I like that I can write my name in Persian, and it's a small unit, like a graphical unit. I feel the same way about my name in English, it's a graphical unit.
I think the music that speaks to me the most is music that is personal. And that's the music that I'm trying to make.
I want to live in a world that is less white supremacist, straight supremacist, male supremacist.
I admire Brian Eno so much in how he seems to push the idea of less being more - his touch is to crack open a window and let the light in.
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 think as a producer, you're always sort of questioning if what you're contributing is something that an artist loves and elevates a song.
I think that's kind of the perfect mix, where you do something that you're not sure about, you feel like you're taking a risk, and then you turn around and look at the artists that you're collaborating with and you can read the expression on their face if they like it or they hate it.
There are songs out there in the world which, in some ways, seem so unmusical.
My music is about identity.
Because of who I am, and how open I am, there's something inherently political about just writing love songs.
Only a straight white person would have no concept of what visibility is. They've never contended with anything but visibility.
I certainly think that my music is a response to my experience as a person who doesn't identify as straight, as a person who grew up American.
I've always had a complex relationship towards my identity as an American.
A lot of people get a high from being onstage. I found ways to enjoy it. But I get it from being in the studio.
The most exciting songs to me are the unlikely hits, when you think, 'I love this, but why is it on the radio?'
My parents left Iran in 1979 and moved to France and then moved to the U.S. My brother was born in France and I was born in New York, and then we moved to D.C.
I made a quote-unquote 'album' for my senior project of high school. As soon as I finished making it I realized it wasn't the kind of music I wanted to make.
Throughout college I was getting better and better at making recordings, producing songs, making different kinds of beats.
I like the idea that a song can be about a romantic relationship, but it can also about a relationship to your career, or a relationship to your city.
As a kid I had gone to New York a handful of times with my family. I definitely think it planted a seed in me.
