of Nick Valensi, who was busy taking care of his newborn children) attended his shows in and around New York.

On March 16, 2007, at the South by Southwest festival, Hammond performed a 12-song set including covers of Frank Black's "Old Black Dawning" and Guided by Voices' "Postal Blowfish". Hammond also regularly covered the Cars' "Don't Cha Stop" in live performances. He supported Bloc Party on their world tour before making stops at Montreal's Metropolis and Toronto's Kool Haus. After this, Hammond headlined two North American tours along with a European tour. The North American tour featured his friends, the Mooney Suzuki. In November 2006, Hammond was announced to be joining Incubus on tour during their North American tour for their new album Light Grenades. On August 29, 2007, Hammond announced on MySpace that he was going back into the studio to record his second album in October 2007 for five weeks.

On March 20, 2008, Hammond posted a blog entry on MySpace in which he revealed the title of his second album: ¿Cómo Te Llama? He wrote that it contained 13 songs with a total length of 46 minutes and 30 seconds. He stated he hoped to be touring with the new album until the end of 2008. On May 27, 2008, Hammond released "GfC", the first single off ¿Cómo Te Llama?, on iTunes in the U.S. The song was played extensively live on his 2007 tour. A non-album song titled "& So It Goes" was released as a B-side along with the single. The album was released on July 7, 2008.

On May 29, 2008, Hammond was Myspace's featured artist and exclusively premiered his new album ¿Cómo Te Llama? uploading all the tracks of the album on his official Myspace page. He celebrated the release of his album with a July 8 small show at the Virgin Megastore, Union Square, in New York City. A noted absence from Hammond's band was recording bassist Josh Latzanni. Steve Schiltz of the band Longwave, who toured with Hammond on his first album also was missing. Although Hammond was supposed to play only two or three songs, he ended up playing almost 10, with a selection that included both new and old tracks. This show kicked off his worldwide tour in support of ¿Cómo Te Llama? with the next show being sold-out at the landmark venue Spaceland in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. This was his only appearance on the West Coast. The following month, Hammond's website officially announced that Hammond would be the support act of the British band Coldplay during their European Tour, which kicked off on September 1 in Strasbourg, France.

In an interview with Har Mar Superstar in July 2013, Hammond revealed that he had recorded a five-song EP to be released via Julian Casablancas' Cult Records. Titled AHJ, it was released on October 8, 2013. Hammond stated in an interview promoting the EP on December 5, 2013, that he would be interested in playing solo as an opening act if the Strokes announced another tour: "I would definitely ask the guys if I could open for them. That'd be amazing."

On June 22, 2014, a photo was posted to Hammond's official Facebook page of himself in a room with other musicians and the caption "the start of something new; LP 3", suggesting that he is working on a third full-length album. Hammond released his third LP Momentary Masters on July 31, 2015 in the U.S. via Vagrant Records. The first single, "Born Slippy", was made instantly available for streaming and download via YouTube and iTunes respectively. Both AHJ and Momentary Masters were produced with Hammond's close collaborator Gus Oberg.

Hammond covered "The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot" by Vera Lynn mixed with the chorus from George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" as part of Amazon's annual music series titled Indie for the Holidays. The song was released on December 1, 2017.

Hammond's fourth solo album Francis Trouble was released via Red Bull Records on March 9, 2018 and signed by A&R Kenny "Tick" Salcido. The first single "Muted Beatings" was released on February 2, 2018. In 2019, he released a new single, "Fast Times", preceding a brief Western USA tour. That May, he released the single "More to Life". The following year Albert was featured on the 2020 song "Another Hit of Showmanship" by the rock band the Struts.