Lead singer of The Strokes, Casablancas is a privileged son of the fashion industry whose downtown slumming and cryptic brooding earned him brief billing as the Voice of a Generation.

The son of noted lothario John Casablancas, the founder of Elite Model Management, and Danish model Jeanette Christiansen, Julian was raised by his mother and step-father (Ghanaian-born artist Sam Adoquei). At a young age he was shipped off to boarding school at Le Rosey in Switzerland, before returning back to New York to attend the private school Dwight (where he failed to graduate). After bumming around as a bartender and nurturing what would turn out to be a problematic love of booze, Casablancas connected with kindergarten friend Nikolai Fraiture and boarding school pal Albert Hammond Jr. The trio began recording music at home, and with the addition of Fabrizio Moretti and Nick Valensi became The Strokes. With the release of their 2001 album Is This It, they became the world's most recognizable faces of Lower East Side garage rock. At the front of it all, Julian's hard lifestyle, maniacal work ethic, and what appeared to be debilitating social anxiety made him a media target and a source of strife for the band.

While the Strokes may turn out another hit, it's unlikely they'll ever eclipse their zeitgeisty first record. They've released three studio albums since their debut: Room on Fire, First Impressions of Earth and Angles, but failed to recapture anything as commercially or critically successful as their debut album. Personally, Casablancas sobered up between his second and third album after his drinking became an issue within the group. He has also been at work on various solo projects, and released his first solo album Phrazes for the Young in 2009 to moderate success. As of 2011 the Strokes' were back in the studio recording a yet unnamed album.

In 2005 Casablancas married Juliet Joslin, the assistant manager of his band. In 2010 they gave birth to their first child, a son named Cal Casablancas.

[Image via Getty]