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

- Rostam Batmanglij

I wanted to make an album where every song is kind of interacting - where you can't tell what's the string arrangement and what's the song. I guess t…

- Rostam Batmanglij

I think summer, at least as I've experienced it, can be joyous but it can also be tough emotionally. Physically, it can be hot to the point of being …

- 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 think I had some existential frustration and I wa…

- Rostam Batmanglij

I did take guitar lessons as a teenager, though, and I started to teach myself how to play everything I could play on the guitar on piano, so I had a…

- Rostam Batmanglij

I like the idea that a song can be about a romantic relationship, but it can also about a relationship to your career, or a relationship to your city…

- Rostam Batmanglij

We thought there was also something that was humorous but at the same time powerful and deep about naming the album, 'Modern Vampires Of The City'.

- Rostam Batmanglij

There's a line in the Arthur Russell documentary where his partner talks about how Arthur is really interested in process. He never felt like anythin…

- Rostam Batmanglij

Obviously it always takes longer to finish an album than you think it will. That's always going to be the case. Everything takes longer than you thin…

- Rostam Batmanglij