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.
Music is the great equalizer.
I think my inner child wants to take over the world.
I feel like my calling is to show people joy: to make them feel like there's something to look forward to.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
When I put Foster The People together, I just wanted to play music with friends.
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.
Every single song on 'Torches' was a little self-contained pop song, so there wasn't any fat on the songs; there wasn't a lot to cut.
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.
A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.
'Torches' flowed together with interesting intros and outros. It was all very natural.
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.
I don't consider myself an entertainer. I consider myself an artist, and I think with that comes responsibility.
I was rambunctious - a boy's boy, full of energy. I wasn't a bad kid. I just liked to talk.
I'm not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on 'American Idol.'
We need to do a better job of loving each other beyond race, beyond belief, beyond our difference.
I realized probably when I was, like, 20 years old that the hardest thing to do is to write a pop song - not, like, a candy-pop, throwaway pop song.
