New Skin

New Skin is the debut album of CRX ￢ﾀﾓ a new project for STROKES lead guitarist Nick Valensi. The urge to begin a new project came from a primal place for Valensi, he just wanted to play. ￢ﾀﾜI was at a place where I got really hungry to perform in front of audiences, and do things a little more simply,￢ﾀﾝ Valensi says. ￢ﾀﾜThe Strokes don't play that often anymore, and when we do it's awesome, but it got to the point where I needed to balance that out with a project I could take on tour whenever I wanted to. And the idea of playing clubs again was really exciting to me.￢ﾀﾝ But Valensi couldn￢ﾀﾙt start playing until he￢ﾀﾙd written some songs, and he realized he￢ﾀﾙd have to finally embrace an aspect of performing he￢ﾀﾙd resisted up until that point -- singing. Last summer, he just dug in, grabbing whatever spare time he had to record demos on his laptop at home. ￢ﾀﾜIt was a learning process,￢ﾀﾝ says Valensi. ￢ﾀﾜIt took me some time to figure out how my voice sounds most natural, and to think about what I wanted to say.￢ﾀﾝ As the songs progressed, Valensi invited a few trusted musician friends to join him and to contribute as songwriters. In addition to Valensi on guitar and vocals, CRX includes bassist Jon Safley, keyboardist/vocalist Richie Follin, drummer Ralph Alexander, and guitarist Darian Zahedi. ￢ﾀﾜOnce we were all in a room together, it got collaborative pretty quickly,￢ﾀﾝ Valensi says, noting that about half of New Skin￢ﾀﾙs ten tracks are co-writes with the band. After demoing several songs, Valensi reached out to Queens of the Stone-Age￢ﾀﾙs Josh Homme, for feedback on the tracks and advice regarding producers who might be right for the band. It quickly became apparent that there was no better person for the job than Homme himself. ￢ﾀﾜHe was really enthusiastic about the demos,￢ﾀﾝ says Valensi. ￢ﾀﾜThere were even specific things he loved from the demos so much that we ended up including them on the album, which was very much a Josh decision.￢ﾀﾝ New Skin was recorded at Homme￢ﾀﾙs Pink Duck Studios in Burbank, with work wrapping up in early 2016. And even as this year marks the fifteenth anniversary of The Strokes first LP, it represents the beginning of a promising new chapter for Valensi. ￢ﾀﾜOne of the coolest things for me is that I began making this record as a vehicle to get onstage,￢ﾀﾝ he says, ￢ﾀﾜbut along the way, it started to feel like we were working on something more special than that. I￢ﾀﾙm excited to be singing and having a lot of fun with it, and I￢ﾀﾙm really enjoying the feeling of having to work hard to win people over. It￢ﾀﾙs like being a kid again - like everything is new and kind of scary but irresistibly fun, too.￢ﾀﾝ