What do you say, Vampire Weekend?

For The Grid's What Do You Say feature, I sat down with Vampire Weekend songwriters Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij for two individual interviews, both of which were very revealing. We talked about impending doom, the search for the best dosa, and their instant classic third album, Modern Vampires of the City.

Wanna get in touch with your American­ness? Go west, young man.

When Vampire Weekend songwriting duo Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij started to craft their third LP, Modern Vampires of the City, they aimed to add a new dimension to the band’s worldly sonic palette: They wanted the album to feel American. “We thought it was exciting to approach our own American­ness in a way we hadn’t before,” says Koenig. “It’s a bit tricky because Americana is a genre [that’s] pretty boring, and has very specific rules—a ‘Vampire Weekend does country’ album sounds...miserable. Whereas [American music in general] is an amazing combination of sounds from around the world, but sometimes you have to rediscover it and listen to it with fresh ears.” The two decamped to Los Angeles to work with rising producer Ariel Rechtshaid (Usher, Snoop Lion, Charli XCX), who happens to be an old friend of Batmanglij’s. “Pretty quickly, we were all on the same page,” says Batmanglij. “We wanted to combine really strong songwriting with organic sounds and preserve that catchiness. He helped us [reach that] goal. It was like he was another member of the band.” 

Thorny existential dilemmas aren’t quite as easy to solve as grammar problems, but they do make for some pretty heady lyrics.

With lyrics that explore some of life’s heaviest themes, Modern Vampires is an obvious departure from the band’s lighthearted early work. “I was always so deathly scared of writing things that were overly sentimental or overly serious,” says Koenig, who’s been known to contemplate serial commas in song. “With this album, I was more confident: I finally felt like I knew how to express big ideas about love or death without feeling embarrassed by them. It’s about finding the right way to blend humour and darkness.” Though he gets into some deep lyrical soul­searching, Koenig tries to avoid didacticism, preferring to leave things open­ended. “There are a lot of questions: What do you put your faith in? What do you do if something you believed in disappears? How do you deal with time passing? That all kind of lingers there.” 

Worry about the apocalypse (but not too much).

Alongside musings on subjects as wide­ranging as the death of British explorer Henry Hudson and the meanings of Babylon and Zion in Rastafarian culture, Modern Vampires also contains a pervasive sense of dread, or what Pitchfork recently described as “millennial unease.” “Like everybody, I sometimes have sleepless nights, going really deep on internet conspiracy theories, reading stuff that convinces me that the dollar is about to become worthless and that people have been lying about oil reserves, stuff like that,” Koenig says. “People in every generation always feel like the world is about to end. It’s hard to escape those doomsday feelings, but you also take it with a grain of salt, knowing that your parents and grandparents and great­grandparents always thought things were on the cusp of permanent decline, and it’s yet to actually happen.” While the threat of impending disaster still keeps him up at night, Koenig says he’s working through his anxiety the best way he knows how: reading critically. “I think you can always get a little bit closer to the truth, and hopefully you can get enough information to live your life in a way that’s doing more good than harm, at the very least.”

A documentary can turn you into an aspiring foodie.

Along with members of the bands Das Racist, Yeasayer, and Neon Indian, Batmanglij recently co­ starred in Dosa Hunt, a short documentary directed by Stereogum editor Amrit Singh. The doc follows what one film­festival program dubbed “a who’s who of New York’s brown musical cognoscenti” on a day­long quest across New York in search of the city’s best dosa, a savoury South Indian crêpe dish. Critics lauded the film for its youthful take on the Indian­American identity, but Batmanglij says it also opened his eyes to a number of culinary delights. “I’d never been to the Patel Brothers market, which is in Queens. They have stuff you can’t find anywhere else. I want to go back and buy some of those obscure vegetables.”