Trying Your Luck (Julian Casablancas)

NOT Grunge

As we walked to Julian's apartment, he introduced me to the remainder of his bandmates. The other guy that was there the day we met was named Fabrizio (but his friends called him Fab), the guitarist with the crazy curly hair was named Albert, and the quiet bass player was named Nikolai.

Nikolai decided to walk back to his own apartment about halfway through our trek to Julian's, so it was just Julian, Kim, Nick, Albert, Fab, and I. While we were walking, I was beginning to wonder how all of us were going to fit into a tiny New York apartment comfortably.

"This is our building," Albert said, pointing to the rows of apartments ahead.

As we approached the apartment I studied the surroundings, already planning how I was going to get Kim and I home later. The area around the building was much cleaner than our apartment. When we finally made it inside, I was shocked at how much bigger it was than I had expected. I guess I was just used to our gross tiny Brooklyn pad.

"This place is nice...and roomy!" Kim said as she began to wander the place.

"What do you guys do for work that you can afford a place like this just the two of you?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Fab giggled at my question. "I, uh, bartend sometimes... and Albert works at a video store," Julian answered, seemingly shy.

This wasn't adding up to me, Kim and I both worked full time and struggled in Brooklyn. But yet, these two could do casual jobs and afford a nice place on the Lower East Side? I didn't ask another question for fear of being nosy.

Noises coming from the first bedroom immediately averted all of our attention away from my questions. After a moment, we all connected the dots that Nick and Kim were nowhere to be found and the noisy bedroom door was mysteriously shut and locked.

Albert started banging on the door shouting, "What the fuck, man? Why'd you have to bring that shit into my room?"

A muffled "sorry" was heard in between moans on the other side. Although Albert was seemingly upset, the rest of us had a good laugh about it.

"Can we please go into your room so we don't have to hear it?" Albert asked, looking at Julian. Without another word, Julian started leading the way.

His bedroom was probably three times bigger than mine and covered in a bunch of random posters. There was a long poster above the doorway that caught my attention.

"Pearl Jam?" I asked, furrowing my brows in disgust.

"You like them?" Julian asked excitedly.

I scoffed and blurted out, "Fuck no," before really examining the situation.

"No? What do you mean no? You're all grunged out with your black eyeshadow and combat boots," Julian teased.

"Hey! I am not grunge. My style is way cooler and more sophisticated than that shit," I shot back, flipping my hair over my shoulder.

"Do you like Nirvana?" Fab asked, sitting down on the bed.

I shook my head no. Julian let out a fake dramatic gasp and said, "How could you?"

"I guess your love for Nirvana and Pearl Jam explains your fucked up jeans and weird stage presence," I said somewhat jokingly. His ripped jeans were pretty hideous paired with the rest of his outfit. The stage presence wasn't all that bad.

"Okay, miss music snob. What do you listen to?" Julian asked, sitting down on the bed in front of Fab to face me.

Oh shit. I've backed myself into a corner here. Three male musicians and an overly opinionated girl in a room talking about taste in music... This could be bad for my ego.

"I don't know, I listen to a little bit of everything," I finally responded, taking my seat in the chair facing the bed.

"That's such a cop-out move!" Fab jested. He was right, it was a cop-out move to save from getting my music taste torn to shreds.

"Okay, who's your favorite band?" Albert chimed in, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.

"Like...favorite of all time or favorite as of recently?" I was trying to buy myself more time.

"What were you listening to on your headphones the other day?" Julian asked, referring to our interaction.

I thought about it for a second until I finally remembered. Thank god it was something cool.

"Oh, I was listening to Television!"

"Television?" Julian and Fab asked in unison.

"Yeah, Television. You know Richard Hell's old band?"

Both of the boys were giving me blank stares. "Come on, now. They're literally from New York City!" I turned to face Albert to say, "Albert, you've got to know Television. You're totally ripping off some of their guitar parts in your songs."

Albert laughed and said, "I think so. Marquee Moon?"

"Yeah! That's the album I was listening to!" I said, overly excited.

"Albert, is she making fun of us? Does this band actually suck and she's saying we suck indirectly?" Julian asked, seeming genuinely worried. Albert shook his head and smiled.

"Don't worry, Jules. Your vocals don't sound anything like Television... Honestly, your voice kind of reminded me of Lou Reed when you weren't doing all that screamy shit."

He chuckled, "Yeah, I've gotten that before. I take it as a compliment."

"I meant it as a compliment, the Velvet Underground is one of my favorites of all time."

"See, you know what kind of music you like, why were you buggin'?" Fab asked sassily. I chuckled at his question. I guess I proved my taste to them because they didn't give me any more shit about it the rest of the night.

The conversation continued with them asking me my thoughts on their set. Of course, I mostly gave them compliments on the things I liked to keep from seeming like a total bitch. But I'd be lying if I didn't throw in a small critique here and there.

I asked them about how they all met and found out Albert and Julian met at a boarding school in Switzerland. What kind of a backstory was this?

They teased Julian saying they were surprised I gave him my real phone number. To be honest, I had never even thought to give out a fake number. I guess I was glad I gave him my real one after all.

Surprisingly, I found myself really enjoying the conversations I was having with these three. Maybe it was because they were all a little drunk, but I felt I could really be myself and joke around without hurting their feelings. I liked that about them.

After about an hour, Kim started to crash and wanted to go home. We said our goodbyes to the boys as we made our way out of the apartment and to the stairwell leading to the street. As we got down the first few steps I heard Julian call out, "I guess we aren't strangers anymore!"

After Kim and I finished giggling he called out one more time, "Bye Steph!"

"Bye Jules!" I responded with actual enthusiasm this time.

After leaving the apartment, we made our way to the L and then back to Brooklyn. Kim, of course, was telling me every detail of the hookup she'd just had with Nick. Which disgusted me, to say the least. I told her about some of the stuff I'd learned about the guys and how well they handled my snarky attitude.

"Aren't you glad we went? Aren't you glad we stayed?" Kim asked, standing in the doorway of my bedroom right before bed.

"Yeah, I guess I am glad. Thanks for convincing me to stay."

I loved that about Kim, she was better at trusting people than I was. I went to sleep happy with the new friends I had made that night.