No fang you

“Somebody approached us before we signed a record deal (with XL): ‘We have this thing, we’ll buy your songs outright and give you a flat fee for it.’ Then, Ezra (Koenig) and I were hanging out for a second, after we had that meeting, thinking ‘OK, let’s try to demo these songs, see what we can offer to them.’ Thankfully, we didn’t …” -- multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend

Read my interview with Batmanglij and drummer Chris Tomson in Saturday's Edmonton Journal. Vampire Weekend's second album, Contra, is in stores Tuesday, Jan. 12. The band performs Sunday, March 14 at Edmonton Event Centre.