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 respond to viscerally. I think that you can listen to music, to a song you've never heard before and not really like it, but also feel like you're responding to it physically whether you like it or not. I think that's a powerful aspect about music, and I think that's something that draws me to drums.
Rostam BatmanglijAs 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 was wrestling with that on a few different levels. I was feeling like I wanted to change a lot of things.
Rostam BatmanglijI had no problem working for 15 hours straight when I was producing someone else, but I couldn't do it with my own songs. It took that moment of pointing the camera at myself to realize that it was okay to get lost in making my own music. I think before that I was scared of pushing myself to the point of staring into the abyss.
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