New York rock band The Strokes made their fifth musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing two songs from their latest studio album, Reality Awaits.
The group, who were last on SNL in 2020 to promote that year’s The New Abnormal, opened with “Lonely in the Future.”
The nine-track album, like its predecessor, was produced by Rick Rubin. In 2022, the band began recording with him in Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
“We rented this house up on the top of a mountain and set the band up outside,” Rubin said on Joe Rogan’s podcast that October. “So they’re playing… It’s like they’re doing a concert for the ocean, on the top of a mountain. It was incredible. And we did that every day, playing out in the [open], and they didn’t want to leave. It was, like, the best experience.”
Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., who called the album his favorite, described the process: “I don’t think if I told you what it looked like and what it was, you’d fully understand the ‘magical-ness’ of where we were and how it was to record like that.”
Additional recording took place at Rubin’s southern California studios, Shangri-La and The Mansion.
On Saturday, the band’s second performance was of “Going Shopping.” Walton Goggins, who starred in the song’s music video, joined in on bongo drums.
The Strokes’ SNL stint followed the North American and European leg of their Reality Awaits the World Tour. In a couple weeks, they’ll be in Mexico and South America, before visiting Australia in February. The band’s next scheduled U.S. dates are the Innings Festival in Arizona, also in February, and Salt Lake City’s Kilby Block Party in May.
Guitarist Nick Valensi, who took a temporary break from the summer part of the tour and was replaced by Steve Schiltz of Longwave, was not on stage Saturday. But he’s still musically active, having played “Rio” with Duran Duran last week in Paris.