A lot of people have trouble putting into words what my music is, and it's because of where I grew up.
— Mike Posner
When you know it's a game, you can have more fun playing it. When things seem serious, you tend to take less risk and have less fun.
I think of the pop music that I've made in the past and hear on the radio as candy bars. And I was really good at making candy bars.
I came to realize that if I was going to succeed in the music industry, I was going to have to learn how to perform my songs myself.
I've always had an eclectic taste in music. But what I try to do is combine these things in ways that others would never think of, like putting Bun B on an Elton John song.
I have a very wide spectrum of stuff that I grew up listening to.
I hated the thought of being just a songwriter.
My focus is to try to appreciate the present moment more and more and more.
I think it should be socially acceptable for men to like 'You're Beautiful' by James Blunt.
My songs are all personal.
Just be yourself and be upfront about your expectations and desires. Don't be ambiguous and play hard to get. It doesn't work. You'll end up in the friend zone.
I wanted to be the most famous. And it wasn't until I hung out with Justin Bieber that the whole thing got demystified. The mystique of it was gone.
I really look up to Louis C.K. I think he's great. And obviously he's very popular, more popular than me. Years ago, I was thinking, naively, it would be great to be that popular. And then I thought about it and then I realized that, with his money and his level of notoriety, he has all of the same emotions that I do.
I think - for a period of time, I did think art was there to serve me, but it took me a minute to reset.
I believe in the ethos of the remix, like Andy Warhol making a painting of a Campbell's soup label.
Avicii's been a supporter of my music for years, and we've been writing songs together for a long time.
Honestly, I don't go to clubs very often.
A lot of my friends who I wrote or produced songs for came back and helped me make 'Pages.' It's better than I ever could have imagined.
I remember with my first album, I was so scared of messing it up, of blowing the opportunity, that I blew it.
It's important to me that my songs actually make sense. So often, I turn on the radio, and I have no idea what the people are singing about. It may sound good, but when you listen, they're just saying words that rhyme. It's another song about nothing.
I wanted to break into producing, so I would peddle my tracks and beats to labels. I always heard the same thing: They liked the music, but it didn't fit any of the artists on their roster.
When I started picking out music for myself, I was a hip-hop kid. DMX, The Roots, Outkast, people like that.
What I'm trying to do is maintain some mindfulness about being popular - I wasn't so great at that last time around.
I was trying to maintain a facade of infallibility, which is exhausting. Like, I used to wear tons of makeup because I had bad skin. I couldn't go out in public without makeup on.
I enjoyed a cartoon show called 'Recess' throughout my high school career. The target audience for that show was 8-11 years old.
My favorite color is jungle green. At least, that's what it said on the side of my favorite crayon in first grade. I don't know if it's an official color.
I think that's what makes my music different from other artists in my lane is that I write every word that's on my album, and every word comes from a real experience or a real feeling that I've either experienced or felt. And I'm very particular about that, and I take a lot of pride in it, so you know if I say something on a song, I mean it.
I thought, 'Oh that's what happens. You put a song out and everyone likes it.' Well, then a funny thing happened: I started putting more songs out, and none of them did the same thing.
I remember I wanted to be an athlete. I wanted to be in the NFL or NBA or something, and I don't think I dreamed of being a benchwarmer. I'm sure I wanted to be the best. But I didn't really ever think I was going to be a famous musician.
I remember being 24 in Los Angeles. And up until that moment, when my mom would call my cell phone and it would ring, I would be flushed with some sort of excitement that we all have - a little dopamine rush, when my phone rings - and I'd look down, and it would say, 'Mom.' It used to feel like a job to pick that up.
It's not the job of the art to accommodate me and make me more money, make me more famous and get me more girls.
I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.
When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.
I'll read on Twitter, 'Do you still do music?' Music is all I do, all day.
It's like, we all grow up thinking it would be so nice to have hundreds of people falling over themselves trying to grab us, telling us we're great, that they love us.
I wanted to see if I could be happy without a lot of stuff. And what I found out was, yeah, I really could.
I consider myself a lyrics guy.
All my music is autobiographical, and that's the reason why people like my music. They know when I'm saying something on a song, I mean it. It comes from a real place and captures the realness in my life.
Some of my early musical memories are attached to grunge.
I realized I could do music for the sake of music, not the other things that come with it. That was a major shift.
In my short career, I tend not to repeat myself. I have no interest in redoing something. Sometimes that makes people angry, and maybe it's not the best thing for me commercially. But it's the best thing for me artistically, and it's the best thing for my heart.
My favorite television show is 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.'
I was a paperboy first, then I worked at a movie theater. But I was a caddie at a golf club, which I didn't like. The people were so bougie and racist at times.
I know it sounds corny, but I look for a girl that has a beautiful personality on the inside.
I had an initial wave of popularity that, in time, crashed, and I slowly became less popular and less successful, and I had to figure out who I was without those things.
When I was a kid, my parents were always like, 'Money doesn't buy happiness.' I thought, 'You just didn't make enough money.' I had to go find it out for myself.
If a song about blowing your shot becomes popular, that's really funny.
I've only had success when I'm not trying to. It's that weird thing where if you're trying to impress a girl, you're not going to impress her. But if you aren't trying to impress a girl, you'll probably impress her because you're not trying.
There was a time when being loaded and loved and popular really mattered a lot to me. I'd say that when I was less popular, I learned to be happy without those things.
I've remixed lots of other people's songs, from Adele to Electric Light Orchestra to Beyonce, so when my record label said, 'Why don't you give 'Ibiza' to someone to remix?' I said, 'Sure,' because I like the idea of people reimagining art and making something new out of it.
