Rostam Batmanglij Quotes

The best part of making music, for me, is collaborating and working with new people and fresh sounds and all those things that gets people excited to continue in this business that we all love so much.

I have to be involved. Whether it's me writing by myself or with other people, I definitely want to have my hand in the creative process. That's part of why I got into music in the first place.

With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.

The way Beyonce works, the song is a jigsaw piece and then she will piece various elements.

There's a joy I get from collaborating with other artists, and there's a joy I get from making songs on my own.

In the 1990s music was a beautiful collaborative process between the composer, lyricist and director. They would exchange ideas and magic used to happen.

Even when I'm making my own solo records, I'm collaborating with people. It keeps things interesting for me.

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.

Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.

Yeah, I came in at the end of the Notorious album, played on about five tracks and then we went on a tour. Then we did another album, Big Thing, and then we started writing songs together in 1989.

That's the cool thing, when I get to work with people I love. The biggest has probably been Kris Kristofferson on 'Bloodworth.'

I kind of make music where and when I can, and I guess that's why I collaborate so much.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

I learn stuff from making music every time I go in the studio. I'm continuing to try to find new ways to play in a song or be in a song and have a positive impact on a song.

The first record we put out on Fueled by Ramon, 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea what the term 'producer' meant. It was just us writing songs, and we are trying to go back to that - singing in a room and vibing off each other.

When we make records, it's hard to pinpoint one thing that inspires a record. It's usually a number of different things that lead to inspiration or wanting to write something down and share it with someone.

I feel like I'm a secondary artist, a kind of a conduit for the writer, and if it's a good writer, then I have a great road map.

Well, I worked with lots of different artists, of course.

A lot of times Mick will play me different things, or I'll listen to a cassette, and out of twenty ideas or whatever, I'll find two or three that are just blowing me away, and we'll start working on them right away.

I really like the thing I did with Martina McBride. I had that song sitting around for a long time.

Klaus from the Teddybears, Bloodshy and Avant and Mike Snow, they've done lots of Britney Spears production. They went backwards from production to being in a band, which might be cool. I might do that, too, one day.

I had my own musical ideas that Mick helped me with as well.

When we were making Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light, we were jamming. From that we were taking the best bits and then recording and improvising on top of those.

I love going into the studio with just an idea of the direction. Like, I want this tempo... I love to start from scratch, and the tracks sort of take on a life of their own.

I feel like guys, girls, whatever it is, you just come out hoping to make the best record. You just try to have a conversation and just create what you've talked about. Whatever you find to fit the beat at the time, what the person is down for, wherever the beat takes you towards.