Ezra Koenig

Ezra Koenig
Koenig performing at the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival
Background information
Birth name	Ezra Michael Koenig
Born	(1984-04-08) April 8, 1984
Origin	New York City, New York, United States
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter
Labels	XL
Associated acts	Vampire Weekend, Dirty Projectors, Discovery, L'Homme Run, The Sophisticuffs, The Very Best, Major Lazer
Website	http://www.vampireweekend.com
Notable instruments
Epiphone Sheraton II, Rickenbacker 330

Ezra Koenig (born April 8, 1984) is the lead singer and one of the guitarists of New York-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend.

Background

Koenig was born in New York City, New York, the son of Bobby Bass, a psychotherapist, and Robin Koenig, a set dresser on film and TV productions. His family is Jewish, and came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe (including Romania and Hungary); Koenig had a Bar Mitzvah. He grew up in Northern New Jersey and attended Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. His parents lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan before moving to New Jersey. Ezra has a younger sister, Emma Koenig, who is the author of the blog and book "F*CK! i'm in my twenties". He began writing music around the age of ten or eleven, and his first song ever was titled "Bad Birthday Party." He attended Columbia University where he majored in English literature.

Musical career

Prior to forming Vampire Weekend, Koenig was involved in numerous musical projects with Wes Miles, a childhood friend and current front-man of Ra Ra Riot, along with friends Dan Millar and Andrei Padlowski. Koenig and Miles' experimental band, The Sophisticuffs, has been described as "wildly inventive musical work". Later, Koenig formed the "serious" rap band L’Homme Run with Andrew Kalaidjian and fellow band member Chris Tomson, played saxophone for the indie rock band Dirty Projectors, worked as an intern for The Walkmen, and was an eighth-grade English teacher in Junior High School 258 in Brooklyn, New York. In the fall of 2007, a deal with XL cut short Koenig's teaching career.

The name of the group comes from the movie of the same name that Ezra and his high school friends made during a school vacation. Ezra plays the main character, Walcott, who has to go to Cape Cod to tell the mayor that vampires are coming. They self-produced their first album after graduation while concurrently working full-time jobs. In 2010, they released their second album, Contra. It reached number one on the U.S. and British album charts.

Koenig provides vocals on the song "Carby" on LP, the debut album of Discovery, a group which features Vampire Weekend keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot vocalist Wes Miles. He's also featured on "Warm Heart of Africa" by The Very Best, "Pyromiltia" by Theophilus London, "I Could Be Wrong" by Chromeo, and singing "I Think You're a Contra" with Angelique Kidjo in her PBS special. He appeared and provided brief vocals in the music video for Duck Sauce's "Barbra Streisand". His recording of the song "Papa Hobo", by Paul Simon, is part of the soundtrack for Max Winkler's film Ceremony. In 2013, Koenig was featured in the song "Jessica" by Major Lazer.