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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
Travelling alone was like laundry for my thoughts.
Mark Foster
Going out and volunteering sounds simple, but many people don’t volunteer because they don’t know where to start.
Mark Foster
I think my inner child wants to take over the world.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
We need to do a better job of loving each other beyond race, beyond belief, beyond our difference.
Mark Foster
When I write a song, the music comes from my spirit, which is very playful and optimistic, but then the lyrics come from my head, which is in a different space.
Mark Foster
Art is observing society around you, representing it through your eyes.
Mark Foster
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.’
Mark Foster
‘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.
Mark Foster
I’d rather be a poor singer/songwriter doing what I love than get rich from selling my soul.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
That’s how life is: there are peaks and valleys in life, and that’s how I like to write songs.
Mark Foster
Writing for other people is easier than writing for myself – it’s not as personal.
Mark Foster
A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.
Mark Foster
I don’t consider myself an entertainer. I consider myself an artist, and I think with that comes responsibility.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
‘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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
At the end of the day, I use music to be able to communicate to people.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
I think that there’s a difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.
Mark Foster
I truly believe that love is greater than politics.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
Once I write something, I never try to write that same style again, because I get very schizophrenic musically.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
We’re not trying to be a mega-pop-band, but we also wouldn’t be opposed to selling millions of records, either.
Mark Foster
Foster the People wouldn’t exist without Mophonics.
Mark Foster
Mophonics is kind of a creative home for me.
Mark Foster
I wanted to be an attorney all the way up until I was 17.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
I don’t like to write the same song twice.
Mark Foster
I love to honour people and to write positive songs about them.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
I was rambunctious – a boy’s boy, full of energy. I wasn’t a bad kid. I just liked to talk.
Mark Foster
In Cleveland, music was always a big part of my life. That’s really where I cut my teeth.
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
I didn’t want to be a soul singer.
Mark Foster
I’m not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on ‘American Idol.’
Mark Foster
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.
Mark Foster
I worked odd jobs delivering pizza, folding chairs, telemarketing, selling kitchen cutlery door to door.
Mark Foster
Music is the great equalizer.
Mark Foster