In regards to the album cover to Comedown Machine, The Strokes had a media blackout at the time. I was always curious about the RCA logo was much bigger than the band’s name on the cover. Were you guys trying to say something there?

A lot of people read into that more than it was. Originally, I wanted to make it all red, with nothing. No name, no album title, all the pages in the booklet red, the CD red, everything red. I guess that was too extreme (laughs). Fab found this old quarter-inch tape box that looks just like that, except instead of “The Strokes” it says something about the studio take. So we just took the same aesthetic and just put in the band name. It had nothing to do with that.

I think all of our choices are about aesthetics. It’s about how something looks, if it looks beautiful. In that, you might find something to read. But this was more like a piece of artwork hanging on the wall, it just looked cool. People thought we didn’t care. Fab put his heart and soul into that, it was not like “Oh whatever, last album on this label.” But it was more that we thought it was cool to use the same photos as the first record, just blacked out, you know? It kind of represented the cycle. But on my Twitter feed I got a lot of flack from it, like we didn’t care, but that wasn’t the case at all. I actually love that, it is probably one of my favorite ones, it’s one of the few that I listen to. The first half…

On your new album, songs like “Coming Getcha” and “Losing Touch,” you seem to be realizing your own mortality and your time and place in this world. Is this something you have always taken an interest in or have certain experiences brought you to this point?

I think I always was interested in this since I was a kid. The song “Coming Getcha” was after so many things and different parts that were in that song. The chorus at the end, whether I was writing about it or not, I really don’t remember. But it just kind of reminded me of my friend that passed away who introduced me to different music and books. There is an element of things like that getting left behind.

“Losing Touch” to me was always more about how I was — even though there was always changes happening — I was kind of happier, even though I was a little more out of the loop. I never really felt part of the loop. People just start to tell you those things and it makes you laugh. It’s more about that, I guess.

I understand the Bauhaus art movement and Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot both have some influence in the look and creation of this record.

These are things that just, in general, excite me. When starting a project, your influences are the things around you. It doesn’t mean you have to sound like it or look like it or anything. It’s just something new and your curiosity becomes enthralled by it. For a couple of years I’ve watched clips of Cosmos and read Pale Blue Dot and I just loved how it made me feel. It made me feel like life was meaningless and that you create your own meaning. It’s kind of perfect for the human condition of change and being fallible. It kind of all just fit so well for me. It invited me to explore another part that I hadn’t explored for whatever reason.

Aesthetically, we were just putting that in there because the artwork had certain similarities with that, with the high contrast of black and white, the projections on everyone, and the clean lines. There’s an element of that in there.

I feel like you listen your whole life, so when you are in the studio, your references are all the songs and music that you know. It just depends on where the songs are going and what attracts you at the moment. It sounds like something, but what inspired it? Things that excite me are these four different bands: Wire, with a song called “Champs,” Misfits, with a song called “Hybrid Moments,” R. Stevie Moore, and Wipers “Wait A Minute.” I wouldn’t say I sound so much like them, but that’s definitely what has been exciting to me for the past couple of years.

That leads into my next question. In regards to the song “Touché,” you’ve said “you need to look up to the greats and pick up where they left off”…

Yeah, the idea that in creating stuff, there is a whole fabric of things that people have of made over time. You don’t really need to start from scratch, you can start to find people that had similar ideas and explain stuff in a different way. To borrow and attach your things with it. I always related it to automobiles. They nailed it with aesthetics, but then kept trying to make it more efficient and forgot to make it look good.

You find something that you think is great, and in your head, you are always trying to reach it, to beat it. I don’t feel like I got there, but I feel like I’m getting closer.

So what is your holy grail as far as a perfect song or perfect album? Something that influenced you heavily when you were growing up and that shaped your musical tastes?

So many different influences. There’s never just one thing. I guess what spawned the immense attraction to it was Buddy Holly. I heard that once and I went from not really knowing what I want to do to just growing up overnight and knowing exactly what I wanted. But it’s not just that. That leads to something else and that whole line of things is what gets me excited. Eventually you wear it down and you need something else, but can go back to it and be excited about it again in a different way. Guided By Voices was huge when I was 16. Then I got into the Beatles, then classical music, Beethoven. That really got me into [music] theory and wanting to understand. For a while I was like “Oh, everything has got to be emotional!” then I kind of realized that I had to know some stuff too (laughs).