Nicholas Valensi (born January 16, 1981) is an American musician and songwriter, best known for his role as lead and rhythm guitarist in the American rock band The Strokes. Since 2001, the band has released six studio albums, some of which Valensi has also contributed keyboard and backing vocals. In 2013, he founded the band CRX, for which he acts as singer, songwriter, and lead and rhythm guitarist. Their debut album, New Skin, was released in 2016, and was followed by the 2019 album Peek. Valensi has also worked as a songwriter and session guitarist with various artists, including Sia, Regina Spektor and Kate Pierson. Early life Valensi was born in New York City, to a Tunisian father and a French mother, Danielle. His mother was from a Catholic family in South Western France, near Bordeaux, and his father was a Tunisian Jew. Valensi's mother had moved to Boston as a teenager and met his father in New York; his mother converted to Judaism to marry his father. Valensi was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with two sisters, Céline and Alessandra. Until the age of 16, Valensi spent summers at his grandfather's home near Bordeaux. He began learning guitar at the age of five, following an impromptu strum on one of his father's guitars. His father described him as a natural guitarist, due to his quickness at picking up the ability to strum along with the rhythm of songs at a young age. Valensi's father died when Nick was nine. Valensi was arrested at age 11 and was assigned a probation officer for a year. Valensi attended New York City public schools while growing up. He began attending The Dwight School at age 13, where he met Julian Casablancas on the first day of the school's orientation program. Soon after, he met classmate Fabrizio Moretti and the three formed a band. He was once quoted as saying, "I always thought I wanted to be able to play any song you could name. But once I started playing with Julian, that's when I really started to understand music." Through Casablancas, Valensi also met Nikolai Fraiture during this time. The two later attended Hunter College together. Career The Strokes In the late 1990s, Valensi was part of an informal band with vocalist Casablancas and drummer Moretti in high school, and continued after he and Casablancas left Dwight. Nikolai Fraiture