Rostam Batmanglij

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 don't identify as white. I have a complex relationship with whiteness.

I like there to be some secrets.

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.

The idea of the gay experience, it feels like a relic. I felt like in the '90s when we were watching the gay characters on ‘The Real World,' there was definitely a gay experience that was distinct from a straight experience. If you talk to high schoolers in 2017, I don't know that is as much a part of how they experience a social dynamic."

I certainly think that my music is a response to my experience as a person who doesn't identify as straight, as a person who grew up American.

I'm very conscious of the fact that I devoted my life to recording music, recordings and writing songs.

I've had experiences where my life will try to tell me something in a dream and sometimes it's something I'm not ready to hear.

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 think when I work with artists, I'm at their service, and I'm at the service of either their vision or a vision that we find together and we share.

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.

I think that's kind of the perfect mix, where you do something that you're not sure about, you feel like you're taking a risk, and then you turn around and look at the artists that you're collaborating with and you can read the expression on their face if they like it or they hate it.