The Real Meaning of 'Pumped Up Kicks' and My Life Before and After | Mark Foster (Foster the People)

Key Takeaway

Create before you judge. Set aside 30 minutes today to make a rough “sketch” of an idea—write, record, design, or brainstorm—without evaluating whether it is good. Capture it, label it, and move on. After you have accumulated several sketches, revisit them with fresh ears or eyes and develop only the ones that still carry energy. Mark Foster’s process shows that separating free exploration from later editing protects originality and makes consistency easier.

Episode Overview

Mark Foster recounts the long path from an unsettled childhood, early musical training, addiction, low-paying jobs, and repeated industry setbacks to founding Foster the People. He explains how “Pumped Up Kicks” emerged from an unplanned demo, how recovery reshaped his perspective, and how he now uses improvisational sketching to create music that is both honest and hopeful.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Real Meaning of 'Pumped Up Kicks' and My Life Before and After | Mark Foster (Foster the People) from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hello, this is Guy Raz , and this is Great Creators , a place where I connect with the most famous artists, musicians, and actors of our time. And today we have Mark Foster, frontman and founder of the band Foster the People, as our guest. And I said, "Dad," and I told him all the options for what I was thinking. I was very upset and asked myself, “What should I do with my life?” He looked at me and said, “Mark, you’ve always loved music. Why don't you go to New York or Los Angeles and try it?" Mark Foster listened to his father's advice, and it turned into an incredible musical career.

He wrote the song "Pumped Up Kicks," which reached number three on the charts, and his band, Foster the People, just released their fourth studio album. It's called "Paradise State of Mind." But behind Mark's success is a fascinating story of struggle, addiction, and truly hard work. I delivered pizza. I was folding clothes in the store. I worked the night shift. I was a telemarketer at Dish Satellite. So today on the program—about how Mark Foster was able to organize his life to create his best creative works. Here's my conversation with Foster the People frontman, Mark Foster.

Mark, thank you for coming to the show, and congratulations on the new album, which we'll talk about later. Tell me a little bit about...I know you were born where I am now, in the San Francisco Bay Area, but you grew up in a few other places, starting in Ohio. It sounds like you moved around a bit when you were a child and teenager. Yes, I was born in San Jose, and I spent my first 5 years in Milpitas, in the Bay Area. My father worked in sales.

He was a businessman in San Francisco, and then he left everything to become a pastor, so we moved to Cleveland. My mom is a nurse, so we went from a fairly cosmopolitan upbringing in California to basically giving up everything to serve in a small church. Oho. In Cleveland. In Cleveland. And that, you know, is the real reason we moved, even though in 1989 Cleveland was the last city on Earth I would have wanted to move to. This was just after the river caught fire. Yes. It was, you know, I remember driving...

industrialization was happening very rapidly. we would get 10 miles into town and you would smell the sulfur from all the steel mills going, and it was a real working-class environment , and, you know, I'm very grateful for that now, because it's a tough town, and I was young enough to adjust to that. And when I got back to California, I realized that I had kind of grown up among wolves, in a weird way. um which, you know, prepared me for all the rejections when trying to get into the music industry and everything.

I had a certain inner core because of that. Did you, did you accept it, I mean, like a pastor's child? Did you rebel against it or did you enjoy being in church, in the community? This is very ambiguous. I mean, I find it funny because I'm a very spiritual person. I am not a religious person . It's hard for me, I can't , it's very hard for me to step into church today. I think I also have a lot of trauma related to the church. Um, and you know, I was the "black sheep" when I was a kid in church.

No, I was, I mean , imagine : I'm a pastor's kid playing in a hardcore band, which is probably a cliché in its own way. Yes. Um, but yeah, I was always getting into trouble, and the thing is, my parents got divorced when I was 10, and it was, you know, when I went to church, I saw how the church dealt with it, the ostracism, the condemnation, my world fell apart. and that's when, you know, I started moving because my parents got divorced, and that's not something that , you know, the Christian church deals with well.

Yeah, I think things have probably changed a lot since then, but back then, you know, right after the 80s, the evangelical movement was huge and influential. For example, I wasn't allowed to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was growing up. I did n't watch, I wasn't allowed to watch "The Wizard of Oz." It was a lot like a cult, you know. Um, but the funniest thing about it is that my dad is a hippie. Oh, and he's not really religious. He is very cool. He was actually a very open person, very cool.

not like you might think, not a Bible-shaking fanatic, you know, he's a mystic. My dad is a mystic, you know, and I identify more with that, the spiritual side of things. Um, but the rest of my family, on my mother's side, is very religious. And, um, you know, it's like, growing up in that environment, I mean, it definitely influenced a lot of things, probably, my current singing style and, I don't know, man. It's, um, it's a whole, it's, it's, it's , it's a whole story of growing up in a very closed community where there's, there's a lot of love, and a lot of shame, and a lot of fear and control.

But at the same time, there's also, um, but they're also some of the best people I've ever met. And so it's like all these contradictions are 100%. Yes. But you know, now that I have some space and time, my parents are still in Cleveland, and I go back there often. Now I'm really grateful to have grown up there. Um, you know, it was, it was, I could play outside a lot. Um, you know, I was the only child in the family, so I didn't want to be alone.

Mhm. Although, um, but I was alone a lot, and it's, it's funny, because, you know, connecting it to music, it's like, fortunately, um, I had music, because it's such an individual thing, you know? When you're practicing or playing or whatever, it gave me something to do. So there were Yes, there were many hours of researching music and many hours on the street exploring my own imagination. I'm curious. I mean, I know that from a young age, maybe as early as elementary school, one of your teachers noticed that you had talent and encouraged you to go to, for example, the children's orchestra in Cleveland.

Um, do you remember when you were the kind of kid who was always singing? were you and so she was my first grade music teacher, her name was Mrs. Sidor, and, um, you know, we had music lessons. Yes. Um, which ones, I don't think every school has them now . Um, but back then it was , you know, a normal occurrence. So I, yeah, I don't remember how she identified it, but we were singing, and she noticed it very early on and, um, gave me the lead role in a first- grade play, the role of Popeye the Sailor, well, "I'm Popeye the Sailor, Popeye." You know, that song or something.

And I was dressed in a sailor suit with a little blue pipe, now no one would think of putting a blue pipe in a first grader's mouth, but this was, you know, the early 90s. And, actually, when I got older, in the fourth grade, because that was the minimum age for kids, I got into the Cleveland Orchestra children's choir. Every school in that area, it seems, was able to select two kids to audition. And she, well, asked if I wanted to try out and let me go audition.

I went without even knowing what was going on, but I sang and passed the selection. And those were probably my first really important musical years: singing in a professional choir with about 80 kids. Yes. The choir director, Ella Lee, was incredible. We prepared, rehearsed once a week for several months before a series of Christmas concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra and an adult choir, and were fortunate enough to sing under the direction of Robert Shaw. Oho. So it was mostly a choral performance? Yes , that's right.

Yes. One of my earliest memories, because there was a year when we also did a spring concert. Yes, we performed Mahler's Eighth Symphony, and I remember it well because a linguist came to teach us to sing in German and Latin. I was 10 years old, and it was the same year that Robert Shaw came, and I still remember his carols. The singing lessons were the most memorable because he had us sing along with the adult choir, we started with the note "A", and he said : "I'll count to 10", and during this time we had to go through a semitone or a whole tone, I ca n't say for sure.

We started with "la," he counted to 10, and for each digit we had to divide this interval into ten parts. It was almost microtonal, because he counted very slowly for a long time. Together we gradually " floated" through this interval, barely perceptibly changing the pitch. And as a child, my hearing wasn't that developed, you know? I just remember thinking, " Wow, this is crazy." And now it's one of those things I often think about. I just think, "Wow, this is so interesting." Yes. I mean, what an amazing opportunity for a child to be involved in such a classic, right ?

And then you mentioned Robert Shaw. He had a choir, it seems, named after him . Like, he had his own Robert Shaw choir. He was a famous person in the choral singing world, was n't he? And so the opportunity to get involved, learn German phonetically and, you know, get acquainted with this kind of music. I'm curious what you listened to when you got older? I mean, I read about the Beach Boys, for example. Were you really into the Beach Boys, and I have to assume it was the Pet Sounds album, or did you like their surfing theme more?

I was so little when I heard the Beach Boys. I think I was about six when I first heard them . Yes, it was on the radio. It was on the radio, and I was driving to tee ball practice, you know, with my mom. Do you remember the song? Yes, it was "I Get Around" and... Good, good song. And you know, the early Beach Boys, well, you know, there's a radio station in Cleveland called Magic 105. Magic 105.7 in Cleveland. It was my favorite radio station, they played everything, mostly 50s and 60s .

Well, but that was kind of a foundation, I guess, besides the classical music I listened to. So it was all, you know: Motown, Doo [ __ ], early rock and roll, you know, Chuck Berry and Elvis. And that was the first time the Beach Boys played, it was like a light bulb went on, and I said, "Mom, who's that ?" She replied: " I think it's the Beach Boys." And I remember that same week my dad came home with a cassette tape that had "I Get Around" on one side and "Fun, Fun, Fun" on the other side, and yeah, I was obsessed with them.

I mean I'm still obsessed, honestly, they're my favorite band. I mean, Pet Sounds is easily one of the top five albums ever made. Yes. Do you agree? Oh yes. Oh my God. Yes. I refer to it constantly. So much so that this album we just made, Paradise State of Mind, we recorded at Pet Sounds Studio. Really? Yes. We created it right there. Oho. It was interesting for me because when you listen to that album, it's so rich. Yes. And of course, you look at the photos from that time, and Brian was really trying to do something in the style of Phil Spector.

He was obsessed with the song Be My Baby. He was obsessed with "reneta". The way the drums sounded on Be My Baby, and he started trying to figure out what Phil Spector was doing with his "wall of sound." So when you look at that album , and there were a few records before Pet Sounds, where Brian, you can see, started to change. He started talking about deeper things. He began to write more orchestral, but Pet Sounds was the peak of his work with the band The Wrecking Crew.

But you look at those photos, and they're all sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder. You know, like Blaine in the middle, Carol K, they're all touching each other's shoulders. He gathered them all in that small room. This is not a large room. But it still sounds very rich. And so when we recorded there for this album , I expected the room to be quite loud. Yes. And this is the driest room I have ever worked in. Oho. But then it activated something else. It was like, "Oh my God, they just used reverberation chambers for all of this." And they did n't change anything.

You look at the floor there, it's all scratched up, and you can imagine how the Wrecking Crew musicians moved their equipment, scratching that floor. So everything remained the same , and the cameras are also original. So as soon as we sent any percussion into the camera and it came back, I knew: this is the sound of the 60s. I'm like, "I know that sound." A splash, a wooden block, anything. It was like an echo from a small camera. You just say, "Oh, there it is. " This is the sound of The Mamas & the Papas.

So many albums sound like that camera. Oho. Yes. Because you can imagine when you listen to that record, you say, like, " I'm waiting for the day" or "I know there's an answer," or any other track—I always think of "I'm waiting for the day," because at the end it just fades out, and then there's this sound, and you imagine this studio in Technicolor, these colors, like in The Monkees video, so bright, you just imagine them in that room. And then you describe it as a fairly unremarkable room, but when you hear the sound, everything falls into place.

I'm wondering if you continued singing in the choir in high school or switched to something else, because I know you started learning musical instruments—did you move away from that or stay in that world? No, I was somewhere after I graduated from...I think I was about 14, it was my last year in the Cleveland Children's Choir. And if I wanted to, I could have joined the youth choir, but I didn't , because at that time, around 12-13 years old, that was the age. The voice changes. Well, yes.

Not only that, my inner state changed. I started listening to Nirvana, and that was the second epiphany moment for me in music, when I thought: what is this? I need to learn to play the guitar. Yes. So that I can play it and create music like this. And Nine Inch Nails were from Cleveland too. I mean, they're... It's interesting that you mentioned Nine Inch Nails, because when I bought "Nevermind" in the San Francisco Bay Area, it was one summer when I was in California, it was at Tower Records.

Aha. I went in and bought " Nevermind" and "Pretty Hate Machine." Both albums on the same day. Early Nine Inch Nails. These were two albums that changed my life. And my best friend bought "The Fat of the Land", an album by The Prodigy. Oh, yes. So we came home , opened them up, and just listened from start to finish. And so when I was learning to play guitar, Alice in Chains had a huge influence on me . So Jerry Cantrell was probably my favorite guitarist at the time.

So I really tried to play all his stuff, right from the beginning. I would come home from school, turn on the Alice in Chains record, play along with them, try to recreate all his solos, all these bands. He had a very specific style that definitely shaped my sound. Stone Temple Pilots, and then that led to Deftones, Rage Against the Machine, Tool, and then hardcore. Back then, the entire Cleveland scene was metal and hardcore. Yes. I think Filter were from Cleveland too, right? And they too. Yes.

And he played in Nine Inch Nails with Trent. Yes. And so, when I was 15, I started a hardcore band, and I was the vocalist. I was a singer, and I wonder how your parents reacted to that? You were a boy who sang in the choir, loved the Beach Boys, and now— well, that's a natural part of growing up, right? But what did they think of the music you played? I have to give them credit, they have always supported everything I have undertaken in music. For example, when I said at age 10 that I wanted to play drums, they signed me up for lessons and bought me a drum kit.

Looking back, I realize that letting a child who can't play knock on your door all day is a real sacrifice. Yes, it's a huge sacrifice, you know. I would come home from school and try to play the Dookie album from start to finish on my headphones. It was very fast and loud, I played badly, but they always supported me. Did they like this music? No, I don't think so. But they came to some of my concerts and let me do my thing. When you graduate from school, you're probably trying to figure out what to do next.

And judging by what I read, you did n't initially think you would build a career in this particular field. You didn't think you'd be doing this, did you? No. Yes. So, when I was 17, all my friends had already chosen colleges or at least knew what they were going to do next. And I, I was very passionate about computers. So I worked at the school, repairing school computers. I was learning to program, mastering Visual Basic, and back then we were still using Windows, which was based on MS-DOS.

I learned to delve into the system, work in DOS, and was going to become a computer scientist, although I was also passionate about photography and won several national awards through school. Well, and graphic art and other things. So that was another option I was considering. Music was never an option. It never even occurred to me that this could be a career. Ahem. I just never considered it seriously. I didn't think it was possible. I remember military recruiters coming to school for lunch . Daily. And several of my friends enlisted in the army.

And so I too...became interested in aviation and the Marine Corps. Oho. I took their ASVAB test, got a high score, they even offered me a signing bonus and called me every day trying to convince me to sign the papers. And...Wow. They said: "You can choose any position." I chose...I decided that I would stop at the Air Force. The Marine Corps recruiter scared me. He was exactly what you'd expect—a real "duck" without brains. And the Air Force seemed to be a somewhat more intellectual branch of the military.

I chose this job and...I was very close to accepting. Oho. God, because at that time I had barely finished school. I had a very low GPA. I didn't really want to spend four years in college, and, you know, I knew I wanted to learn something or get into some kind of structured environment. And, I don't know , we lived in peacetime then, you know ? And then one morning I wake up, go downstairs to have breakfast. I'm talking to my dad. It's Saturday morning. I will never forget this.

And I said, " Dad," and I told him all the options I was thinking of. I was very confused and asked, "What should I do with my life? I could do this, I could do that." I say: "There is, you know, the option with the army, but four years of commitment—it seems to me that in four years I will be a completely different person ." And signing up for such a term looks pretty scary. And so, he looked at me and said, "Mark, you've always loved music.

Why don't you go to New York or Los Angeles and give it a try?" Oho. He says, "You can't make it here. You know, go to a big city. Try living there for a year. In a year, you'll know if you have what it takes. If you want to stay—well, you'll be young, you'll be 19. If you want to go to college or join the military, you can still do that." And when he said that, it was another epiphany. It was like ...when he said it out loud, I felt with my whole body that this was exactly what I had to do.

That's pretty amazing, I mean, as the father of a child who is going to college soon, I think those words from your father say a lot about him. And about the fact that he trusted you. He seemed to say: you're 18, go there. He essentially said: go ahead, try it, and if it doesn't work out, it's okay. While you're young, you can come back and sort things out later. One hundred percent. I mean, yeah, when I look back on that moment, you know, it was a conversation that changed my life forever.

He was a huge support to me through all the years of grueling work when I was trying to pay rent and all that. He was the person I called, he supported me all these years. And so, I think for him, it was also a way to change history, because he remembers winning an art contest as a little boy in first grade, and his teacher saying to his parents, " You know, Daniel has talent," and his father saying, "Yeah, but he'll never be able to make money from it." Yes.

And he remembers this sentence because it changed his attitude towards art. He went to business school at Indiana University, became an entrepreneur, went into business, then became a pastor, and started painting again when he retired at fifty. Oho. And he has been painting ever since. I think for him it was a moment when he was able to correct a mistake from his own childhood. I do n't know. I mean, I didn't talk to him about it directly, but I feel it. So, you're going to Los Angeles.

You are 18. First of all, where did you live? How did you pay for the rent? What did you do to earn money? And what part of Los Angeles were you in? I have many questions. Yes. So, I lived with my aunt and uncle in Sylmar. Of course. Is this the northern part or what? It's in the San Fernando Valley, but it's very far away. Yes. North Valley. Yes. I moved to Los Angeles with my best friend from school. So I wasn't alone. We lived with my aunt and uncle, and I remember wearing a suit and tie.

It was almost like a movie, you know? I would buy a newspaper, pick up a red marker, and feel like I was truly an adult, you know what I mean? I would take a red marker, look at job ads in newspapers or something like that. and a job posting, and I started going to different places, you know, interviewing , and my first job there was—I was selling Cutco kitchen knives. Cutco knives. Cutco knives. By the way, very good knives. Made in America. Very good knives. And then, you know, I started meeting people, I started playing, and I moved.

I wanted to play in a hardcore band . So we had to find band members. Yes, I wanted to play in a hardcore band, but I had no one to play with. And since no one was there, I brought my big electric guitar , amplifier and everything , but there was nowhere to play. But I had my father's acoustic guitar, which he gave me, and I missed music. So I had no one to play with. And I started writing songs on acoustic guitar, started using my voice again, instead of screaming, because screaming doesn't sound good on acoustic guitar.

And the first performances in Los Angeles, you know, I went to the Rainbow Room, where there was an open mic night, where the Hollywood Vampires club was meeting . There's a loft there, and they had an open mic night , those were my first shows in LA. When I started writing acoustic songs and performing there, it led to my first shows, and I was just obsessed with Jeff Buckley at the time. It was something like Americana, soulful, very sad ballads. Were these your own songs or did you do covers?

These were my songs. Yes . So I started changing my style a little bit. It was around 2001-2002, around that time. Yes. 2002, 2003. So, even though you wanted to play hardcore to get gigs, you were also into Jeff Buckley, and that's a completely different sound. I was just studying. I grew up , you know, in Cleveland. As I said, metal dominated there, it was a local scene. Yes. And so, when I first heard the new romantic music, when I moved to LA in 2002, the 80s were experiencing a revival.

And so, wherever you went, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, Tears for Fears were playing everywhere. That's when I first heard The Clash. I mean, this is KROQ, right? KROQ, unfortunately, is n't what it used to be, but I really grew up on it. Those bands like Depeche Mode were definitely there. OMD in the United States—thanks to this station. Oingo Boingo. Oingo Boingo. A band from Los Angeles. Yes. And around the same time, I don't know if this generation was rediscovering Buckley or if I was hearing him for the first time for real.

Yes. After all, he died in 1997. And now it was 2002, 2003. And "Hallelujah" was already known. Although not really. It seemed like it was at that time that many more people started discovering it. So I heard it for the first time right then . My friend had a bootleg of an acoustic version of “Grace” that he performed live at Sin-é. Of course. This was not an official recording of Live at Sin-é. Another one that I have been unable to find since. Ahem. I remember listening to that recording and trying to sing along to it.

And he's so tall, his falsetto, his voice—it's just incredible, so I... I sang at the top of my lungs in the car , listening to Buckley, trying to write my own songs and imitate him. This must have brought back my falsetto from my choir days, because I hadn't sung in a long time. Of course, my voice has changed since I was a kid, so I learned a lot about songwriting while working as a pizza delivery boy. I worked folding clothes at The Grove during the night shifts.

Ahem. It seems like it's at Gap or something. At Abercrombie & Fitch. Of course. I would get there at midnight at The Grove, fold my clothes, get everything ready for the next day, and leave when the sun came up. Was a telemarketer for Dish Satellite. I performed wherever I could and went to open mics. I performed at those parties and was simply obsessed with writing songs. I really tried, because I just couldn't sing and play well at the same time. I was obsessed with learning how to write a chorus.

Yes. Because I wrote songs. I started writing songs when I was 12 or 13, but I just put together parts, cool snippets, and put them together. But when I listened to certain artists who knew how to write choruses, I thought: what is that feeling when the music seems to soar? It's a feeling when everything becomes something transcendent. And I did n't know how to do it . So for the first year I was literally obsessed with the question: what is a chorus? What is the structure of songwriting?

How to achieve the same feeling? And then one day it dawned on me, and I remember it was almost like a light. It's like there 's a big map with a bunch of places, you're standing at the beginning, and suddenly the light turns on for a second , you see the whole map, and then it disappears again. Yes. That's what I felt when I wrote my first chorus, I thought, "Oh, I did it," it was a kind of epiphany, although it was still a long way from becoming natural and understandable to me.

That is, this was supposed to become your life for a certain time. Well, about six or seven years . I know that during that period it was n't just about work or paying rent, you kind of found yourself in a whirlwind of events at a certain point in your life. Tell me a little about what happened then. Yes . Uh, yes. Well, being a fairly innocent kid in Ohio, well, almost innocent, I guess, because I started using drugs back in Ohio. What else was there to do?

In small towns, especially because many of the drug culture at school intersected with creative people. And so, artists are my friends, and I didn't even know I was an artist. I just, I didn't know it until later, you know, but the way I thought, the way I was drawn to, my tastes were always a little on the edge. And so, you know, when I found that group of kids, um, because as the only kid growing up in a church and, you know, in something like a cult, I was always an outsider.

I've always , I've never felt like I belonged anywhere . I didn't belong to the church and I didn't belong anywhere else . Like me, I was alone. Um, but I deeply wanted to connect with people, you know, I just wanted to connect, I just didn't know how. And these are probably early prerequisites for becoming addicted, you know? It's like one of those things: if you talk to people who are addicted or in recovery, you know, they'll say, you'll hear this a lot, you know, that they were uncomfortable in their own skin.

And me too, of course. And so when I started drinking and started, um, you know, trying different things in high school, um, the fear started to go away and I started socializing. Suddenly I was able to communicate. Um, suddenly, you know, when I said something or made a joke, it was actually funny and didn't kill the atmosphere in the room. Um, and so, you know, the trip to Los Angeles, it was similar to that, but even more intense. And I think it's pretty early, uh, you know, yeah.

I mean, I became, you know, I was addicted. Was it the people you hung out with and just because you were in, I'm just imagining, I mean, you probably weren't in Sylar after all. I imagine you moved right into your own apartment. Well, there was, yeah, there was a group, there was a group of young Hollywood guys, you know, uh, that I met, and who were all doing pretty hard drugs and, um, and it was all completely normalized because they were all really great artists too.

Um, and so I didn't know, you know, it was a big adventure for me. I had no structure. It was the first time I was unstructured. It was the first time I had no rules. It was the first time I wasn't, you know, I was just, you could say, surviving. It was like the Ganzo years of Hunter S. Thompson, where honestly , looking back, we realize that our prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until we're 25. Yes. And so when I was 18, there were things and situations that I didn't think about or realize would affect me later.

It just seemed like it was all completely new. I guess that's how the world looks. I had nothing to compare it to. Yes. And um, but fortunately , there was always a part of me that watched and knew where the line was. And I was lucky, because I must have crossed that line many times, but I didn't die. I had friends who died. Um, and I, you know, got sober when I turned 20. So, you know, there were a few years that were pretty rough. I was saving up change to buy one hot dog at Pink's, like one of mine...this guy...I could cry just talking about it.

I went to Pink's Hot Dogs. I think I had , you know, literally less than $20 in my bank account , a little bit of change, and I went to Pink's. I was standing in line. There was a long line, I reached the beginning and ordered a hot dog. And, um, the guy says it's, you know, $3 or something. And I'm going to pay with a card, knowing that I have, like, 15 or 20 dollars. And he says, " Sorry, we only accept cash." And I'm like, "Okay." And he says, "Don't worry, there 's an ATM nearby." I go to the ATM, but I can't withdraw less than $20.

And, you know, when I was ordering, I think I had tears in my eyes, he saw it and didn't say anything else. He says, "What do you want, kid? You want a couple of hot dogs with mustard?" And I'm like, "Of course." And it was just an act of kindness at a time when I was going through a really hard time. It was strict, you know. And I... When I look back on all that, I think that somehow, miraculously, barely holding on, — and going back to mysticism and spirituality, — I feel that God was protecting me at that time.

Yes. Because I survived, although, of course, not without scars. I have plenty of them, you know. But the thing is, when you go through such difficult times , it's like clearing the bottom of a lake: when your heart opens, it creates space for compassion. It creates space for wisdom, it creates space for growth. And as a songwriter , I, I've come to understand the diversity of humanity better, seeing different sides of people: people who live on the streets, people in various stages of mental illness, people who are, you know, successful but deeply unhappy, people who are, you know, children who are full of optimism.

Children who are full of hope, despite living in very difficult circumstances, trying to survive as artists. You know, there were a lot of things that I encountered in those early years that really shaped the way I think and the way I relate to people now. Mark D., that's amazing, because imagine that story, it was probably in 2004 or 2005 at Pinks? This was probably in 2002 or 2003. This was about a year or two after arriving. Yes, because I was sober until 2004, and that was when things started to change for me .

During that period. I mean, it's incredible to imagine that at that time you had no idea that seven years later you would have a song at number three on the Billboard 100. It's really hard to imagine because you couldn't even predict it at the time. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But I have to assume that your parents were very worried about you. What did they know about your circumstances at the time ? By then, they knew I wasn't feeling well because it was noticeable: when I first came to visit them, I weighed 125 pounds (57 kg).

Ovva. Ahem. So they knew, even though I tried to hide it. Yes. Ahem. Therefore, they somewhat limited their communication with me. My mom would send me, you know, $ 50 or $100 grocery cards. Mhm. Well, she, you know, she would support me in this. But, uh, no, they didn't...I didn't talk, I didn't want to scare them, and I also didn't want to look like I was failing . So I hid it from them until I got sober, and then I started opening up more. My dad knows everything.

Uh, sometime when I was, you know, delivering pizzas , or just because it was pretty early on, around the age of 20-21, the first label showed interest in signing me. And, uh, but then nothing worked out, you know, and then this next phase started: feeling like something was supposed to happen, and then nothing happened, and you had to pick yourself back up, go back to delivering pizza, go back to being a barista or something. Uh, and then trying to work , you know, writing a whole new bunch of songs, putting together a new band, putting together a new show, putting together what...

because the whole thing about being, you know, a beginner, uh, without any industry contacts or help, is that you have to learn to be your own manager, your own agent, your own booking agent, your own... you have to make your own flyers. You have to learn all these different aspects of the business. And this, you know, is a lot of work. And it's like, uh, how do I find a representative? How to get...it's simple, you know, it's really complicated. Eh, but I stubbornly kept going .

And going back to my dad being there, supporting me—there were hours and hours, uh, of just calling him with tears in my eyes, trying to figure out what to do next, and that emotional support really gave me strength. Have you had, so to speak, that same dreamy lucky chance? Was there something that changed everything, or did it happen gradually? Well, there were things that gradually built up, like when I was 23, I got a call from the head of A&R at Aftermath. I will never forget that day.

Um, because I was working as a barista at ALOV in Los Feliz, and I got a call saying, " Dr. Dre wants to see you right now." Um, can you come to the studio and play for him? How did he even find out about you? Because my manager at the time , I showed him some songs. I had an early demo and I played the song live for a guy named Lonnie Jackson, who went on to become the head of A&R; he was a songwriter, and I was playing a lot of soul music on the piano back then.

Aha. And um, that's why Lonnie brought me in to write for Detox initially, when Dre was working on Detox. And so, um, I was really excited because I just wanted to be a songwriter. And, you know, working with Dre... I was already producing myself and doing a bunch of weird, slightly glitchy electronic stuff that was a result of my early days listening to Aphex Twin, but combining that with New Romantic, mixing genres and experimenting in all these spaces. Yes. So I left. You know, I left the coffee shop.

I asked my manager, "Hey, this is going to sound really weird, but Dr. Dre wants to hear me play right now." Is it possible for someone to replace me on shift? And he said: " Mark, don't worry." " I can handle everything." "Go, good luck." And I remember driving my '93 Camry, which at that time no longer had a muffler, the windows were taped shut, and the air conditioning wasn't working . Um, all dented— it was my mom's car that she gave me. And I was driving down Laurel Canyon in traffic, just trying to get to Record One Studios.

Um, and then he went in and played for Dre, and he was like, " Dude, I love this." "Can you play that again?" And I'm like, "So I played it for him again." And he says, "I really want you to play for Jimmy." And he arranged a meeting with Jimmy Iovine. So I brought my Casio synthesizer to Interscope, to Jimmy's office, and played for him. And then Jimmy said, he's like, "You know, Dre ...Dre—he's such a control freak." "He won't let me play." He won't let me hear any other songs.

Like, can you just play that one again ? He just wants you to play this one. So I played him the song again, and, uh, he's like, " Listen, I want to hear more." "I want you to do a demo in my studio here at Anderscope." “You can use her, record four songs,” it was effectively a demo deal. And at that time, Aftermath wanted me to make a record in the style of Raphael Sadik. They wanted a soul record, and that scared me. On the one hand, it was exciting, but on the other hand, I wrote “I would do anything for you” at that moment, which eventually ended up on Foster the People’s first album .

Oho. And I was doing something else that I was passionate about, so I kind of backed out, the deal fell through, and I went back to the coffee shop. And they wanted you to write music for them, right? Well, actually, that's how it was. When I first came there, it was under the pretext that I would be writing for Detox. And when I was there, they put me at the piano to play my own. And a few weeks later, I was called back to play for Dre as an artist.

They wanted to sign me as an artist. I think in answer to your original question, I told this story because there were little things along the way, because when you play for Dre, there's a buzz in the industry and people start wondering who you are and what's going on. But then everything quieted down, and the darkest year of my life was the age of 25. I broke up with that manager. There was no noise around me. I performed in New York for Epic and Island Def Jam.

You were solo, it was you and the guitar, right? That was me, and I prepared for Island Def Jam and Epic. I put together a trio, and we performed simply under the name Foster . Of course. And this, you said, was at the age of 25 . It was the darkest year. That was the year my dream actually died, around 2009, I think. Yes. I lived in Los Angeles for seven years. Yes. And I found myself in this difficult situation where everyone in the industry already knew who you were , and it was like, “Oh, yeah , I know Mark.

I really like Mark. You are no longer a shiny new toy. You are not something they can discover. This is not exciting. And you just exist somehow. No forward movement. And I broke off relations with that manager and planned to move. I was very disappointed because I felt like I was wasting my youth chasing a dream that would never come true. And I was going to move, I had a plan. I wanted to move to Turkey. It was Turkey, London or Berlin. It was three cities that I and just trying to make it as a musician or what?

No, just live. Just live. I would have taken the studio with me, but I just needed to get out of this industry and make a change. And I just wanted to escape from everything. And that year, I remember, I moved -- I was living in Silver Lake at the time , barely making rent, working in a coffee shop, so I moved to Hollywood to a $400 a month apartment. Mhm. Looking back, it now seems like something like the Chelsea Hotel on the West Coast. So much so that Joe Dallesandro, from the days of the "Factory", was the manager there.

And, wow . It was such a strange building where everyone smoked and all sorts of characters lived there. And quite literal characters, like from Hollywood Boulevard. I would come home and there would be Shrek, Freddy Krueger, and Charlie Chaplin smoking cigarettes in the foyer. And I started saving money to move to Turkey. And I remember praying throughout that year, saying, God, I'm leaving. So if there's any reason why you want me to stay in LA, you're going to have to stop me, because I'm leaving, you know?

And, uh, I got a call from a company in Venice called Monics, uh, it's a music studio, and they basically brought me in as a full-time composer to do music for commercials, and I agreed to, you know, and that was the turning point that kept me in Los Angeles. I was able to stop working at the coffee shop. Yes, I started writing songs. When everyone went home, I stayed. I had a tiny studio where I, you know, basically wrote drafts. And that's when I started writing these drafts and got a few advertising jobs, which meant I had some money.

And that '93 Toyota Camry finally broke down. You wrote, I think, for Honey Bunches of Oats. You wrote jingles for Verizon, right? Me, I don't remember them all. I remember. Yes. Verizon. There was one for Muscle Milk that was, uh, well, based on some song that Tarantino used in Kill Bill, I remember that was their, well, you know, their signature song or something. And you were creating it, uh, well, you were just writing the whole track, writing it , the lyrics and, well, or maybe there weren't always lyrics, but you were writing the music.

Without words. Yes, only music. Just a score. And then around that time, uh, well, that's when I got this feeling, uh, like I had the wind in my sails again, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to give this another shot, and this time when I get the band together, we won't , I won't pay attention to the industry. I won't try to find a manager. I wo n't do anything like that. We'll just stick to the basics. We will play live. We will, I will write good songs, and we will give concerts.

Mm. And just don't complicate it. And, uh, about two months after Foster the People started, when we started rehearsing together a little bit, I wrote "Pumped Up Kicks." Mm. And about a month after I wrote it, uh, it got licensed, or we put it out for free for some event during Fashion Week, and it got on the Hype Machine, and, uh, and our lives changed. It was a demo. I mean, it was a record that you released. This is Well, the demo that you...Yes. What you're hearing now is the same demo.

Yes. And, actually, the other guys in the band, Mark and Jacob, did you meet them after you wrote most of the material for Torches? No, I had known Mark for several years and knew that if I ever formed a band again, I wanted him to be the drummer. But he was in a band called Malbeck, was very committed to it, although sometimes we played together just for fun. But that band was breaking up just when I was talking to him about the possibility of creating something of my own.

And then, you know, I met Jacob about six months before that through mutual friends, and I just knew that he and Mark would get along , so I actually set them up . And so, that was, you know, the beginning of it all . I think within a few months of this song coming out, it, or I do n't know how long it was , appeared on "Entourage ," on the TV series "Entourage." I don't remember how quickly it became popular, but it was definitely a few months after release, right?

Yes, I think it was... Yes, it was at the very beginning. Yeah, you're right . Yes, this was the first time this song was licensed, because actually, it seems to have been in 2011 when it reached number three on the Billboard charts. Yes. I don't remember if it was the 11th or 12th year, but it was definitely a gradual success, and I...Yes. Were you surprised by the reception of this song and the fact that it became such a huge hit? I mean, it was a really huge, colossal hit.

And I guess I've asked similar questions to other people and gotten different answers, but could you have predicted this, did you think the song would be this successful? Absolutely not. No, not at all. No. No idea. No idea. I was shocked. No, we weren't ready either. We had only played, I think, two shows when it all blew up, so I was actually really scared. Because I thought: we're not ready for this, and requests are coming from everywhere. All these demands are impossible to refuse. I remember when SNL called and I told the manager, " No, no way, we're not ready." And he replied: "Listen, I understand." He said, "But just keep in mind that this is SNL." "You may never have a chance like this again ." "This call may never come again." And I thought, "You're right." Good.

Uh, you know, I guess we'll agree . But for the next two and a half years, we rowed as hard as we could, trying not to lose everything, because it was a great opportunity. But that song was an anomaly, it became popular faster than people had time to learn about the band. So the biggest challenge for us at that time was to tour a lot to show people that we are not just one song. Yes. We needed people to hear other songs from the Torches album .

So when the song's popularity waned, we still had an audience . So how did you manage to ...well, yeah. I mean , how were you even able to... handle this? How can you ... it just crush me? On the one hand, it's amazing, right? All this success and attention, but on the other hand—you suddenly find yourself in a wheel that doesn't stop. Yes. I don't know if I've really managed it. Yes. You know, I was drunk during that tour. I did everything I could to ...you know, people aren't made for fame.

We are not adapted to this. Nothing can prepare us for this. The only thing is... And I think this is often noticeable, especially in child actors, because they don't have the defense mechanisms to deal with that much attention and pressure. But, you know, even as adults...I, fortunately, had to work hard for seven years , and, you know, it's both a blessing and a curse at the same time, but I've always felt the "imposter syndrome ." I always felt like everything could disappear at any moment, although the positive thing here is that you start working very hard.

Yes. This is motivating, because the " impostor syndrome" is an illusion, right? It's unrealistic, but it makes you think you have to prove it. So in a way, this can be an incentive. This can be a real engine. Of course. But I think in the end it was a real gift. My life has changed. My life...it was truly a great gift. You know, when I talk to young artists about that particular period, from 25 to 26 years old, that was the darkest year, when my dream died.

And sometimes, I think, it's necessary for a dream to die, because with it, your fear dies too. Yes. So when I started those early days with Foster the People, everything I was afraid of or didn't want to do, like performing live on stage—I'm a studio rat. I love to create. I love being in the studio and writing songs, you know? I had to learn how to perform live. And at that moment, it felt like there was nothing left . My fear died and we just did whatever was necessary.

So yes . How do you...uh, let me...I'm interested in stepping away from our story for a moment to talk to you about songwriting and the process of making music, because I think it's very complicated, isn't it? And can we talk about this in the context of your new record, which seems to be 10 or 11 tracks, how do you even get to this stage? Do you come into the studio with sketches or ideas for 50, maybe 100 songs? Usually, well, for this record, there were probably 70 to 100 sketches.

Mm. Um, and overall, I think that's what my process is. I've done it in many different ways, and I think there are pros and cons to each form of songwriting. But my favorite method, which I eventually came to, is when I do sketches: I sit down and I don't know what I'm going to play. I am open to everything . Um, I pick up some instrument, or, often I start with drums. So, often I start with a drum beat. Yes . And, um, not always, but no matter what instrument it is, I start just banging on it, like a child, like a five-year-old, right?

And I just react to it and write it down as I go . So I try to get into a state of flow. I try to reject everything rational, everything that seems evaluative, everything that seems like criticism: is it cool or not, is it interesting, or anything like that. I try to put all that aside and just enter a very innocent, expressive state. And usually when I create, it's really crazy. When the flow state comes , everything happens very quickly. So, I have a beat. I'll take the bass guitar .

I do the same thing on bass, and when I just improvise over the drums, a lot of false notes come out. I don't appreciate any of this . I'm not trying to play well. I'm not trying to be cool. I'm not trying to create something interesting or anything. I just try to grab the tail of the song, wherever it wants to go, and I try to support it. So, yes. The song starts to emerge, the mood starts to emerge, and I try to support that mood.

And then I start adding notes, like this frequency or this type of synthesizer, or this sound, or something that will emphasize or support this mood that is emerging. Yes. And then it's essentially the atmosphere of the verse and chorus. I catch a vibe, then section B comes along , I turn on the microphone and do the same thing, improvise, just record without words, nothing specific, just the sounds of improvisation, percussion moments. And it often happens that when this outline is ready, I don't finish the song, when the flow state passes, I sign it, hide it on the hard drive, and thanks to this process, somewhere from 70 to 100 ideas accumulate.

It's pretty easy to figure out which ones have the same spark. When you're like, "Oh, there 's something special here," when you just feel, "I'll definitely come back to this," there's something real and unusual about it. And then, you know, for that we went to East West. There were many sketches. We wrote all the sections and then started normal recording. Some songs were unfinished, so we created parts right in the studio while recording. I love recording while writing because I've tried so many times to catch up with the demo, to recreate the spirit of the demo with better quality, and it's very frustrating and almost impossible, because there's magic in the demo , because it's the moment of birth of something.

I don't know if there's such a word, but do you know what I mean? Yes. Yes. When the seed of something begins to come to life, if we can capture it in that moment, there's an electricity, a spirit, and it feels like everything is about to fall apart. Where do you get ideas for lyrics? After all, many of your songs are very visual. They're more like mini-stories. Well, most of the songs are songs about love or inspired by it. Almost any pop song or rock 'n' roll is essentially about love.

Of course, 20 percent are not, but the majority are like that . And I wonder what you get when you put words on paper. Usually the process is the same as with music: I turn on the microphone. I don't know what the melody will be, the concept, and I don't have any pre- written lyrics. and then I just start improvising to the music for the first time, because I'm trying to capture my first instincts. I loop it and sing it in circles, it's mostly a rant, but in reality I'm trying to turn off my inner critic .

to let the little child that lives inside come out, uh, and play, and, uh, often, uh, words start to emerge on their own, and, uh, sometimes whole phrases emerge. It's almost like, uh , a subconscious process, and it gives me a path, a roadmap. uh, what is this song about? Uh, or even if I don't know what she's about, I sense her mood and then use skill to start and end the verses. And uh and sometimes, you know, I fully understand what she's talking about only afterwards.

like, for example, thematically on this new album. It wasn't like I...there were real themes that emerged that opened up to me after the album was finished, that I didn't realize, uh, while writing. Are there things when you reflect on a track or see people's reactions that give it a different meaning or make you rethink it? I mean, if we go back to Pumped Up Kicks for a moment. There was a very strong reaction because it seemed very relevant. It seemed to resonate very strongly. It was a social...it was n't really a criticism, but more of an observation about the world we live in, and a lot of people took it as a social commentary about school shootings, violence, or whatever.

Uh, when you heard people's reactions like that , did it seem to you that they were misinterpreting it , or that they were perceiving it differently, or were you interested in that reaction? I went through different, I guess, stages of my feelings, you know, about this song. Uh, I think the fact that we still talk about it is something I now appreciate; I'm glad to be part of something that is still controversial. Yes. Uh, and this is just one of those songs where, uh, when I talk about, you know, whole phrases that come out of the subconscious.

That whole , that whole, that whole first verse, the recording you hear was the first time I sang it, and all those words came from a state of flow. I didn't have anything written down and didn't know until I sang it that it would be a story written from that perspective. I had a chorus, you know, I had a chorus written, but for me it started as a metaphor. All the other kids better, you know, better run away from my gun. My gun, you know, it was actually like a confidence.

It's a metaphor just like I think, confidence, you know, I have, I have something cool. I have it , run away from my gun. I have, you know, I'm like, oh well. It was, it wasn't supposed to be anything literal. But then , when I started singing the first verse and "Robert's Got a Quick Hand" burst out, suddenly I started watching myself singing it, and it was like the story was unfolding itself to me. And it took on a completely different form, because it became concrete, and it started to sort of get into the head of, you know, a child who had, well, I don't know.

I mean, I don't really want to embellish this, because the truth is, I, like I said, I was an observer of this as much as I was a co-author. It wasn't something I can necessarily attribute to myself. Although I did it. But I think society, from the perspective of the muses, what I like to write about, culture is one of them. That's why I like to be on the same wavelength with culture. I read the news every day. I watch trends. I'm trying to see where it's all going.

I am attracted to art that is not always comfortable. Yes. And I think it's really important for art to provoke truth or point out uncomfortable truths in society that, you know, maybe make you think, or you walk away having learned something new, or it's a different perspective than what you've heard before. And I feel like the movie does that very well. Mmm. Of course, literature has done this, and music has done this to varying degrees, but it's also interesting to me. This is something that music, you know, is doing less and less.

I think, you know, in the 60s she played a huge, just a huge role. And I mean, there are different moments in history when music became a kind of tool for social change. And this is happening now, I think, like, for example, Donald Glover from "This is America." Yes. There are artists who do this. But I think people perceive music in a completely different category for some reason. Maybe she is treated with more respect. If there's something that feels...like you've been tricked, like it was with "Pumped Up Kicks," people eventually started to feel...that it was a Trojan horse.

It took the culture some time to realize. what the song was about, and they started to connect it to their own stories. But you know how it happens...I don't know, I just wrote it and let it go. I didn't make it popular, you know? I just wrote it. I'm curious about your new album, because you mentioned that you follow the news, trends, and what people are talking about. Are there any of these themes on this album? I know I heard you hint that a lot of this , as you mentioned, is inspired by the sound of the 70s .

And even the place where you recorded it, right? But even the very title “Paradise State of Mind”—we live in times of great anxiety, right? No matter where you are on the political spectrum, there is all kinds of anxiety. Yes. A lot of polarization. And I'm sure you see it when you drive back from Los Angeles to Ohio. This is just a difficult moment. I don't think I'm saying anything that anyone might disagree with. This is simply a difficult moment in our history for many reasons. We are just very divided, polarized.

And there are various reasons or explanations for why this happened. How much do you think that influenced the way you wrote this album? Oh my god, very strong. Um, it was actually a very difficult album to make for that very reason. Um, because I didn't want to write just anything. Um, well, I had to think really long and hard about what I wanted to create and why. Yes. Um, you know, responsibility, I guess, is part of being an artist, and I could write about a hundred different things.

I could have made this album in a thousand different keys. Um, you know, I was once going to record a punk album and go all out . Um, but I kept stopping, and what I came to was that I wanted to create something that was truthful but optimistic. Um, you know, we live in an era where fear is everywhere. Fear has become a commodity. When we pick up our phones, and you know, clickbait—it's everywhere, it's sensationalized and it's, um... You know, one tragedy after another, and it makes a lot of money for advertisers, and, you know, it fuels stories for the media to...

Well, to talk about it , until the story loses relevance, and then the next tragedy comes along and the culture becomes obsessed with it, so we just go from one to the next. And um, and this, and because of this, we are divided, as far as I'm concerned. Um, so without getting too deep into it all, for me as a songwriter, music is a real healing. Music can be used in different ways, um, but for me, my own journey in this, you know, was getting sober again.

This is kind of a 20-year theme. Well, I guess my whole life, but... Yeah, I got sober in 2018, when we did our last tour, and I took a break, rested. I stepped back from music because I really needed to look deep inside myself and do some inner work, to get my attitude towards music, towards myself, and towards the world in order. And, um, sometime around that time, 2016-2017, maybe even 2015, this new wave of fear and division began, I think. Oh, yeah, and the world hasn't felt the same since .

Mhm. So, while preparing for this album, I experienced a creative crisis for several years because I was afraid to write honestly, about culture, because I didn't know how. This seemed dangerous, as artists were attacked for any opinion that did not fit within the framework of a certain ideology. So, if you weren't completely left or completely right , you were in the middle as an independent thinker and you were getting hit on from both sides. Yes. I had to stop and think about it, and when I went to London with Julia, she was doing a movie there.

This is your wife, Julia Garner. My wife. Yes. And, uh ... who is an actress, and a great actress at that. She starred in Ozark and other projects. But keep going. Sorry, just for those who don't know. Yes. She was filming a movie in England. We had been stuck at home for two years because of the pandemic, and it was my first time abroad, so I went with her. We spent about three months there, and I reconnected with Paul Epworth, who worked on our second album, part of the first, and he's like an older brother and an old friend to me.

I called him about two weeks before arriving. He said: “I will be in London. I'd like to meet up, and if you want, let's make some music just for fun." And he's like: "Come in." So I came to his studio, which is called "The Church." She is in Crouch End. And on the very first day, he invited Jack Pate, who I had been a fan of for a long time , but we had never met. Mm. The three of us picked up our instruments, started playing, and it turned into the title track, " Paradise State of Mind." For me, it was a real cleansing, because I was self- absorbed, isolated, had done a lot of inner work, but felt completely disconnected from reality because I had almost disappeared from social media.

We didn't tour. I did a lot of work on self-identification to separate myself from my status as a band member. Yes. Just being Mark, a human, and feeling so small, like my skin was turned inside out, very vulnerable and almost agoraphobic. And when I met Paul and Jack, they radiated love and kindness, they are both very deep, philosophical people, we talked a lot, and Paul really put me at ease. He simply said, "Dude, you can write about anything." You know, art is a space where you can express whatever you want.

Yes. And it is a truly safe space. You just, well, be brave. You, you're okay. It's okay, dude. I support you, understand? And it opened up something that had been building up inside me for a long time; I settled into Studio B at the church for three months and wrote about half the album with an engineer before going to Los Angeles and finishing it with the guys at East West. But going back to the world, there's one song that I think talks about sensationalism. This is the opening song on the album.

It's called " See you in the afterlife." Mhm. It's quite poignant at times and touches on several cultural phenomena happening right now. But most of the album was about my internal struggle with, well, my own perception. In fact, the state of mental paradise is the perception that in recovery and in everything I did with myself, everything comes down to perception. Is this how I want to look at things? If I focus on something, on fear, it becomes bigger. If I somehow organize myself, communicate with others, try to be useful, try to stay in touch with a higher power through prayer and meditation.

It brings to mind all the other things that could easily throw me off track. You know, all those hours in the woods of Cleveland when I was a kid, lost in my own imagination. My imagination is a dangerous place. I can easily read something on the internet, fall down a rabbit hole for a few hours, stay awake, and be completely terrified. So it's really important for me to come back to reality and realize that there are many things happening around me that I can't control. Yes.

What I can control right now, besides the people in my life that I love, my family and friends, and just being around them—is the musical part, it's the message that I can deliver, reconnect with the fans, and create. My intention in recording this record was to write something full of hope, for myself, but also for others. Despite everything that happens, there are miracles in the world , there is beauty in the world . There is a beauty in our connection, and that is one of the coolest things about live performances: hundreds or thousands of people coming together in one space, coming from different walks of life, to have the same experience at the same time.

There's this energy exchange between the stage and the audience, and it's, you know, something spiritual. It is, and we need it. People need this, you know? We need to connect with each other, feel love, and be in a place where there is no judgment. And as we get ready to go on tour again, I feel like it will be just as good for me. This will be beneficial for the band and for all the people we meet along the way. Because, in my opinion, people need reassurance and reminders that the world is beautiful.

There are a lot of cool things happening in the world. Art is something special, and not everyone around you wants to harm you. And you know, while working on this album, I delved deeper into myself musically than I ever had before. What we explored was mostly analog sound. There's live brass, live strings, and, you know, there's an incredible flute solo. There are all these things that contribute to the fact that we have never created anything like this before . So doing this live and stepping into this new space feels like a new chapter.

It all feels new. That's great, Mark. Congratulations on the album and thank you very much for coming to the show. Hey, thanks for inviting me. I am sincerely grateful . Hello, thanks for watching my conversation with Mark Foster of Foster the People. Their new album is called Paradise State of Mind and we'll leave a link to it in the description below. If you want to see more videos like this, subscribe to the channel. We publish a new conversation every week, and of course, we are also an audio podcast.

So if you want to listen to this show, just search for The Great Creators on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you usually listen to podcasts. I'm Guy Ross, and this was a project by The Great Creators from Builted Productions. Thank you very much for watching. And see you here next time.