The iconic guitarist of The Strokes, Nick Valensi, has decided to temporarily step away from the stage as the band gears up to promote its seventh album on a world tour across the United States, Europe and Japan. The group unveiled his replacement during the American show The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The news was shared by the band via an Instagram story on May 14, noting that “Nick will take a temporary pause regarding the planned tour, but we look forward to his return,” without specifying the reasons preventing the musician from joining his bandmates on stage.
To cover the guitar parts during this period, the band enlisted Steve Schiltz, the leader of the American indie rock group Longwave and a longtime collaborator with The Strokes, whom they met during their early days on the New York scene. The band presents him as an “old friend,” and introduced him to the public during his performance on Thursday, May 14 on the American show The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The absence of Nick Valensi will be felt from the first Bonnaroo festival concert on June 2 and will not affect the tour schedule, which will extend well into October with historic dates in the United Kingdom and in Paris, at the Accor Arena. Recently, The Strokes unveiled a second single, Falling out of Love, from the album Reality Awaits, due out on June 26.
