Foster the People Quotes
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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.
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I play guitar, bass, drums, piano, and pretty much any sort of stringed instrument - besides violin or cello.
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There's a lot of bands that blow up quickly, but then they die quickly. Longevity is the healthy thing; that's the pursuit.
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I like to write about real-life topics, and I like to write about different walks of life.
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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.'
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We're not trying to be a mega-pop-band, but we also wouldn't be opposed to selling millions of records, either.
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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.
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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.
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I write in character a lot.
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A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.
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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.
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I write songs based on things I see in the culture around me.
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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.
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We need to do a better job of loving each other beyond race, beyond belief, beyond our difference.
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I didn't want to be a soul singer.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Writing for other people is easier than writing for myself - it's not as personal.
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I don't like to write the same song twice.
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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.
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I'm not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on 'American Idol.'
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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.
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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.