formed an informal band

Lead singer-songwriter Julian Casablancas , guitarist Nick Valensi , and drummer Fabrizio Moretti started playing together as teenagers while all of them were attending Dwight School in Manhattan, and formed an informal band in 1997. They later added bassist Nikolai Fraiture to their ranks, a close childhood friend of Casablancas who had attended the Lycée Français de New York with him. At the end of 1998, the group invited guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. to play with them. He had just moved to New York City and reconnected with Casablancas, whom he knew from their brief stints at the private boarding school Institut Le Rosey , near Nyon , Switzerland. At this point, he was the last member to join the band. The two soon became roommates not long after reconnecting, with Hammond remarking that “two weeks later, we were sharing a flat.”