I love countermelodies, I love hooks and melodies that stick in your head. If I could put 20 melodies in a song and they would all work together, I would.
— Mark Foster
I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me.
I don't care if it's Dr. Dre or Dr. Luke or Brian Eno. When you're in a studio and making music together, it becomes pretty apparent if you see eye to eye.
I want to make music for everyone. I'm not trying to start a super exclusive group. I don't want a clique of people where you have to wear a certain type of clothes to come to our shows, or you have to be the ages of this and this.
I didn't want to be a soul singer.
I was rambunctious - a boy's boy, full of energy. I wasn't a bad kid. I just liked to talk.
Art brings to life things that can seemingly be dead, and can put a fresh perspective on things that are living. It's so important we keep creating.
I'd rather be a poor singer/songwriter doing what I love than get rich from selling my soul.
I love to honour people and to write positive songs about them.
I had really bad grades in high school and didn't want to go to college, and my dad said, 'Why don't you move to L.A. or New York and pursue music? You've always been good at it.' It was the first thing that made sense to me and... It was the right move.
Mophonics is kind of a creative home for me.
We're not trying to be a mega-pop-band, but we also wouldn't be opposed to selling millions of records, either.
At the end of the day, I use music to be able to communicate to people.
I was afraid of the sophomore slump even before our first record came out. It was a very real fear because I'd watched so many bands I'd loved in the past not deliver. I knew it was a very real thing. I didn't know why it happens, but I'd been thinking about it a lot.
I think artists throughout the history of time have always been controversial and have been a voice to speak to public culture in a way that a politician can't because they'll lose their constituency.
I truly believe that love is greater than politics.
'Supermodel' was a hard record for me; it was an emotional record to write. I was purging a lot of stuff with that album, and I think the one thing I didn't really consider, that I'd be supporting it for two years and living in that state of mind every night.
Our audience isn't One Direction, Katy Perry, Rihanna fans.
We're not the corporation of Foster the People. We're a band.
Music is the great equalizer.
'Pumped Up Kicks' is written from the perspective like Truman Capote wrote 'In Cold Blood' or Dostoevsky wrote 'Crime & Punishment.' It's psychologically breaking down someone's state of mind and diving in and walking in their shoes.
I could have pigeonholed us and wrote a whole record like 'Pumped Up Kicks,' and we would have been this breezy, nostalgic West Coast Beach Boys recreation band. That's not the type of writer I am. Once I try one style, I move on.
'I Get Around' came on one day. I'd never heard the Beach Boys before. The sound was so fresh to me. That was the first time when I truly was gripped by the power of music. It opened my eyes to the heights that music can achieve.
My aunts and uncles were like, 'You've got such a great voice - why don't you try out for 'American Idol?'' I'd say, 'Because I'm a songwriter, not a puppet.' Even if I won and became really successful off a show like that, I'd be miserable.
I wrote 'Don't Stop' just like I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' - I didn't try to make either a hit. I just wanted to write a song I liked.
It's the meanest thing to abuse your power as a songwriter. To write pointedly about someone... it's kind of unfair to use them. They can't answer you or have a rebuttal.
I wanted to be an attorney all the way up until I was 17.
Foster the People wouldn't exist without Mophonics.
When you're underwater with goggles on, a couple of your senses are taken away, and it becomes this purely visual thing. It's just you and yourself.
There's just really interesting facets of culture just swirling in Morocco. They all have slightly different colours, so it's just an inspiring place to be.
There are a few songwriters in bands I really relate to that write a certain type of joy, because a lot of artists don't really write joy. It's a thing only a few people do.
Walking into the studio making 'Scared Hearts Club,' it was important for us as artists to write a joyful record, but using joy as a weapon because joy is the best weapon against oppression; it's the best weapon against depression.
I think that there's a difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.
It's funny: the one time I got star-struck was when I met Snoop Dogg. I gave him a hug and said, 'I love you, man.'
If I was 13 years old and Kurt Cobain tweeted me some advice or even just said hi, my whole world would be affected by that.
I feel like trying to write a song in order to be a big hit is just not something I'm interested in because it's not going to come from an authentic place of expression.
I worked odd jobs delivering pizza, folding chairs, telemarketing, selling kitchen cutlery door to door.
I'm not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on 'American Idol.'
In Cleveland, music was always a big part of my life. That's really where I cut my teeth.
I've written hundreds of songs, and I tend to think that my instincts are pretty good when it comes to what people are going to like and what people aren't going to like.
Writing for other people is easier than writing for myself - it's not as personal.
Arcade Fire has kept their indie cred. They will sell out stadiums yet still have underdog status. But when you're a band like Coldplay, people are waiting to knock you down.
I don't like to write the same song twice.
That's how life is: there are peaks and valleys in life, and that's how I like to write songs.
I look at bands like the Beach Boys, Hall & Oates and Blur, and those are the bands I want to be in company with because their songwriting is intelligent, and yet you don't need to be a musical genius to pick it up.
People worship anyone in the entertainment industry. You can be a used-car salesman and have a television commercial on the local station, and that makes you a celebrity.
One of the things with the second record, a word I held close to my chest was 'brave.' To take chances to go outside the box and explore. To continue to toss off any expectation that our fans or anyone else might have of us, to just tap into who I am as a writer and artist and really just operate within that freedom of creation.
Once I write something, I never try to write that same style again, because I get very schizophrenic musically.
I don't consider myself an entertainer. I consider myself an artist, and I think with that comes responsibility.
We need to do a better job of loving each other beyond race, beyond belief, beyond our difference.
