Rostam Batmanglij Quotes

I just want to play music with a band, live.

I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics.

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.

So, once I've written a song, you know, I'm pretty happy with what the song is on its own terms.

I felt I never needed to fight for a more prominent songwriting and increased vocal role with the Cars.

Well, when The Black Keys make a record, I never really feel limited. To me, it seems the possibilities are always endless. The big difference has been playing live and being able to recreate every little part of the record.

If I write for myself, I write a song and I bring in the musicians that are best suited to play it. There's a freedom there.

There's something to writing a hook and something to writing a memorable melody. That's what I liked about musicals. Then I realized I could write my own songs, and I didn't have to sing other people's.

I like writing and don't confine myself to just the words or just the music. But I don't particularly write songs with myself in mind.

I love working with my band-mates in Alkaline Trio, but to make a rock record that was just mine was something that I wanted to do.

At first, I was using my sister Susan's lyrics, as I could not write myself, only the music. And then one day, she and I had a fight, and she threatened to take away the lyrics from all the songs that I put the lyrics to, so it was that day that I began writing my first lyric to the music.

Sometimes, to be honest with you, our lyrics were written a day before the vocal had to be done.

We do write our own music.

I take a lot of pride in my songs.

I think rap in general allows you to be more lyrically expressive. It's a lot easier to state your identity, as opposed to with a guitar making all these weird metaphors.

With rapping, that's just another form of expressing your music. Whether you're going to rap, you're going to sing, it's whatever you want.

To record an album is cathartic, or at least it was with 'Belus,' but to make music is more fulfilling than anything else, I think.

I remember when I started writing lyrics, I was very grand. I tried to use a lot of symbols, because I thought that's how songwriting should be - with imagery and metaphor. I figured, after a while, maybe I should just write it as I would say in real life.

There was no real poet in the band, but we tried.

Dream Theater was my baby. I formed it from the beginning, out of college, and I lived a lifetime with them.

After I wrote 'The Best Of Times' for my dad and after I completed the '12 Steps Suite' with Dream Theater, I very much felt like I had said everything I wanted to say lyrically.

When I play solo, that's when I put it all together. I go through all of the songs that I've written wtih all of the different bands; that, for me, tells its own story, and the DVDs really enforce that.

When I go into a room to write, it's like I'm not trying to say, 'I need to write a song that sounds like Eric Church or Jason Aldean.' I just try to get the best song that's in the room that day. Whatever style or sound that may be, I'm not afraid to attack it at that angle.

The most difficult thing for me as an artist, as a creator of music, is lyrics. But everything else, I just do it.

I think that's the great thing for us - we're a band full of songwriters, and we're capable of writing all kinds of songs.