Rostam has shared a new version of Vampire Weekend‘s ‘Young Lion’ – you can listen to it below.
The track originally featured at the end of the band’s 2013 album ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’. Is was the only Vampire Weekend song where Rostam was the sole lead vocalist and writer and was the last to feature on the band’s album.
He quit Vampire Weekend in 2016 to pursue a solo career. The former co-founding member also went on to work as a producer for the likes of Haim, Clairo, Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen and Maggie Rogers.
Compared with the album’s short piano version, the reimagined track is longer and sees Rostam performing the song on guitar backed by The Voidz guitarist and fellow Iranian-American Amir Yaghmai on the saz.
“The piano melody in ‘Young Lion’ was always inspired by the Persian music I grew up with. In this version that line passes from Jack’s piano, to my guitar, and then finally to Amir on Saz. I love that this melody can live all these different lives inside this one song,” Rostam said of the new version, which you can listen to below.
The song was originally written during sessions for Vampire Weekend’s 2010 album ‘Contra’.
Speaking about how the song came about Rostam said it was the result of frontman Ezra Koenig queuing up at a cash machine when he was approached by a “dreadlocked rasta” who said: “You take your time young lion.”
Rostam added: “Those words just stuck with me. It was this moment where maybe someone had sensed this pressure we had put on ourselves to making this record. It was this cosmic voice speaking from a higher place perhaps.”
The video is taken from American Stories: A Concert Film, which will premiere later this spring. It sees Rostam team up with his six-piece band and director Antony Muse for an eight-song live performance at the iconic Sound City Studio A.
Rostam is set to release his forthcoming solo album, ‘American Stories’ on May 15 through his own label, Matsor Projects via Secretly Distribution. It is his first LP since 2021’s ‘Changephobia‘. You can pre-order and pre-save it here.
Additionally, Rostam recently also announced advance screenings of American Stories: A Concert Film in Los Angeles and New York City with the film screening in the former at Anthology Film Archives on May 5, followed by a latter screening at Brain Dead Studios on May 11.
Each sold out event will include a post-screening Q&A with Rostam and Muse, as well as a live performance.
Meanwhile, Rostam will head out on tour in North America this May and June, supported by Henry Solomon, Elori Saxl and Zsela. He’ll then play five European shows in September, kicking off at London’s Village Underground on September 8. You can view the dates here and purchase tickets for his US shows here and UK shows here.