Rostam Batmanglij Leaves Vampire Weekend

Photo by Alex John Beck

Rostam Batmanglij has announced on Twitter that he has left Vampire Weekend. He says that though he and Ezra Koenig will continue to collaborate, "my identity as a songwriter + producer needs to stand on its own."

Update (6:05 p.m.): Koenig has commented on Batmanglij's departure via Instagram. Read it below.

Update (1/27 5:41 a.m.): Vampire Weekend's Chris Baio has also commented. Read his tweet below.

Koenig wrote:

A couple years ago, Rostam and I sat down at his house & talked abt whether our collaboration was dependent on being members of the same band. We both firmly agreed that nope, it was not. In fact, we agreed that our collaboration was more important.

I'm psyched about the work we've already begun for LP4 and I'm psyched to hear anything else Rostam is a part of. Also very excited to continue playing music with CT and Baio but there will be plenty of time to talk about that later in the year.

For now in the Vampire Weekend universe, it's all about recording the next album. There will be a lot of familiar faces in the studio but also some fresh, new ones. Working title is "Mitsubishi Macchiato"...for obvious reasons.

Shout-out to the fans who have been waiting for new music - it's coming.

Rostam just put out a new solo single called "EOS." He has also collaborated with Charli XCX, Jenny Lewis, Wavves and Cloud Nothings, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ra Ra Riot, Hamilton Leithauser, and others.

In our new interview, Rostam discussed his association with the band:

I understand the idea of me being "a dude in a band," because people got to know me through Vampire Weekend, but it has caused a lot of frustration for me because I came from a different place from the get-go. Even though I’ve been making electronic music since I was 14, it’s hard for people to see you as a producer with a musical identity when you’re contextualized in a band that performs on a stage. I mean, maybe people don’t see the last Vampire Weekend album as electronic music, but I do—if you were with us when we were making it, you would think of it as electronic music.

Read that interview here.