Mark Foster Quotes

I don’t consider myself an entertainer. I consider myself an artist, and I think with that comes responsibility.

L.A. gives me a lot. L.A. is a city of extremes. People come here from all over the world that have these, like, giant ideas, and they put everything into it. And some people just fall flat on their face, and some people, you know, shoot like a rocket.

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.

I’m really into the recycling of art. That one piece of art inspires another piece of art, which inspires another piece of art. I really like that idea.

I love exploring music.

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.’

Fear just crushes creativity, and if I let fear into the studio and into the songwriting, I was going to let it kill the artist inside of me.

I think that there’s a difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.

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.

I was rambunctious – a boy’s boy, full of energy. I wasn’t a bad kid. I just liked to talk.

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.

We’re not trying to be a mega-pop-band, but we also wouldn’t be opposed to selling millions of records, either.

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.

‘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 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 like to write about real-life topics, and I like to write about different walks of life.

One thing about Foster the People is that it’s taking pieces of a lot of different genres of music and kind of melding them together.

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 feel like my calling is to show people joy: to make them feel like there’s something to look forward to.

During ‘Torches,’ I was more concerned with communicating the spirit of the song than the actual lyrics.

I didn’t want to be a soul singer.

Foster the People wouldn’t exist without Mophonics.

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 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.

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.

I was an only child, so I was alone a lot.

When I started really playing music, I pretty much quit sports. I quit everything.

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 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.

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.

If I’m with people who are really positive and go with the flow, that’s when the best ideas come out for me.

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.

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.

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.

A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.

Music is the great equalizer.

Going out and volunteering sounds simple, but many people don’t volunteer because they don’t know where to start.

I love to honour people and to write positive songs about them.

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.

Writing for other people is easier than writing for myself – it’s not as personal.

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.

I’m not really worried about writer’s block.

I’m a really extreme person, and balance is probably the hardest thing for me to maintain.

I was always extremely independent growing up.

We’ve grown up on the Beach Boys and the Beatles and Blur and Bowie and the Clash. Also E.L.O. and Hall and Oates. Those are all artists who write songs that are accessible but still left of center. It’s intelligent pop. There’s still something different and complex about it.

I wrote ‘Torches’ before experiencing touring as a band. I really had no idea what they would sound like live, and that was something we had to figure out along the way.

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.

‘Torches’ flowed together with interesting intros and outros. It was all very natural.

I didn’t record ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ out of a sense of moral obligation.

I’m not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on ‘American Idol.’

That’s how life is: there are peaks and valleys in life, and that’s how I like to write songs.

I think my inner child wants to take over the world.

I don’t like to write the same song twice.

Art is observing society around you, representing it through your eyes.

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.