I think my inner child wants to take over the world.
Mark Foster
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.
Music is the great equalizer.
I experienced bullying a lot. I was an only child, and I was kind of a small kid with a big mouth, and so I always got myself in trouble.
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.
'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 feel like my calling is to show people joy: to make them feel like there's something to look forward to.
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.
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.
When I put Foster The People together, I just wanted to play music with friends.
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.
Pressure has always been more of a friend than a foe for me with songwriting.
I'm not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on 'American Idol.'
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.
There were times when I was terrified to go to school because it felt like a jail sentence.
'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.
If I'm with people who are really positive and go with the flow, that's when the best ideas come out for me.
Through technology and social media, we're able to create an identity online that shows people the face that we want them to see and rather than who they really are.
There's a lot of bands that blow up quickly, but then they die quickly. Longevity is the healthy thing; that's the pursuit.
When I was 21, I was in a pretty serious band, and we almost got signed - went to New York, showcased, all that - but didn't end up getting signed, and we broke up. I went back to the drawing board; I really took a hit from that whole experience.
'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.
I was rambunctious - a boy's boy, full of energy. I wasn't a bad kid. I just liked to talk.
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 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.
'Torches' flowed together with interesting intros and outros. It was all very natural.
The jingles saved my life. When I got hired to do that, I was on top. I finally was making a living doing what I loved. Before that, it was so bleak; it got so dark in L.A. I was 25, been living there for seven years trying to make it, and getting really close to getting signed with different bands and as a solo artist only to have my hopes dashed.
I've played so many gigs in front of around seven people. It's difficult to keep motivated, but it's all about growth. The love of music kept me going.
I realized probably when I was, like, 20 years old that the hardest thing to do is to write a pop song - not, like, a candy-pop, throwaway pop song.
I've written so many songs that are hopeful - songs that are, like, about an old man that gives all his possessions away because he wants to help people. I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' just to tell a different type of story.
Once I write something, I never try to write that same style again, because I get very schizophrenic musically.
I feel like kids are getting more and more used to communicating through a glass screen than they are face-to-face, and that worries me a little.
There are career waiters in Los Angeles, and they're making over $100,000 a year.
A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.
In Morocco, a Muslim country, I got to hear the call to prayer five times a day. At first it felt kind of scary, kind of dangerous, because of the propaganda towards anything Muslim in the U.S. subconsciously coming out in me. By the end of the trip, it was so beautiful, and then not hearing it when I got back to L.A. really threw me off.
The phrase 'pumped up kicks,' man, I was excited when I came up with that.
During 'Torches,' I was more concerned with communicating the spirit of the song than the actual lyrics.
I remember, in middle school, I went to four different schools. That was a rough patch. But it's also what shaped me as a person.
We need to do a better job of loving each other beyond race, beyond belief, beyond our difference.
Every single song on 'Torches' was a little self-contained pop song, so there wasn't any fat on the songs; there wasn't a lot to cut.
I don't consider myself an entertainer. I consider myself an artist, and I think with that comes responsibility.
I worked odd jobs delivering pizza, folding chairs, telemarketing, selling kitchen cutlery door to door.
That's how life is: there are peaks and valleys in life, and that's how I like to write songs.
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.'
I think that there's a difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.
I truly believe that love is greater than politics.
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 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.
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.
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.
At the end of the day, I use music to be able to communicate to people.
