One of the things that we talked about was this idea of 'Memento Mori' - like the reminder of our own mortality - and so we were sort of trying to express that in our press photos. And it's one of the themes of the album [Modern Vampires of the City] as well.

My parents left Iran in 1979 and moved to France and then moved to the U.S. My brother was born in France and I was born in New York. I think my parents left France because they felt their kids would never be accepted by French culture. Here they thought we could feel American - that we could feel safe in that way - which was important to them, given what their experiences were in Iran. They used to joke about how I could be president because I was the only one born in America.

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

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 anything was finished, and he would even work on things after they'd been released. I definitely relate to that.

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

It's hard to say how time factors into your work, because sometimes things will come to you very quickly, but it will take years for the ideas to be gestating in your mind.

I feel connected to every song on this record [ 'Modern Vampires Of The City' ], but yeah I think there's something special about 'Young Lion'. It's pretty different from any song that we've had before because the vocals are kind of between two different very simple instrumental piano melodies and it's almost like something that we call a vignette, it's sort of like a miniature.