Albert Hammond Jr on his new solo album, working with Matt Helders, and The Strokes’ next move

nme.com:

Albert Hammond Jr has spoken to NME about his new hip-hop-inspired single ‘100-99’, his upcoming solo album ‘Melodies On Hiatus’, working with Arctic Monkeys‘ Matt Helders, and progress on The Strokes’ next record.The guitarist and singer-songwriter shared his latest solo track earlier this week (April 4) and announced details of the new record – which will be his fifth solo album and the follow-up to 2018’s ‘Francis Trouble’.The LP’s first single finds Hammond Jr combining a beat inspired by ‘90s hip-hop and a glacial guitar melody as he sings: “I’m not safe / I’ve made mistakes, I would again / In spite of what it cost me.” It’s a merging of styles that he has wanted to try out for some years.“I’d write riffs and think, ‘I can imagine that looped with a beat and someone rapping over it’,” he told NME. “This song just happened to work [like that].

The time [to release a song like this] would have been 13 years ago when I wanted to and it’s so funny – maybe I should have.”Asked if he felt “typecast” in genre by the perception people have of him as a member of The Strokes, Hammond Jr replied: “Oh my god, are you kidding me?

People loved labels when we first came out, and now I feel like people love labels even more.”He continued: “Success is awesome because you get to do what you’ve wanted to do, but it can also typecast you in that no one knew you – or the different facets of you – before that, so you can get typecast into something.

Every positive comes with a negative – although it’s not so much a negative as just understanding the duality of it. It’s fine, I feel very fortunate.”‘100-99’ will appear on ‘Melodies On Hiatus’ – coming in June.