Strokes man reveals story behind Yeah Yeah Yeahs collaboration

Nikolai Fraiture met Nick Zinner thanks to poker

The StrokesNikolai Fraiture has told NME.COM

he got Yeah Yeah YeahsNick Zinner to play on his solo album after the pair found themselves with too much time on their hands.

The bassist made is currently working on new band Nickel Eye, and revealed he managed to get the guitarist to play on his forthcoming album ‘The Time Of The Assassins’ after bumping into him at a poker game during his time off from his main band.

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“My record came about when decided to take our time getting back together,” Fraiture said. “We met in May this year to get back together with The Strokes, Fab [Moretti] had Little Joy, Albert (Hammond Jr) had his thing, everybody was doing there thing, so it was a case of like ‘OK, you go and you go’ and then we can all come back fresh and ready for The Strokes.”

The bassist then decided to start turning a few ideas he had over the years into a record, which is when Zinner came along.

Nick I met playing poker at a friend’s house one night,” he said. “I saw him again at a bar and we were both out of work musicians at the time, so we were talking about collaborating and I mentioned what I was doing – so he came by the studio and Zinner-fied one of the tracks.

“It was really free making the record, it wasn’t me going ‘OK, I’m doing my album, my solo album’. That wasn’t really the intention, as things went along I had more time (and) it just grew naturally.”

Regina Spektor plays piano on the record, while British group South became Fraiture‘s backing band.

‘The Time Of The Assassins’ is released on January 27 next year.

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