Rostam

A founding member of Vampire Weekend, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij began a career outside the band before exiting to go solo in late 2016. Batmanglij was born in D.C., a few months after his parents emigrated from Iran. He began playing electronic music as a teen, then studied music at Columbia University in New York City, where all four founding members of Vampire Weekend (himself, Ezra Koenig, Chris Tomson and Chris Baio) were undergrads. Their first project together-a half-serious film attempt that yielded their name-was short-lived, but their mutual interests in world music and punk kept them together. Batmanglij's skills on guitars and various keyboards were evident on their first single ""Mansard Roof" which was released soon after the band graduated in 2007. Batmanglij produced the band's first two albums (Vampire Weekend and Contra) and coproduced the third, Modern Vampires of the City. The latter two albums debuted at #1 in Billboard, and among their fans was Barack Obama, who included them on a 2012 mixtape. Batmanglij's production skills were sought out by other artists, and he produced tracks for ex-Walkmen singer Hamilton Leithauser, Charli XCX, Santigold, and Carly Rae Jepsen. During 2005 he struck up a friendship with Ra Ra Riot frontman Wesley Miles; they bonded over their love of hip-hop and '80s synthpop. They began a collaborative album soon afterward, but the success of both their bands got in the way. They finished the album three years later and released it as LP by Discovery. With vocal help from Dirty Projectors' Angel Deradoorian, the album had a fun and funky sound that's less serious than either Ra Ra Riot or Vampire Weekend, but more danceable. Batmanglij announced his departure from Vampire Weekend in early 2016 and released the single "EOS," with an emotive vocal and a minimalist Eno-esque production. The Eno and David Byrne influence-among other musical touchstones, including country and doo-wop-- continued on the late-2016 release I Had a Dream That You Were Mine a collaboration with Leithauser. His first album as Rostam was scheduled for 2017. Also a designer, Batmanglij did the artwork for each of his albums with Vampire Weekend.