#ftpquote

Usually I like to have a track ready and a clear idea of what I want and then just write the vocals, but on this one, I came [to the studio] with nothing prepared. Just my computer, me, and Mark, and we wrote the song from scratch. It was actually my birthday, so we celebrated. It was the best time.

The room had been buzzing in their absence, “Are they going to play ‘Pumped Up Kicks’? They’ve got to!” The band re-entered, and Foster asked us if we’d seen the news this morning. Another school shooting had been reported this morning in Seattle. More people were dead and injured. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. It’s only going to get worse. So instead of playing that song Foster asked for a moment of silence. It took a few seconds for the fuzzy guitars and amps to fade out and the crowd to truly comprehend. And they took a moment of silence. The beautiful, gilded, ecclesiastical venue became a vacuum. Foster The People let the silence extend as long as the crowd would allow it. Disappointingly, it was broken by the ignorant, testosterone-fueled, blindly patriotic chant of “U.S.A.”. Our love of America isn’t the answer to violence against humanity. As Foster had expressed, we are the answer. Humanity is the answer. If we want a change, our silence must become words – demands for change. “We make the laws.” We have the voice. We the people.

If you put out a great single without a great album, you're gonna live and die by that single. People don't have any sort of loyalty or connection to you if you're just putting out vapid singles.

“Fame is such a weird concept,”...“It’s sort of intangible. … Really it’s a bizarre process to be striving for something, attain it, then have the whole world around you change – but you’re still kind of the same in the middle of it.”

“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,”

“This record is much more about confronting your thoughts and being introspective”