Albert Hammond Jr made his name with New York band The Strokes but, he tells Tim Hughes, he’s happier going it alone

It is June 2001 and a feisty young buzz band from New York are working a wired Oxford crowd into a frenzy.

The band is The Strokes, and this show at what was then the Zodiac, is part of a debut UK tour which has seen the skinny five-piece become the coolest band on earth.

Such is the excitement surrounding the new-wave indie group that, as well as the usual Oxford faces, the Cowley Road venue is packed with music industry insiders along with supermodel Kate Moss, members of Radiohead and James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers.

At the heart of the action are frontman Julian Casablancas and nonchalantly-hip guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.

Now a successful solo star, Los Angeles-born Albert, son of the British hit singer-songwriter of the same name, is returning to the scene of that early triumph, in what is now, of course, the O2 Academy Oxford.

“Yeah, I do remember that show....” he says. “It was a lot fun.”

And he can’t wait to come back. “It’s exciting!” he goes on. “I lived in Oxford for a few weeks when I was younger, and I feel in love, you know.”

The show follows the release of his third solo album, Momentary Masters, his first in over five years.

Recorded in his New York home, in a converted barn called One Way Studios, he describes the LP as “a love letter to my past self”.

And while it is trademark Hammond Jr, with its upbeat guitar lines, it also betrays a melancholy edge, with reflections on missed opportunities and wasted time.

“The record is about how, with time, you gain knowledge but simultaneously lose your innocence in the process,” he says.

“It’s about finding a new curiosity in life as a result of this loss of innocence that knowledge and time create.

“I feel with the best songs I’ve written, as soon as I was done I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, I did it’. But in that split second that it comes, that feeling goes.

“It’s the same thing when you find complete happiness, you find this complete low. I feel like that’s what being creative is: it’s you bouncing with emotion and what you capture in those bounces. Accept where you are and use it.

“Life is pretty funny.”

So what can we expect from the show? “Expectation equals fantasy,” he answers, sagely. “Fantasy is stronger then anything on this planet.

“Don’t go expecting anything, anywhere. Just come to have a good time.”

At the age of 35, married (to organic pressed-fruit juice aficionado Justyna Sroka) and with a formidable CV already under his belt, what is he proudest of? “Coming back stronger than when I started,” he says.

And what is his ambition? “To build a career and to have the band make a living from this so we can make more records.”

And is he happy to be in control of his destiny? “I’ve always been my own boss,” he says.

Albert’s father remains a powerful influence on his career. Hammond Snr scored a string of hits in the 60s and 70s, most notably It Never Rains in California, and collaborated with Mike Hazlewood on the writing for The Hollies The Air That I Breathe and Leap Lee’s Little Arrows among others.

Was there a lot to live up to, growing up with such an influential father, I ask.

“I think all children feel that,” he says. “I think it’s amazing what he’s achieved, and to stay in the business for so long.”

And is Albert Snr a fan of The Strokes?

“He is a fan… and so am I,” he says.

While clearly revelling in the independence that comes with performing as a solo artist, he must surely miss those crazy days with The Strokes? Albert thinks carefully, then quotes another ground-breaking New Yorker, Lou Reed. “What comes is always better then what came before!”

“I don’t compare things in my own life,” he says. “I try to be happy wherever I am at that moment.”

And, given the opportunity. Would he have changed anything?

“I don’t think it’s about changing something,” he says.

I would just have liked to understand what I do now when I was younger. But don’t we all?”

SEE HIM
Albert Hammond Jr plays the O2 Academy in Cowley Road, Oxford, on Monday.
Tickets from ticketweb.co.uk