I've always been very good at helping other people finish their songs.

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

The thing I love about car design is that it's sculpture everybody appreciates, everybody has access to.

I'm interested in making art that is available to everybody.

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

I like to be able to work quickly, to capture the spark of an idea before it goes out.

There is a sense of tranquility that I think people can get from being in an organized group, where a singular leader handles the responsibilities of individual thinking.

I always felt more connected with people who are proud of who they are.

It doesn't matter if you record with a microphone on a laptop or at a friend's house. Now it's more of a danger of things sounding too high-fi than sounding too low-fi.

Radio or no radio, I just like the way records sound when the drums and vocals are loud.

There are rules that are so blatantly broken on 'Contra,' like structures of harmony and texture.

You want the personality of each performer - whether it's singing or bass or drums or piano - to be intact. In some ways it's much more challenging to preserve that and to also make music that sounds modern.

I love being able to record in a room that's surrounded by trees.

I thought it would be interesting to play classical music on rock instruments.

I never felt like there were things I couldn't express lyrically in Vampire Weekend. I was always proud of everything that we wrote together.

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.

Well, the announcement to say that I was no longer a member of Vampire Weekend was something that was in the works for a long time. I knew that it was the right choice for me.

I would hope to make a record that interacts with culture in a macro sense. That is something to aspire to.

On the song 'Step,' the chorus is Ezra is singing into my laptop with the laptop microphone, and you can hear the trains going by my apartment, but we liked the quality of that recording.

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.

I was fascinated by the word 'Rudy,' which is connected to the Jamaican term 'rude boy,' which migrated from Jamaica to London. I was also fascinated by that name, because it exists in Persian culture and Iranian culture. There is actually a place called Rudy in Iran, and there's Iranians that I know with the name Rudy.

I'm not interested in anyone who would want me for the wrong reasons.

I feel like I've had this ability to infiltrate, as an outsider and an insider, different groups.

I can pass as a lot of things: people meet me and don't think I'm gay and speak about gay people in a certain way or they don't know I'm Middle Eastern and do the same.