Is Rick Rubin producing the Strokes’ sixth album?

During an interview this week with The West Australian, songwriting veteran Albert Hammond let slip that his son, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr, and other members of the New York band were in the studio with the legendary US producer.

“They’re making a new album now with a great producer called Rick Rubin,” Hammond said from Switzerland, where he was on tour and promoting his new album, In Symphony, released today.

“I speak to my son every day and he says that they’re so happy,” the 73-year-old from Gibraltar said. “I’m sure this will be a very successful record.”

Famed for his work with everyone from Johnny Cash and Metallica to Kanye West and Adele, Rubin was previously rumoured to be working with the Strokes in 2007 when he became co-president of Columbia Records — part of the Sony stable with the band’s RCA.

Hammond, who has also worked with Cash and penned hits for Celine Dion, Leo Sayer, Starship and the Hollies, revealed he personally paid for studio time so that the Strokes could record their classic 2001 debut Is This It.

“Nobody understood them, so I said, ‘Here’s the money, go in the studio and make the record’,” he said. “I never got it back, but it doesn’t matter. I just love knowing I helped them out.”

Camera Icon Veteran songwriter Albert Hammond is proud of his son’s band, the Strokes. Credit: Picture: David von Becker

“I’m very proud of the band and of my son,” Hammond added. “They’re like all my children because I was there from the beginning.”

“I used to go to their rehearsals and they were very loud. I used to say ‘Guys, guys — mountains and valleys, highs and lows’.”

While they haven’t released an album since 2013’s Comedown Machine, last year the Strokes issued the three-track Future Present Past EP.