The Strokes say they should be able to make an album “a little quicker” this time around.

In April, the band released The New Abnormal, an album that took seven years to make. Speaking with NME’s Big Read cover story, the band said that they feel encouraged by their level of communication.

“I think it will be a little quicker now,” frontman Julian Casablancas told NME. “I think we have a good thing going. We have a good relationship with Rick [Rubin, producer]. In theory, knock on wood, we should be working faster.”

Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr agreed: “A band is a funny thing. I was just thinking, it’s so positive that you can be together so long and this moment together is even better than before. It’s so easy, in time, to lose relationships with people in general. So the fact that you work together and there’s five people going in and out and you can feel better now – it’s just exciting to me.
“I personally feel very excited and I would love nothing more than to make new music, because what we have right now excites me so much.”

Despite the lockdown, the band has been communicating “more than ever”, with Casablancas saying, ““The irony about this time is that I feel like the five of us are just talking more clearly now than ever.”