A biography for Rostam Batmanglijhasn’t been written yet.
“A lot of people get a high from being onstage. I found ways to enjoy it. But I get it from being in the studio.”
“Films should involve a director's idiosyncrasies as much as possible I think.”
“In the West we are constantly hit with music of Middle Eastern descent signifying terror, intrigue or sorrow.”
“I think as a producer, you're always sort of questioning if what you're contributing is something that an artist loves and elevates a song.”
“I feel like when I was in college I was listening to the Walkmen a lot and I actually have a memory of having a dream and in the dream I saw the Walkmen perform with saxes.”
“Shangri-La is one of the few studios in which you can sit in the control room and open a window behind you. You can feel the light and the air coming off the ocean. You can have a musical world in front of you and the natural world behind you.”
“Only a straight white person would have no concept of what visibility is. They've never contended with anything but visibility.”
“I would hope to make a record that interacts with culture in a macro sense. That is something to aspire to.”
“When an old tape machine makes pitch wobble, some people would say that compromises fidelity and would try to get rid of it. But to me that wobble adds richness, it instantly brings back the feelings you associate with old recordings.”
“I think that all music is inherently political, and, at the same time, I'm interested in the politics of inclusion not exclusion. So I think that my goal is to make music that anybody can hear and feel moved by.”
“Well, I think that I have a complicated relationship with whiteness because oftentimes, I pass as white, and I recognize that. I would be disingenuous to pretend that I don't pass as white.”
“When I work with other artists, I really want to bring out the most in their voices and I want to hold myself to the same standard.”
“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, and then we moved to D.C.”
“What's interesting about Vampire Weekend, everyone in the band, except for me, had a band in high school in which they were the lead singers. And I'm the one who never had that experience.”
“As a kid I had gone to New York a handful of times with my family. I definitely think it planted a seed in me.”
“The whole point of Lady Gaga is that anyone can do it. A few years ago she was a nobody. She talks about how it's important for people to know that by sheer force of will they can bring about anything they want in their lives.”
“A lot of what being a producer is, is giving people space. Like psychologically being there to help them realize what they're trying to do.”
“I think that's the only way I know how to write songs, is to think about my life, and also to think about the words at the same time.”
“I never identified with 'indie,' I don't like that word.”
“I think that for a lot of us gay people, we do feel that pop is our music. We identify with it and its iconography, and that's been a tradition.”