Nick Valensi

Nick Valensi (born Nicholas Valensi, January 16, 1981, in New York) is a guitarist for the American alternative rock band The Strokes.


Born January 16, 1981 (1981-01-16) (age 27), New York City, New York
Genre(s) Rock
Occupation(s) Guitarist of The Strokes
Instrument(s) Guitar
Label(s) New Line Records, Rough Trade Records, Scratchie Records

The early years

Valensi's father, Jewish, was born in Tunisia, and his mother Danielle is French . "I always thought I wanted to be able to play any song you could name," he says. "But once I started playing with Julian, that's when I really started to understand music".

Instruments and influences

Valensi's main guitar, which he uses for nearly every live show and recorded song, is a 1990s Epiphone Riviera with Gibson P-94 pick-ups. In a 2004 interview with Epiphone, he called it "the greatest guitar never made because Gibson had never produced a semi-hollow with P-90 style pickups. He has several models in different colours (all with P-94s), including multiple naturals, one in vintage sunburst, one in red, and a 12-string in red. In 2005, Epiphone released a signature model of his guitar, the Elitist Nick Valensi Riviera P-94, and followed it up with a standard model Nick Valensi Riviera P-94 in 2007. Back-up/warm-up guitars include an Epiphone Dot fitted with 2 P-94s, an Epiphone Casino, and a Gibson Faded Special Double Cutaway with 2 P-90s. Valensi often borrows fellow Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr.'s backup guitars, which include a Gibson Les Paul Jr. and Les Paul Special. New guitars used for the First Impressions of Earth tour include a Gibson Les Paul Custom in black, a Fender Telecaster Custom, and a Duesenberg semi-hollow. Valensi's main amplifier is a 2x12" Fender Hot Rod DeVille, used with Fender 4x12" extension cabinets during live shows. He also recently purchased a Carr amplifier to use on the last few stops of the First Impressions tour. His pedalboard consists of a Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde Ultimate Overdrive pedal, Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator, Vox Cooltron Bulldog Distortion, MXR Micro-Amp (2) and a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner.

He cites his influences as The Velvet Underground, The Cars, George Harrison.

Personal life

In Summer 2006, Nick married his girlfriend of five years, Amanda de Cadenet. De Cadenet published a book of photographs entitled Rare Birds in 2005, which includes several pictures of Valensi, whom she refers to as her "muse" on her website.

Valensi has described his wife as "The coolest person I know.

Amanda de Cadenet gave birth naturally to their fraternal twins, Silvan and Ella, on October 19, 2006.

Collaborations

Nick Valensi did backing vocals and also played guitar for Devendra Banhart's song 'Shabop Shalom' on his new album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, which was released September 25, 2007.

He also played guitar for Regina Spektor's song 'Better' which was released on her latest album 'Begin to hope' and also published as a single in a slightly different version on which the guitar parts are rearranged.