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 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.

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 that came out of going to college, majoring in music, studying classical music, and even as a kid, being really drawn to classical music.

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.

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.

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 think it will. Occasionally things happen fast.

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.