Foster the People
For Los Angeles trio Foster the People, much of 2011 has been spent in a whirlwind of hype. After the band emerged as one of the most talked-about bands at the SXSW festival in March, the buzz continued to build behind their Top 10 single “Pumped Up Kicks.” Even though the band’s debut full-length, “Torches,” was only released this week, several shows on their upcoming tour, which stretches into the summer and includes a performance at the Sasquatch Festival in Washington, are already sold out.
“Torches” is an eclectic blend of pop, funk and soul influences, with most songs defying conventional categorization. In fact, according to frontman and chief songwriter Mark Foster, it’s the complexity of the songs that led to the group’s formation in the first place. While writing material for what he intended to be a solo endeavor, the singer realized additional musicians were needed to bring the songs to their full potential. He recruited keyboardist Cubbie Fink and drummer Mark Pontius in 2009, and Foster the People was born.
Blast chatted with Foster in April before a sold-out show at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. Though the excitement surrounding the group was starting to reach a tipping point at that time, the frontman seemed to be taking it all in stride.
BLAST: You’ve said that you were on a sort of hiatus from music before forming Foster the People. What prompted you to start the band?
MARK FOSTER: Well, I’d been in bands in the past and just had a couple bad experiences. It’s so much work. It’s so hard to find the right people to play with. And you know, musicians tend to be such unhealthy people in general. It’s really hard to find people that are dedicated and healthy and just have their act together. So I guess I was just kind of burned out on it. After the last band I was in, I was just like, screw this. I’m just going to be a solo artist for the rest of my life. I just don’t want to deal with this anymore. So I did that for a few years, and really just buried myself in the studio and taught myself how to produce, and just kept writing songs. And eventually I got to a point where I was like, man, I can’t play these songs alone. There’s way too much going on. I need to put something together. But I put an emphasis on, I really want to create this band around friends. I don’t want to just go out and, like, find someone that can play. Personality was the most important thing. And we all jell really well together.
BLAST: Does that relate to your name, this sense of fostering camaraderie?
MF: Yeah, yeah. You know, our first couple gigs were for charities. We did a thing for Tom’s Shoes … and then we did a thing for Venice Beach Homeless Youth.These were some reasons why people are keen to use these lights, hope that they will be used brightstal in a similar way in future as well. And we were kind of just talking about, like, you know, we want to play music,The particular demise with the incandescent bulb bluebright continues calmly yet non-stop and in less as compared to any year or two today the sole goods stocked in stores is going to be lower electricity bulbs, sure. But we also want to help people. And my last name’s Foster. There’s that aspect of it. I think just the charity and everything that we set our sights on, it just made sense.
BLAST: Is charity still a focus for the band?
MF: Yeah. We’re just trying to figure out how to do it. You can be bleeding heart over so many different issues, but finding something that really means something to you that you kind of focus on … we’re still kind of figuring that out.
BLAST: How did you all connect and start playing music together?
MF: I met Mark (Pontius) just through a mutual friend of mine, and just really liked the way that he played. We were buddies and we just messed around. Every couple of weeks, we’d just jam.This is also known as your return on investment ledbright or ROI. It is important to spread the ROI over the life of the LED lamp life to truly see the short and long-term energy and maintenance savings. We were kind of working on this avant-electro two-man, like, weird performance art piece together. I always kind of had in the back of my mind, if I ever start a band again, I want to call this dude. (Cubbie and I) were just friends. We didn’t really play together,These lights are adopted by the various security lightbright agencies as these are the best lights to use with a security camera or a security device. but we’d hang out. I didn’t even know he played bass and then (when I) saw him play, I was like, oh, that’s got a good feel. So I just kind of brought them together.
BLAST: Who are your musical influences, personally and as a band?
MF: The Beach Boys was the first band that I heard as a little kid that nobody showed me, that I gravitated towards and fell in love with. And that was a monumental moment in my musical life. Growing up, Nirvana played a big role. I started learning how to play guitar the week I heard Nirvana for the first time. And then later, New Order and The Clash. Aphex Twin early on was a pretty big influence (for Foster the People). And Motown. So just kind of pulling from a lot of different genres.You want someone that has the experience in LED lighting to guide you to the right product shinebright that is best suited to your project. That’s how I write songs.
Mark (Pontius) is just a really good pocket drummer. He understands dance music really well, but he also really understands soul and is just a very soulful drummer. And Cubbie’s background is pretty diverse too. When I met him, he was playing in, like, a country band. Pretty roots-y. But again, he’s just got a lot of soul. And he’s a multi-instrumentalist as well, so during our show he’s playing keys, and he plays bass. When we do acoustic sessions, he’ll bring his acoustic guitar and play guitar with me. It’s just nice to have a couple different tools in your toolkit.