“I guess my first instrument was the recorder when I was about five or ...” — Rostam Batmanglij Quote

“I guess my first instrument was the recorder when I was about five or six.”

“Yeah, I'd always wanted to do a song with finger-picked, nylon-string guitar.”

“In some ways, the more that I write songs, the more I feel that telling a story is the most important thing; just being able to close your eyes when you hear some lyrics and go somewhere.”

“I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.”

“On stage, it's very naked. There's a reason you shake your knees. You're very vulnerable, cos it's just you, your body is the instrument. But I always had confidence in my voice, if I had the right song, the right words to sing.”