Switched on Pop - Rostam reimagines American music

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

The pedal steel and the saz both live in the spaces between equal-tempered notes, and that gap is where Rostam built American Stories. Rostam joined Vampire Weekend at Columbia in 2006, produced the band's first three albums, and after leaving in 2016 made records with Clairo and Haim you can identify as his within a few bars. His solo album, American Stories, reflects his experience as an American whose family is from Iran. He came into the studio this past March, just after the United States launched military operations there. It's a record that asks us to listen between two cultures. SONGS DISCUSSED Rostam "Like a Spark" Wilco "What Light" HAIM "Summer Girl" Rostam "Back of a Truck" Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone" Bob Dylan "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" The Supremes "You Keep Me Hangin' On" Lou Reed "Perfect Day" Rostam "Forgive Is to Know" Rostam "Hardy" (ft. Clairo) Clairo “Sophia” Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam “A 1000 Times” David Bowie "I Can't Give Everything Away" Rostam "The Road to Death" Rostam "Come Apart" Rostam "Campus (Original Version)" Rostam "The Weight" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I've been listening to Rostom's music since at least college. Back in 2006, he was a college student as well. He was at Columbia University where he joined the band Vampire Weekend, one of the groups that defined the 2000s New York City indie scene. I feel like their music spoke to me as an aspirational musician because there was so much joy and enthusiasm and, frankly, their music often reflected my own experience. in their songs like Campus. Rostom produced three albums as a member of Vampire Weekend before leaving the band in 2016, and he went on to produce hit records for artists like Claro and Hime that have just such a distinct Rostom sound. He also has his own project under his name and a new album out today called American Stories about his experience as an American whose family is from Iran. We originally recorded this conversation back in March not long after the U.S. had launched military operations into the country. And given that it sounds are equally Americana and personal.

version instrumentation. I just feel like American stories is essential listening to help us understand what it means to be American today, especially in this moment of conflict. Here's my conversation with Rostom. Support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Do you have a pet? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the U.S. gets hit with a vet bill of over $1,000. And it's almost always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch Pet Insurance comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance. Get paid back up to 90% of vet bills. You can use any vet in the U.S. and Canada.

All vets are in network. Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing O-Doo. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. I'm so...

thankful for getting together today. Thank you for joining me, Ross. Yes, it's nice to be here. So you've come to us with this album American Stories. That's right. And after all you're just to mash to end. After all we're stuck from. I don't usually lead from a visual because A, this is a podcast, and B, I like talking about music. But it's such a compelling visual. Upside down American flag. It's desaturated. We have your name in Persian, sort of gray background. Yes. What are you telling us? I think for me, everyone in my immediate family, my brother, my mom and dad was not born in America, and I was born in America. My mom was pregnant when my parents moved to America. Wow.

And so arriving here in a womb of a non-citizen and then becoming a citizen when I was born, it's made me have a very specific relationship to what it means to be American. And it's something that I've thought about my whole life. And at the same time, I've also thought about what my identity as an Iranian means. And I've tried to sort of hold both identities. And I think on this record, I was really wanting to see if I could bring those identities together musically. And yeah, that was something that sort of inspired me in the creation of the record. And simultaneously, in the past year, I felt like seeing someone like Zoran Mamdani get elected. And seeing him sort of change the political landscape and change the idea of like who we could have as leaders in America.

It was something I emotionally connected to. And what I really want to say with bringing the American flag into my project is I feel connected to the American project. I think that we all should feel invested in the American project, no matter what outside forces seem to be telling. us that we should feel about the American project. And I think ultimately I want to convey some optimism about it. And I want to do that with songs, with albums and art. That's really what I'm wanting to say. And the usage of the flag upside down, that's something that's shared between the right wing, the left wing, the Native American landback movement. It's these different groups that all have taken this upside down flag and used it to mean different things to them. So I guess what I'm wanting to say is that we should be invested as Americans.

We should be invested in this project, the American project. And simultaneously, it's okay for us to want more from it. If I was using the flag right side up, I think that wouldn't necessarily be expressing that desire, that it's okay to want more from it. Yeah. And I think if I use the exact colors of the American flag, that also maybe wouldn't be expressing this desire to like,

invest your personal self in the American project. So you kick us off with Like a Spark. Yes. It's your lead single. Yes. I want to know more about what it's about. But at its core, it's a call for freedom. So simultaneously, as we're talking about these bigger,

overarching themes. The songs that I tend to write are about personal relationships, interpersonal relationships. And I like the way that those songs and subjects intersect with the bigger picture. But I, at the same time, I do want to protect a little bit about

the sort of interpersonal experiences that sort of defined what was the song about. Well, I guess I don't have to know the specific detail, but what is the, what is this feeling you're telling us about? Okay. For me, we live in a society where partnership, romantic partnership, is so interlinked with possessing your partner. You want to possess your partner and you want your partner to possess you. And I think that there can be ways in that in which that's healthy, but there's also ways that that's not healthy. And I think the inspiration for me was this desire, like, mutual desire to have like a relationship where you and your partner you love each other and part of that love is allowing that person to be their whole self and to feel free to be their whole self. And I think that that's something that I was like interested in trying to write about in a

song. At the same time I yeah, it's about other things too. It's not just about that but I like that that my songs can be interpreted on a bunch of levels. And that's why I don't want to say that like, oh, this is what the song is about and this is the only thing the song is about. Yeah, to me, the way those things intersect, like your intention and how something is received, like, that's cool. Like, it's cool that, like, you may think you know what your song is about. And then years later, you're like, oh, wait, I was actually writing about this.

And, like, maybe some stranger who heard the song understood what I was talking about, better than I did at the time. You know, I thought I knew what I was saying, but I didn't. In addition to making the show, I also, I teach at NYU and at Berkeley College of Music. And the first song that I teach in my class is what light I won't go. And if the whole world singing your songs and all of your paintings have been hung, just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on. Jeff Tweedy sings.

And if the whole world's singing your songs and all of your paintings have been hung, just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on. Basically, once it's out there, it's not yours anymore. And no matter how you feel about it, it's the uncomfortable relationship of having to deal with. That's not what I meant to say, but that's how you hear it.

It's a big part of it. Yeah. I want to ask about maybe some self-quotation or just like some things that you do. Okay, cool. I love there's this moment in like a spark where there's this lovely descending piano line? Yes. I know which one you're referring to. It's your music. Of course you do. It's your music. Of course, you do. So that of course immediately took me to Hime's Summer Girl. I don't know if that's what you were thinking. But the Summer Girl, off of one of my favorite albums of all time, Women of Music Part 3, which she produced, has this little sax line.

I'm your summer girl. I'm your summer girl. That's interesting. I, did write both of those lines. It is true. The Summer Girl one, if we're, you know, I'm guessing if you're really into music, you might know some of these terms. I'm going to throw out some terms, but the Summer Girl line, what I was proud of in that is that the sax part is Mixalydian, and the rest of the song is major. Oh, it is. So the sax part kind of rubs in a sense that uses that flat seven. This is why I was struggling to learn it earlier when I was singing it by year. I was like, Oh, that worked. No way. That's cool. Yeah. And this is like a thing. I feel like there's like U2 songs that do this too where like maybe like the synth part is playing the flat seven.

But like everything else is just one to four. Makes a little crunchy. Yeah, exactly. That's right. And that's totally true. And there's like a whole tradition of music where you're mixing. It's called modal mixture when you mix a lidian over major or any modes together. That's just like a nice extra little tension. Exactly, yeah. But in like a spark, it's just, it's major on major. You were thinking of another thing, were you? Because I said, like, when I said, were you self-quoting, were you going somewhere else? I guess, yeah, I think there are certain kind of like, I would just describe them as sort of patterny lines that I like, that turn me on. Those are the things that make your voice. Yeah, sure, exactly.

The voice is the choice. That's something Mac DeMarco once said to me. And yeah, I think there's certain things that I choose to draw from. And, like, I think on some level, you know, music is a lot about patterns. And there's certain patterns that I love. They just spark joy for me. And, yeah, I think those kind of, like, descending thirds is an example of that. And I actually didn't know that you were going to play Summer Girl.

I actually didn't think of Summer Girl as fitting into that. But it does. It's much slower, but it does. You're right that it does. And the Mixalidian part for me takes it out of that same world. But it is interesting. You're calling me on my shit. No, it's more like I really like when I enter a musical world and I recognize it as your world.

like it is why people want to work with you is that you have a voice and you have many voices obviously but there are many of my favorite pop musicians where I know how they think about melody regardless of words like just the way they construct a melody and I know exactly who it is and that's gonna be very refreshing.

Yes. And you're developing your own little language in the same way that I have my own weird speech behaviors that make me me. Yes. But okay, if music is, we have a bunch of patterns that we like. One of the things I've hearing on this album is sort of breaking expectations of some patterns.

Yes. And I think we particularly hear that towards the end of like a spark. What a gorgeous musical moment. Thank you so much. What's going on? Okay. So the way that was constructed is I made a rough version of it using a satar guitar. Yeah.

And then I had my friend Amir Yarmai, who's he's in Julian Casablancus' band of Voids. I worked with him extensively on this record. He's also an Iranian-American, and his knowledge of Persian music goes a little deeper than mine. Yeah. And so in this case, I asked him to sort of take my rough sketch of a solo and kind of run with it. So he played that solo on an acoustic saws,

which is like this really long instrument that has microtones. It has microtonal frets. And then he also has this electric saws that he bought in Istanbul when he was on tour with the voids. And it kind of sounds like a Middle Eastern Stratocaster. It's like a little, it's like this little thing that you can just, when he plays it, like, he moves pretty fast when he plays it. And he can really touch on these microtones where you know, you get these notes that they're not the black keys or the white. keys on a piano, they're in between those notes. There is a connection to Summer Girl.

I don't think there's anything microtonal. Not microtonal, but rather the idea of things rubbing against each other that we're like, oh, these two things don't usually fit, but they are fitting in this really lovely way. Because in Western harmony and pop music, we're typically, we're using equal temperament. All the notes are equally apart. Exactly. They resonate in a very particular way that give us this beautiful language of chords. But then we're missing all the notes in between, all the microtonal things that give us great amounts of expression.

And sometimes combining those two was not easy. Well, yeah. So what's interesting, I think in Persian music, it's like, it's so much more about melody and a drone. And the melody can exit our Western sense of tonality. So it can touch on different modes sharing this same drone. And it can touch on different sort of microtonal inflections where you're in between those notes, the black and the white keys. And yes, one thing for me on this record was

I found myself really drawn to the rub of that microtonal stuff from Middle Eastern music and just like the most simple acoustic guitar chords. So I'm trying to like sort of marry these different traditions. For me, I also love the idea that anyone could listen to that and be into it, no matter what they're sort of like musical, knowledge was. And that's something I'm interested in in general, just like, it's like why I'm drawn to pop music because I think that there's a place for pretty out there stuff. Oh, yeah.

That everyone can like, you know? Absolutely. So I feel like that conversation between sort of like West and East, there's an amazing moment of exactly that on your next song, back of a truck. Yes. Which has the name of basically a country song. And we have this, spectacular interplay, a sort of call and response between what I'm assuming is the Saz and the pedal seal guitar. It's a violin, but yes, it's also a violin. So he can do those microtonal notes. He can do them on a regular violin, and he can do them on the Saws.

And so, yes, some of it is violin and some of it is Saz. Wow. Thank you. I've never heard these sounds in conversation like that before. Yes. And yet, when I did, I was like, well, this makes so much sense because it's musically beautiful and rewarding. But also, you know, the pedal steel is an instrument that has no frets.

You play it with a slide. Yes. It can bend into places. And you play it with your legs, too. You play it with your legs and your feet and your knee. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

With this bar and you're bending and finding these sort of in-between spaces. And so it turns out these languages actually work really well together. There you go. There's one of my. Theses here. And the pedal steel even has its origins in Hawaii, which is interesting. Like when you think about where are these things that we associate with America, where do they originate from? Like what is American music? What are the foundations of American music? Like the pedal steel is in some ways like it's like one of the most quintessential country Western instruments. It's Americana. And yet, just like you say, like so much of what makes pedal steel moving is that you are moving between notes slowly and you're really, you are actually touching on those microtonal moments. We also hear this nod to classic American rock and roll. Yes.

Right? So at the end there, we got like a Rolling Stone. We have both a reference to the Rolling Stones like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan. Earlier we have Don't Think Twice It's All right And you also have You just keep me hanging on by the Supremes Well, Lou Reed

Oh it's Lou Reed Starting on the back of the Shirk Six words from the song you left You just keep me hanging on Sometimes the words say what you want Actually interestingly So that was a song where I was stuck on it for a while And I did something that I've rarely done in my life

But it was very rewarding I was out to lunch with my friend Tobias Jesso Jr. Who's an amazing songwriter. He's put out a couple of solo records. He's written a bunch of songs with Adele, Nile Horan, Harry Styles. The list goes on. And I was like, hey, Tobias, I'm stuck on this song. Do you want to come by and see if you can help me get unstuck?

And he did just that. He came over. And one of the lines that he came up with was, you just keep me hanging on. Because I had the lyric, six words from a song you love. I was looking for a missing puzzle piece. Don't think twice it's all right. That's six words.

And I think in the Dylan era, they wrote all right as two words. Oh, interesting. So that is six. And then you just keep me hanging on. So that's six. And that was Tobias' contribution. What I'm hearing is a sort of like breakup on the road song. We were traveling down I-94, we're moving past some kind of relationship in our life.

and along the way, reading inspirational quotes on bumper stickers, one of them being, don't think twice, it's all right, sometimes the words mean what you like. Yes. And I feel like we're now in this place of having a meta-conversation, which is you are telling me that the words can mean whatever you want them to mean, and I'm trying to figure them out. Yeah.

Well, you're making me feel smart right now. But yeah, but that's like why I like doing solo albums, because I like getting a little lost in the process. And I think when I work with other people as a producer, I feel like it's my job to really always be like helping get us closer to the end point. And when I make my records on my own, I feel like it's my job just to get lost a little bit and to like not know what I'm writing about necessarily, not know where I want a song to go in terms of meaning. Because I find that I'm able to say things that I really, really deep. deeply feel when I'm a little bit disconnected from what my full intentions are. Okay, I want to understand this better as of the role, both as an artist and as a producer. So often in life, it's so much more difficult to turn inward and say, how am I feeling or be in conversation with myself?

And I often find a lot easier to be here in conversation with you and sort of figure out, okay, what's going on for you? How can I help you? Yeah. How can I support you? So if, say you're going to produce with someone else, you've produced many of my favorite records, whether with Vampire Weekend. Clero.

Thank you so much. With Haim. If you're going to sit down, you're going to produce my album. Where does it begin? There's no one way that albums are written, recorded. And that is another thing I love about it. In the case of Claire, it was her first album. About half the songs we started from scratch in the studio,

and half the songs she recorded alone and brought to me, and we finished the production together. It was like a pretty even split of how. like half and half between stuff that came from scratch and stuff that was really like her work as not just a songwriter but also a producer. And then the final stage was us collaborating on the production together and making it all sound like one album. So that's like one example of a way it could happen. There's other records I've made where nine out of ten songs, we started from scratch in the studio. The record that I made with Hamilton Lighthouser was like that.

It was just kind of like us being in a studio together and stuff coming out of that or me making a track and playing it for him and just being like, Hamilton, I hear you on this. And it would be, there'd be some trial and error sometimes. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn't. I had a dream that you were mine. I've had that dream a thousand times. Okay, so the process is obviously different every time. Are there certain conversations that you feel like you need to have

and just like setting the boundaries of that relationship, especially if maybe if it's like a new person you're getting to know them? Because you're being trusted to do this giant task of conducting this movement of this work. So with Hamilton Lighthouser, throughout my 20s, the Walkman were one of my favorite bands. And it was always my dream to make a record with the Walkman. And making a record with Hamilton was like the realization of that dream.

And I knew, I knew, I could probably play pretty much every Walkman song. on guitar or piano. And then we had a couple songs that we made for his first solo record. So there was a little bit of a trial period of getting to know each other musically and becoming friends. So there was a trial period

with me and Hamilton of getting to know each other musically, becoming friends. With Claire, I remember the first time I heard her, someone talked about her at party. They were like, oh, you got to check out Clero. And I was like, what is it? Like, oh, it's bedroom pop.

And I was like, what's that? I don't know what that is. And then I went home and I listened to it. And immediately when I heard her voice, I was like, there's something in her voice that just like gut-wrenching. Like it reminds me of my childhood or it reminds me of a past life. It was just something about her voice I just instantly felt this connection to. And then I went on Instagram and I started following her on Instagram.

And I saw that like months prior she had posted one of my solo songs. And we had this interesting connection where she had been a fan of mine. I was becoming a fan of hers. It was almost just like this kind of natural thing. And we went out to dinner. And after dinner, I was like, should we try to make a song? And we ended up making a song in four hours. And that is one of my favorite songs from immunity.

And that was the first time we ever met in person. Sometimes it's a slow process of getting to know each other. And sometimes it happens more quickly. How do you turn that back around for yourself? Music is always happening for me. I have a piano in my living room. I usually have like one guitar just floating around in the living room. And then upstairs at my studio, there's another piano, and there's like other guitars.

There's other instruments that when I am just sort of like sitting around. Do you have little teenage engineering pocket calculators everywhere, just like making beats? No, no. you know it's funny nowadays when I make beats they tend to be with organic instruments that is kind of what I'm into I think as I'm realizing like oh like I like I like instruments I'm hear that that's my but I also I do like the hip hop slash pop format of songwriting so for me if I make a beat it could just be like a one four chord progression on acoustic guitar and And I'll just take that, I'll put it on Dropbox, and I'll listen to it in my car. I'll listen to it when I'm on vacation in Massachusetts or somewhere. And over time, I will kind of like start coming up with melodies. What I really like is the sort of freedom to figure out what the vocal does without having to play an instrument simultaneously.

And being able to just like respond to the music, just the way that a rapper gets in the booth and is responding. to the feeling of the drums in the booth, feeling or listening to a beat coming off of speakers in a studio, you know? Like, I think that for me is the kind of like the format of songwriting that I really love, even though the end product sounds like organic, sounds like I like was sitting, playing acoustic guitar and singing at the same time. And sometimes I have done that. And sometimes I sat at a piano and done it, you know, traditional style, as you might say.

Yeah, it's always a little bit different. So to answer your question, how do I do it for me? I think I try to sort of divorce the music making, the beat making, the track making from the writing of the vocal melody and lyrics. And sometimes there'll be like a gap. There'll be like three years between making a track and just it's like living in my drop box. And I am like, there's something good there. You're going to write something one day over that.

Or maybe you won't. And that's okay too. I feel like this question of the creative process comes up in the music a couple of times. The opening of the song, Forgiv Us to Know? Yes. I've been working slowly and time can help the song. Because I said it's stomp at the words I'm working on. Drove up to New England, listening in the car.

Roll the window standing and head the wind. So this song starts very plainly. Sort of talking about the creative process. The chords are good, still work on the lyrics. I broke one of my rules, which is, like, I don't like songs that are about, like, being on the road. Like, being in a band, being in a tour bus, being, those kind of songs, I feel like, are very dangerous. So this is the closest that I could get is to write a song that touches. on the songwriting process.

And I was like, saying to myself, I was like, Ross, you're skating on thin ice. You're on a tightrope, you know? Like, you're getting dangerously close to the danger zone of songs about touring and rock life. Well, to take it from the highly unrelatable what it's like to be a rock star, we go into the literary, if you will.

This gorgeous chorus, which I believe is quoting another poem. Alexander Pope To air is human But to forgive is to love To love Tell me about it

I'd grown up hearing that It's an aphorism You know To err as human To forgive is divine Yeah You erred in breaking one of your rules And you've forgiven yourself

No, no, that's not it's like No, because this song is about It was about a situation that I felt like a lot of emotional energy went into, like, thinking about this situation, wanting it to be better and feeling like there was nothing I could do to make it better. And then also taking that and thinking about myself, like, are the things that I've held on to? This is one that feels like it can connect very, very closely to the title of the album as well. It's something that's very personal. But you're talking about one of the greatest challenges that I think collectively people are trying to deal with. How do we live in a place of conflict and try to find forgiveness when we are all guilty?

No one is innocent. It definitely transcends just the personal. It actually feels like it's working on the personal plane, but all of a sudden, it ascends to this other place. I think that's what I enjoy about that opening lyric, eventually taking us to the literary. It's that gap between very plain, something very elevated. I love what you're saying. I mean, I feel like you're getting me more than I'm allowing myself to really,

understand myself. I think I need a little bit of that, like I was saying, like I need to be a little bit lost in it. I need to not know exactly where I'm trying to go. But yeah, I mean, I wrote these chords and I took them on a road trip to New England and I listened in the car and I spent a long time just like writing verses for this song. And I had this vision of like what the song was about and I didn't know how to really put it into words. And it took me a long time. support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Do you have a pet? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the U.S. gets hit with a vet bill of over $1,000.

And it's almost always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch pet insurance comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance. Get paid back up to 90% of vet bills. You can use any vet in the U.S. and Canada. All vets are in network. Go to fetchpet.com slash save. Right now for your free quote.

That's fetchpet.com slash save. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce.

and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-Fer free at O-D-O-D-O-O-O-D-O-O-D-C. Visit BetM-GM-G-M-Casino and check out the newest exclusive, the Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have, Questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you. Peace contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. You have another song about creativity, not necessarily just about creativity, but where creativity comes up. The song Hardy, there's a line, maybe the greatest artist never completed, we only have to leave it knowing we tried. Well, I think the parallel there is Never completed We only have to leave it Knowing we chat Well, I think the parallel there

Is like a relationship And a piece of art And it's like You look back on a relationship That maybe it didn't work out It wasn't forever And sometimes you look back On a piece of art

Like an album or a song And you're like, I didn't get this quite right I didn't The mix isn't what it's supposed to be Those aren't the right lyrics, the melody didn't do what you want. Like, it wasn't all that it should have been. And then I think what I'm trying to say is like, well, so what?

Sometimes a relationship doesn't work out, but in some ways it's like it's still a beautiful piece of art. You know, sometimes a piece of art is not perfect, but it's still a beautiful piece of art. And I think that's what I'd like to carry into the future. There's a certain sense that in both these songs, I feel like you're breaking the fourth wall a little bit. Interesting. Yeah, because you're, you're not just making the art, you're also talking about the art, showing the art, making me question, wait, how do I feel about it? It's its own way of displaying a kind of vulnerability. I feel like I'm getting closer into your mind of feeling in process rather than with conclusions. Yes, I like that. I like that. I like that.

No, I genuinely, I like that. And I, yeah, I want there to be a little bit of mystery about Ross Stam's life, you know, if I give you everything, you know, no, no, you got to have something for you. Exactly. We all have to have something for us. Yeah, I mean, you're reminding me of there's, I don't know if you're familiar with the final David Bowie album. It's called Black Star. I know it very well. It's one of my favorite albums of all time. Yes. Chris Shirtleff, who was one of our engineers who works on the show, was on the engineering team on that album. Amazing. And Tom Elmhurst, who mixed that album, also mixed my album. And I also, and I also, worked a couple nights at Electric Lady. I recorded some vocals very late at night alone at Electric Lady and they were so kind that they, you know, they hosted me, they didn't ask me to pay. They let me use the studio as very kind of them, but they put me in Tom Elmhurst's old room. So it was like all these interesting connections. But yet, the last song on Black Star, I can't

give everything away. And that was also the last song on the last David Bowie album. It's like his final. And then he left. the earth a few days after it was released or just before, I can't recall. Yeah. Within moments of the album release. Yeah. You know he was going and he gave us only as much as he felt was right.

Yeah. Your work also deals with mortality. Sure. You have the sort of pair of songs, The Road to Death. Okay. And come apart. I love that you love those songs. The Road to Death is the one we're all on.

I need a friend to come with me tomorrow. The Road to Death is one way. You're haunting. Kind of like join me on the river sticks. Can you say more about it? After COVID, I think all of us maybe our immune systems like took a little bit of a hit. I don't know if you felt this way, but I felt sometimes like I wasn't like bouncing back the way I used to. I was sick for three years afterwards.

Yeah. And I remember talking about this with my partner at the time and saying, you know, I feel like my immune system. You know, maybe it's just getting older, but I feel like my immune system is. working as well as it used to. And he was like, well, yeah, I mean, that's why you die. Eventually, your immune system stops working altogether. And it was something I had never thought about. And I thought about, like, you have some friends that smoke cigarettes and some friends that drink. And so there's that lyric. Some of us are dying slowly and some of us are dying faster. And because you also have friends that don't do any of that stuff. And, you know, some of those people

live longer. Some of the people that do the self-destructive behavior live longer. It's never fair. It's never fair. But yeah, I guess I had these ideas on my mind. And then I also had this experience of meeting someone who told me that he believed in God and he believed in Jesus. And in my whole life, I've never heard someone say, I believe in Jesus. And it struck me as this important question I needed to ask myself, I said, do I believe in Jesus? And it put me down this road. And I tried to sort of answer, I tried to give you my feeling about that in the song. Then going down that path started to make me think about my dad. So my dad's name is Muhammad. His family is not religious. And yet he carries this name. He carries the name of a prophet. But my dad is, he's not a believer.

I remember I have a very vivid memory being seven years old and saying, dad, do you believe in God? And he was like, I'm probably either atheist or agnostic. And I was a seven year old. I was like, what are those words mean? It's a lot for seven year old. Yeah, but my dad's very cool. He was very direct, and I appreciate that about him. And he's, you know, he's also had to live in America with this name Muhammad, which carries so much with it. And so, like, all these things were kind of, like, living in my mind on that song The Road to Death. I mean, it does get very personal. The line that stuck with me on this album more than any is on the other song about mortality on Come Apart.

I know that the pain is very powerful to be. So what I'm going to come apart to apart. remember sitting down at the guitar and the chords and that chorus came together. The melody and the lyrics and the chords, they all came together. I know that the world will come apart. And I said to myself, Rossin, what are you saying? What are you, what, the world will come apart? Like, what are you saying it in a hopeful way?

Are you saying it in a sad way? I'm not sure. Are you sure? See, this is a thing. This is why I like making these Rost-Am albums because I need to get lost in it. I'm not just pulling words out of the sky. But at the same time, I have to let the song live and breathe. And I don't want to say too much about exactly what it's about.

You know, I want people to take away what they take away from it and go research. into olive trees and, you know, I don't know. I like, I like that it might set you down on a path to learn more. I accept that challenge. I think that's inviting us as listeners into an act of creativity that like when we're throwing music together or words together or even what you describe like being in a studio with big bumping speakers and you're just listening to the beat and you're letting it inspire you, part of the like it's just the somatic and felt experience of being with that music yes

sometimes we don't have to have exactly well but but what did it mean what does it mean intellectually yeah i mean i do i need to keep a little bit of that close to the chest that's what i need to keep a little bit of that close to the chest but i think yeah i don't know i think that if if you know me if you if you follow me on social media and stuff and you have a sense of the things that I care about, I think that when I talk about, when I say one day the pain is going to stop, I think you have a sense of what I'm talking about, what is the pain? And maybe you don't. And I think I got to be a little bit okay with that too. I want to end in an area of something maybe you are giving away a little bit more. Okay. Back in February, you put out the 20th

anniversary final edition of your song Campus, one of the original Vampire Weekend songs, one of the songs that I first fell in love with Vampire Weekend. You wrote it back in 2005 or six? Yes, it started and wrote most of it in December 2005. Okay. And so the original very of its mid-2000s indie Brooklyn scene, that sound. And underlying it was this sort of great string arrangement. Yes. That you have put out into the world.

I wake up, my shoulders cold. I think to leave here before I go. I pull my shirt on, walk out the door. Drag my feet along the floor. I pull my shirt on walk out the door. Drag my feet along the floor. Then I see you across and cross the campus past professors, pass and other side is. You've given 51% of the masters.

Yes. To a bunch of organizations. Yes. Palestine legal, Chirala, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and Sudanese American Physicians Association. Tell me about revisiting this work 20 years from the past and the desire to give part of it away. So I was a senior in college when I started writing this. song. It predated the formation of Vampire Weekend. And originally, it wasn't meant to be part of the band, but a few months later, the band, we became, you know, an entity that could play songs,

and we needed more songs to play. And so we tried playing that song. And it worked. And it became a part of the first album. And I think over time, because of things like TikTok, where people have done this trend of like showing off their college campus when they get to college and soundtracking it with that song. It's lived like many lives. But that original version, which is the strings version of the song, I always wanted to put it out, but it just felt like there wasn't quite like a right moment. And I had posted it on my MySpace page. This is an era where you could like, you know, post a song and not necessarily available for download. But it was sort of a work in progress. Some people took it down. Some websites, like, reposted it. It sort of

lived a life on the internet. There was like a YouTube video or two that had like 50,000 views over the years. And then I just, I wanted to put out a version of it that was as close as I could get to done as possible. And I also feel like what's been going on on college campuses. I hear, I've heard things from people who are like, oh, those kids, they don't know what they're talking about when they're protesting. I think there's a part of me that's like angry that like anyone would say that.

Like there's an anger for me that or it's a sadness that people would think that these kids on college campuses are on the wrong side of history. No, like the kids know what they're talking about. The kids are on the right side of history. And Columbia is a place where you graduated from. I did graduate from Columbia, and that is the campus that the song campus takes place on.

And that has become, it's become part of, it's gotten ensnared in these larger geopolitical conflicts. And I guess what I wanted to say is kind of like, I think it's important to remember that young people are intelligent and young people have their own, wisdom. And that's what I just wanted to put out into the world and put my support behind. And you do that as well with the final song on your album, The Weight. So that's an interesting thing. Yes, that's a connection, right? So that song takes place on college campuses in 2025. And what's it saying? Oh, yeah. What's it saying? Well, I think I think I'm a warm, frustration. I think, I wanted to sort of paint a little bit of a, like, just try to just tell the story of that moment.

What inspired me with the weight was to really try to think about how brave it was of these students to speak plainly about what's going on in the Middle East and to do so with conviction. And I think there's a lot of forces working against that. plain way of addressing a difficult situation. You sing, because you know the truth, you've got courage on your side. Yeah. You feel onto you, because you know the truth. You'd like to think it's hopeful.

You end the album with this very beautiful instrumental. Got maybe some static radio, and then the saws comes back at the saws. Yeah, there's two, there's electric and acoustic saws. and they're kind of doing a little bit of interplay. Is there mandolin maybe? Yes, there's mandolin. Electronic drums, synthesizers. This feels like the synthesis of your identity.

Interesting. In some ways, you know, this American story, the cover with American flag, your name in Persian. Yes. And these sounds merging together to close out the album. Yes. Wow. I didn't think about it like that quite. What were you thinking?

I played this song for my friend Chris Black, who hosts this podcast called How Long Gone. And he loves guitar music. And I think at the end of this song, he said, oh, that's some good picking on that. And for me, it's funny that his interpretation of it is like very much through an American lens. And it's like he's thinking about it in relation to like bluegrass music, which I guess because I'm using a mandolin, it's touching on that world. a little bit, but like the stuff Amir is playing is a little bit, let's say it's far from bluegrass, you know, but it's still appealing to this like American love of like fast finger-picked stringed instruments, you know, that's some good picking. And I think for me,

it was like a reminder like, oh yeah, you did, you did the thing that you wanted to do, which is you put something out into the world that maybe anyone could love. They don't need to have a degree in ethno musicology. I don't want to, I'm not trying to get those people. It's wonderful to get those people, but I kind of want to get everybody. That's my goal.

When you were making this album, the world was in a different place. The United States has gone to war with Iran. Yes. What has changed in listening to your music, this project that was about the sort of, that includes part of the fusion of your identities. How has it evolved for you?

in this moment. It's hard for me to comment on it because just things are changing from day to day. You know, like the situation seems to change from day to day where, you know, one moment, you're like feeling this optimism and I've never actually been able to go to Iran. I'd like to one day. I'd like to live in a world where that's possible. But I also, I'm scared of what, what things may transpire to arrive at that place.

I'm scared of what may need to happen for people to live freely in Iran. And I'm scared of what I'm scared of what kind of freedoms we in America are losing, you know? And yeah, at the same time, like I said, in earlier moments in this podcast, I do want to convey some kind of hope, some kind of optimism. You know, like the Rostem project as a songwriter, as a producer, as an artist, I want that to be aligned with some kind of like optimism. Just like I think the American project deep down is, it is fundamentally optimistic,

even though, you know, it was the land of the free when, well, you had to be a straight white male to be free, but they still were calling themselves the land of the free. It was problematic. But there was something there that brought us here. And hopefully there's a future where we go further. And we allow people to truly live free. I think that's a beautiful place to end it.

Thank you. Thank you, awesome. Appreciate it. Switched on pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Lisa Soap, engineer by Brandon McFarland, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, video by Nick Rips. Our theme music is by Jossi Adams and Zach Tenario of Arc Iris, Remember over the box media podcast network and a production of Vulture,

which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at NYMag.com slash pod. We'll be back again on Tuesday. We're going to be going country, y'all, going out to the middle of nowhere. Until then, thanks for listening. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good.

This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel sick. by it like it belongs to them.

So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.