The Strokes‘ Nick Valensi became the final member of the band to form his own side project last month, and now we’ve got a taste of the first single from said side project AKA CRX – an upbeat, toe-tapper called Ways To Fake It.
Valensi had already revealed that CRX would be releasing an album in October, and Ways To Fake It marks our first lick of the new release, which was produced by Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme.
It’s a clean, pop-rock tune that seems to progressively get catchier as it goes along – and you can definitely hear underlying Strokes-esque qualities in the guitar lines, and in the mid-section guitar solo.
Speaking about why he picked Ways To Fake It as the world’s official introductory handshake to CRX, Valensi tells Music Feeds: “That was the one that felt right to me and to Josh [Homme] and to everyone at Columbia records and all the guys in the band. I don’t know, it’s not necessarily representative of how all of the other songs on the record sound but I think it’s a fun introduction to the project.”
Valensi also explains that half the songs he wrote for the album had a more heavy, fast and aggressive sort of vibe, while the other half were more power-poppy, including Ways To Fake It.
“One of my concerns at first was that maybe there was too much of a contrast. It felt like one half was like this and the other half was like that,” he says. “But Josh was really quick to convince me and assure me that that’s what was part of what made the album still cool.
“I guess at first I was concerned about some kind of cohesiveness but Josh was able to point out that the thing that really glues the whole album together is the singing, first and foremost, but also the guitar playing that you hear on every track no matter what the energy of the track is… It’s nice to be able to represent different emotions over the course of a record.”
Get your ears on Ways To Fake It below, and stay tuned for Music Feeds’ full interview with Valensi, coming soon.
Listen: CRX – ‘Ways To Fake It’
