Nikolai Fraiture

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Nikolai Fraiture (November 13, 1978 in New York City ) is the bass player in the New York City-based band The Strokes. He is French-Russian and speaks fluent French. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father a security guard. Fraiture is perhaps the only Stroke who did not have a significantly privileged upbringing - he and five other relatives all lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Fraiture also has a sister named Elizabeth, who is 13 years younger than him and an elder brother called Pierre.

He attended kindergarten and elementary school with best friend and future bandmate Julian Casablancas. He later went to Lycée Français De New York for high school.

Although Fraiture had been interested in music since childhood, he did not begin playing bass until he was 19. His grandfather had bought him a bass guitar as a graduation gift but Fraiture gave it to Casablancas. It was not until one year later, when he contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever at a New Orleans youth hostel, that he picked it up and began to play seriously. At the time, he was attending Hunter College with future bandmate Nick Valensi, who wrote an article about Fraiture's coping with the illness in the school newspaper. Shortly afterwards, he joined his friends Casablancas, Valensi, and Fabrizio Moretti in forming a band. He met Albert Hammond, Jr. at later rehearsals.

Fraiture is married to an Englishwoman named Ilona, with whom he has one daughter, Elysia, born in the summer of 2004. Of all the Strokes, he is often considered the most soft-spoken. He resides in New York and is often seen cycling around the area.

Fraiture plays a Fender Jazz Bass (the same model his grandfather bought him) and a Rickenbacker. Lately he has also been seen playing a Fender Precision Bass and a Music Man StingRay

[edit] Trivia

• Once when he was very young, Fraiture was caught attempting to shoplift a Luke Skywalker doll from the Macy's department store where his father was employed.
• He cuts his own hair.
• He was the first member of the Strokes to stop smoking.
• He is 6'2".

The Strokes
Julian Casablancas | Nikolai Fraiture | Albert Hammond Jr | Fabrizio Moretti | Nick Valensi
Discography
Albums and extended plays: The Modern Age | Is This It | Room on Fire | First Impressions of Earth
Singles: "Hard to Explain" | "Last Nite" | "Someday" | "12:51" | "Reptilia" | "The End Has No End" | "Juicebox" | "Heart in a Cage" | "You Only Live Once"