The Strokes en Adams hadden een tijdje dezelfde manager, Ryan Gentles, dus ze kwamen veel in contact met elkaar. Toch ontkent Adams dat hij een grote rol heeft gespeeld in de nare zaken rond de ondergang van The Strokes.Albert Hammond Jr.: I remember Julian threatening to beat Ryan [Adams] up if he hung out with me, as a protective thing. He'd heard that Ryan would come and give me heroin, so he was just like, "If you come to my apartment again with heroin, I'm going to kick your ass." I hadn't really been doing it in baggie form until Ryan showed up. He was definitely a bad influence.
Toen Adams eenmaal uit beeld was, begon het verhaal zich toch te ontwikkelen zoals dat vaak gaat met het rocksterrenbestaan: het succes en de bijbehorende drugs heeft ze de das omgedaan. De band kwam tot een breekpunt nadat ze teleurgesteld waren in hun derde album, geen commercieel succes werden en een bandlid aan de heroïne zat.Ryan Adams: It was very dramatic, the way it all went down. I was asked to meet one single person in a bar and I got there and it was the whole band and Ryan. I was more or less given a lecture, a hypocritical lecture, and then they told me that I was not going to be part of their scene anymore. It was very weird. It was easy to brand me as the problem. I would suspect that they soon learned that I was not the problem.
The Strokes is nooit officieel uit elkaar gegaan, maar de band is ook nooit meer in de buurt gekomen van het hoogtepunt dat werd bereikt in de jaren nul. Wanneer goede muzikanten zich op het juiste moment op de juiste plaats bevinden, kunnen ze iconisch worden. Daarna kan het ook zo weer voorbij zijn. De bovenstaande stukjes uit het boek van Goodman illustreren dat perfect.Austin Scaggs (journalist): I saw The Strokes' bubble burst when I went to South America and Brazil for a bunch of shows with Kings of Leon and Arcade Fire and The Strokes. I was like, "Ryan, I'll take the video camera, I'll document this trip, I'll just shoot everything and you can have whatever you want. I'll pay for my own ticket." Honestly, I was thinking it was going to be like Led Zeppelin, like you walk into the room and there's a bed full of women. I thought it was going to be a giant debaucherous orgy of booze and drugs. It was the absolute opposite. To be super-blunt about it, The Strokes were crumbling right in front of my eyes, right in front of the camera. There was a lot of resentment and there was a lot of tension. When I got home I was like, "Wow, that was not what I expected." I didn't see one naked girl the whole time.