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?
Rostam BatmanglijI 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 really weird, non-traditional route to proficiency. I think it probably helped me come at things from a new angle.
Rostam Batmanglij'Unbelievers' was a song that we felt like we could tackle, so that's one of the reasons we wanted to start playing it live, we really believed in that song and we still believe in that song a lot.
Rostam BatmanglijIt'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.
Rostam BatmanglijThere'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.
Rostam BatmanglijI 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.
Rostam Batmanglij