Vampire Weekend @ Governors Ball 2014

Vampire Weekend founding member, producer, keyboardist, and co-songwriter Rostam Batmanglij has announced his departure from the group in a statement on Twitter:

This past year alone, Rostam has worked with several high profile artists such as Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ra Ra Riot and wrote music for the Broadway play “This is Our Youth” starring Michael Cera.

Recently, vocalist Ezra Koenig remarked on Batmanglij’s departure from live performance, while being involved in the production on the band’s upcoming fourth LP:

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.

-Ezra Koenig, @arze

Batmanglij has recently taken to Twitter condemning remarks that he had”quit” the group, and facetiously referenced Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction with his single “I HAD TO ZAYN ON ‘EM” dropping at midnight.