Rostam Batmanglij

I like there to be some secrets.

— Rostam Batmanglij

What I love is the openness of collaboration.

— Rostam Batmanglij

Sometimes the hangover provides inspiration.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I started playing guitar when I was 14.

— Rostam Batmanglij

My music is about identity.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I'd like to release solo songs on a regular basis, but it's pretty difficult for me to finish them.

— Rostam Batmanglij

Yeah, I'd always wanted to do a song with finger-picked, nylon-string guitar.

— Rostam Batmanglij

There's a bunch of rules that I want to break. I have a rule-breaking streak.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I've always had a complex relationship towards my identity as an American.

— Rostam Batmanglij

Films should involve a director's idiosyncrasies as much as possible I think.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I don't have to just have one kind of life. I can have several different creative lives.

— Rostam Batmanglij

When my mom was pregnant with me, my parents moved from France to America.

— Rostam Batmanglij

The thing I love about car design is that it's sculpture everybody appreciates, everybody has access to.

— Rostam Batmanglij

It's hard to say how time factors into your work, because sometimes things will come to you very quickly, but it will…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I think that for a lot of us gay people, we do feel that pop is our music. We identify with it…

— Rostam Batmanglij

We've always said that our band is pretty much an open system and there's no rules governing anything... so who knows what…

— Rostam Batmanglij

What's interesting about Vampire Weekend, everyone in the band, except for me, had a band in high school in which they were…

— Rostam Batmanglij

Now that that album's done [TModern Vampires of the City], I have time to revisit things that I was working on earlier,…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I was listening 'Plastic Ono Band,' the John Lennon album a lot, and that might have had some inspiration on me.

— Rostam Batmanglij

Well, the announcement to say that I was no longer a member of Vampire Weekend was something that was in the works…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I made a quote-unquote 'album' for my senior project of high school. As soon as I finished making it I realized it…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I love working with Angel Deradoorian, she's a joy to work with. She's fab at singing and she has a real... she…

— Rostam Batmanglij

The whole point of Lady Gaga is that anyone can do it. A few years ago she was a nobody. She talks…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I had no problem working for 15 hours straight when I was producing someone else, but I couldn't do it with my…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I would say I was a little bit outgoing, a little bit shy. I was definitely much more shy than my brother.…

— Rostam Batmanglij

The idea of the gay experience, it feels like a relic. I felt like in the '90s when we were watching the…

— Rostam Batmanglij

When an old tape machine makes pitch wobble, some people would say that compromises fidelity and would try to get rid of…

— Rostam Batmanglij

Throughout college I was getting better and better at making recordings, producing songs, making different kinds of beats. I was starting to…

— Rostam Batmanglij

As far as the lyrics go, I think I was negotiating a moment in my life where I didn't feel happy. I…

— Rostam Batmanglij

My parents left Iran in 1979 and moved to France and then moved to the U.S. My brother was born in France…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I guess I have some kind of a visceral connection with drums. I'm looking to create music that people can react to…

— Rostam Batmanglij

I took one piano lesson and hated it and then didn't take any piano lessons until I was 18.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I would hope to make a record that interacts with culture in a macro sense. That is something to aspire to.

— Rostam Batmanglij

Radio or no radio, I just like the way records sound when the drums and vocals are loud.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I'm very conscious of the fact that I devoted my life to recording music, recordings and writing songs.

— Rostam Batmanglij

Whenever I work on a project I put all of myself into it.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I'm very aware of what, say, electric guitar recordings in the '60s sounded like.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I love being able to record in a room that's surrounded by trees.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I'll probably continue writing songs about New York until I die.

— Rostam Batmanglij

I guess my first instrument was the recorder when I was about five or six.

— Rostam Batmanglij