Gordon Raphael: The inside story on producing The Strokes

Legendary 'Is This It' and 'Room on Fire' producer Gordon Raphael, who is credited with helping create the sound of The Strokes, joined us to talk about his life as a music producer, including some sage advice for aspiring producers and engineers at dBs Institute.

[Editor’s Note: Article updated on Wednesday 29th January, 2025]

Gordon Raphael is a singular music producer and recording engineer who helped bring to life two of the most celebrated albums of the early 00s garage rock revival: Is This It and Room on Fire.

Joining us and a lecture theatre full of students at our Bristol Campus to discuss his memoir 'The World Is Going To Love This: Up from the Basement with The Strokes', Gordon reflected on his experiences with the band, how he helped them shape their iconic sound and his life as a music producer and recording engineer - with little nuggets of wisdom to nourish our students' development. 

So, where did it all begin? Dive into this fascinating story here and make sure to check out our video of the interview too, for an electric listen full of incredible anecdotes and to soak up Gordon's inimitable charm.

Meeting The Strokes

It all began in the East Village, New York City. Gordon had just established his second studio, Transporterraum after being evicted from his first space. Now in the thriving East Village, he spent his nights seeing live music and handing out his business card to bands. It was on such a night that Gordon ventured to the Luna Lounge where he saw two bands, Come On and The Strokes. 

Photo Credit - Cecilia Salas

“They [Come On] were incredible,” says Gordon as he takes us back to that fateful night. “I loved that band. They seemed like the new Beatles… I went to them and I said, ‘Hey I've got a studio down the street. I can make good demos cheap,’ and they said, ‘Thanks a lot,’ then this other band came on - they're called The Strokes.

“I didn't like them as much as Come On, I thought they seemed very proud of themselves. They were playing for 40 people in this very small club in a room…half full, but I saw them afterwards going to get their guitar pedals on the stage so I went up to and said ‘Hey you know I do demos if you want to do a demo,’ and they came. They sent Albert [Hammond Jr.] to check out my studio and he really liked the way it was decorated and some of the music I played so they wound up coming in for a three-day three-song demo deal and that's how we started.”  

The success of ‘The Modern Age’ EP

The fruits of their labour would become the 3-track EP, ‘The Modern Age’ - the release that would definitively put The Strokes on the map. For Gordon, who now has decades of experience in the music business, what happened next is still incredibly unusual after all these years. 

“I've never heard a story where a band makes a demo and then a record label loves the demo so much that they don't put the band in the studio to make a professional version, they put the demo out as a record and the record blows up!”

For the band, the EP had only ever been meant as a means to spreading their live sets to the next level of clubs in New York City. “They had never even played above 14th Street,” says Gordon, “and now suddenly they’re jetting off to England and the UK for a tour because Rough Trade put their demo out and they called it ‘The Modern Age’ EP and everybody loved it.” 

How Gordon came to produce ‘Is This It’

In the wake of the release of ‘The Modern Age’, Gordon went through a rollercoaster of emotions. The Strokes were making waves in the United Kingdom, garnering features in music magazines like NME and Rolling Stone. A mean feat for an unsigned band. 

Meanwhile, in his studio in NYC, Gordon was fantasising. “So I'm like in my studio going like whoa maybe I'm going to be famous. This could be great… What kind of car do I want? Where should I live? I was already like going way down you know because I'd never seen anything I'd ever recorded be talked about in a magazine or people listening to it; it's like wow, this was new.”

With the band on tour, Gordon anxiously waited to hear from them. When the call from Julian [Casablancas] came, it was an invite to dinner at 7A, a restaurant near Gordon’s recording studio. The news wasn’t great. Casablancas informed Gordon that Rough Trade had asked that the band change producer for their debut album. The producer in question was Gil Norton. 

“Oh shit, he’s really good,” says Gordon as he recounts the conversation. Having worked with Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World and Pixies, to name a few, Gordon was suitably intimidated. 

“So then my heart is just sinking, ‘Oh my God. He's like one of those really big producers. ’ And so Julian says, ‘Gordon, if you tell me that you're a better producer than him, we'll use you for the album…’ 

“I'm thinking, ‘dude.’ I'm thinking to myself, ‘Dude, this guy sells five million of everything he's done for the past 10 years and I've never sold a single CD. I've never sold a record. How am I going to tell Julian I'm a better producer? Like how could I?’ 

“So I said, ‘Hey Julian you know we did this EP together and everybody likes that sound… I can't say I'm better than this guy who sells 5 million records, you know I can't tell you that.’ He just stands up before the food even comes and he says, ‘Fuck you. Now I gotta go use that guy,’ and he grabs his coat and he leaves…”

The next few weeks saw Gordon licking his wounds working with other bands in an attempt to not slide into despair at missing his shot at fame. Three weeks later, while sitting in his apartment, Gordon’s phone rings and who should be calling - Julian Casablancas. The band had been recording with Gil Norton and did not want anyone to hear the sound from those sessions - Julian wanted to give Gordon another chance. 

Producing the sound of The Strokes

With The Strokes now back in his studio, it was time to make a start on what would become their seminal record, ‘Is This It’. Before any music had been tracked, Gordon asked the band, “What are we doing here? What do you want to do?” The answer was whatever everyone else in NYC was doing. That got Gordon thinking. 

“What everybody else in New York was doing in the year 2000 was Pro Tools was now coming into every studio for the first time. Like basically this was the time in the world where tape decks were kind of being broken or moved out and Pro Tools computers were being put in. 

“Everybody was making the biggest productions they possibly could. You'd record a kick drum with three microphones and then you'd put an 808 sample under that and a Bob Clear Mountain sample under that. Everything was complicated and huge. 

“I had eight microphones in my capability. I had one 888 interface that took eight mics, I put them around the room, and said, ‘Go play your song in that room and we'll record it like that and that will be what people aren't doing.’ So they did that and they loved the sound they said, "Yeah that's it! That's it dude!”

How Gordon Raphael created Julian Casablancas iconic vocal sound

The sound of The Strokes is not solely about how the instruments were recorded, it was the transformative sound of Julian Casablancas vocals. When Gordon asked Julian what kind of sound he wanted he said, “I don’t know. You know, just use your best judgement.” That’s exactly what Gordon did. 

While everyone in the 90s was listening to grunge, Gordon was spending his time in the industrial music scene. “It was a genre with heavy synthesisers, heavy drum machines and everything was distorted,’ says Gordon. The drum machines were distorted, the synthesisers were distorted and the vocals were shredded into nuclear oblivion. 

“So I thought, ‘Hey Julian, check this out,’ and I took his voice and I gave it the most distortion I possibly could from the preamp like on 10. Everything on 10. Just the most aggressive, annoying, destructive sound I possibly could and I said, ‘Get out there and sing your song,’ so he sang the song and he came in. I said, ‘Check this out…’ and I pressed play and I said, ‘How do you like that?’ He goes, ‘That's ugly man. I hate it. I hate it.’ 

“So then he said, ‘But you know how your favourite jeans like they don't have holes in them but they're not new?’ Initially, the comment threw Gordon, but then Julian’s words started to make sense. The vocals don’t need to be destroyed, but they can sound worn. Gordon dialled back the preamps from all 10s and sent Julian back into the studio. “I pressed play and he and the band were jumping up and down. They go, ‘Dude that's it! That's it!’”

That vocal sound would be present on ‘Is This It’ and the sophomore LP ‘Room on Fire’. Julian even took the Avalon preamp that Gordon used out on those first tours and had the live sound engineer dial in the precise settings. 

Creating The Strokes’ signature guitar sound on ‘Is This It’

The guitar tone of The Strokes’ spawned countless artists who built on their blueprint. What you may not know is that every element of ‘Is This It’ came from Julian Casablancas. The melodies, the lyrics, the drum and guitar parts - it was a singular vision. It almost makes it harder to believe that he had no idea what he wanted for his vocal sound.

The reason why that little fact is important is directly linked with the guitar tone of ‘Is This It’. The band came in with a clear idea of exactly what the guitar represented within the wider context of the band and how they wanted Gordon to capture that. 

“I recorded lots of bands at that time but nobody before The Strokes asked me to please put me on that side completely and put me on that side completely… So it was this extreme panning, that's one thing. And then when anybody talks about the sound of the guitars… I say, ‘Let's look at the composition.’

“Let's go back six years before this; Nirvana, something like that. Hugely popular and… Nirvana's more typical of rock and roll. You take a guitar, some big amps and you're playing these giant chords… And then there's some melodies on another guitar that are doing some riffs in between the vocals but it's this giant rhythm. 

“So what are The Strokes doing? Like one guy's playing one little string melody, while another guy's playing like chords on two strings really lightly but very insistently. So this compositional technique, it's a counterpoint. It's not rock and roll, typical chord with a melody. It's actually two melodies going against each other, yet complementing the vocal which is a centre melody.

“Part of the sound of what you're hearing is just the naked aggression of single strings and small amounts of strings being plucked and then they wanted to hear every note. No note could be louder than the other one… Every note had to be under control for how loud it was and how clear you could hear it against the vocal and the bass. So they worked very hard on the tone.”

Nick [Valensi] tracked his parts using an Epiphone semi-hollow guitar while Albert used a Fender Strat. Both ran through Fender Hot Rod Deville amplifiers and used one single pedal - the Jekyll and Hyde distortion. Gordon, true to form, kept things simple and mic’d each cabinet with a single Sennheiser 421 microphone. He quickly adds that he now mics guitar cabs with two microphones. 

What microphones were used to record ‘Is This It’?

Gordon waxes lyrical about how good the Sennheiser 421s are. They make an excellent stand-in for a kick drum mic if the studio doesn’t have something more suitable in their cupboard. With the addition of some Beyerdynamic microphones, including a ribbon mic, some Shure SM57s and an Audio-Technica microphone that was used for Julian’s vocals, Gordon kept the setup minimal when recording ‘Is This It’. “On the [Modern Age] EP, I probably used three mics on the drums; like an overhead, a kick drum and a snare…”

That minimal setup that played a key role in shaping the sound of The Strokes hasn’t stuck around for Gordon’s more recent projects. 

“I like to put a mic on each drum and a mic on the ride cymbal,” says Gordon when asked about his current recording setup. “I have an unusual technique for room mics. Like I don't need to have a matched pair of microphones and when you listen to the room sound it sounds like the band is in a room. I don't use it that way. 

“I use it as a 3D machine and I only use one. I don't use two. I use one that's a room mic for the drums, even though the drums, for me, drums and the band and the amps are set up in a large sized room. They're set up there's not one in a closet… I want everybody to hear their amps and not wear headphones and just jam. 

“I put the mics in front and I have a little condenser mic in front of the drum set that's really blowing up. That's like a room mic just for the drums. It's just supposed to be a distorter that's very quiet in the mix and then I put another condenser mic through a compressor anywhere I want that doesn't feature just one instrument and it's again, just so that when the snare mic is hit and you get that close sound, you also have a far sound that you can blend in which makes you think like, ‘Where's that sound coming from?’ 

“It's a little bit like a reverb or a bit like a delay but it's so subtle, but if you take it away, it just sounds kind of boring and crispy and just like normal and if you put it in a little bit, it sounds like, ‘Whoa!’ something just came to life. It's vital.”

Want to learn more about Gordon’s approach to working as a professional recording engineer and producer? Check out our other videos over on our YouTube channel. 

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