Pumped Up Kicks, Houdini, Henela Beat — the band responsible for these musical successes is finally coming to Bangkok as part of their promotional tour for their third album Sacred. Hearts Club.
Indie pop-rock band Foster the People, which will play tomorrow at Moonstar Studio, has been coming up with new tracks that mix genres and influences — drawing upon hiphop and dance music but still maintaining its defining pop edge. But before any of us have a chance to hear them at Lat Phrao 80, Muse had a chat with singer Mark Foster.
So how did this album come about?
It was really about art and creativity and artists in the past that have lived outside the lines — artists like Patti Smith, Hunter S. Thompson, Basquiat and Andy Warhol. It’s about those types of people and the way they lived their lives. It was important for us to make a joyful record, with everything that’s been happening around the world. There’s a lot of tension. We asked ourselves the question ‘as an artist, what
is our job right now?’, ‘what can we bring to the table?’. Joy is the best weapon against oppression. We wanted to create something that would take people out of their own lives, out of their problems and give them a space to be free.
The songs in the album don’t belong to one particular genre. They’re also quite a transition from your previous records.
For us, freedom to create is really our mantra. We didn’t have any rules, we didn’t want to let commerce get in the way of what we were doing. When we were writing, we just chased ideas as they came, whether it be pop, 60s psychedelic, electronic or punk. Whatever came up in the room, we wanted to honour it. Several songs on the record are influenced by hip-hop and dance music while others were more psychedelic and rock. At first we thought about separating them but after having a conversation among us, we decided to include them in one record. I think that the music we grew up listening to was diverse. A lot of people who love music don’t love just one style of music. We just let it flow.
It’s the first album for which two of your touring members are credited as part of the band. Was there more involvement from their side in the creation of the record and what changes did that bring?
Yes, for sure. Isom Innis pretty much wrote the entire record with me. We locked ourselves in a room for nearly a year. He’s a drummer and makes beats so the hip-hop, electronic tracks started with the beats that he made and he’d give it to me. I would approach it as more of a songwriter — songs like Pay The Man or Sid And Nancy. Those all kind of started with beats that he made.
Will you keep taking a new direction with each album?
To be honest, when I first started the band, I wanted every record to be a new direction. It interests me to explore. I love all kinds of music and it’s fun for me as a writer to tackle different genres and different styles, try to combine them and approach them in a way that hasn’t happened before. For some of our fans, it’s probably hard for them to swallow. Our second record was very different from the first. But after the third, they’re going to start realising that we will keep changing and expect something different
every time. I’m already thinking about the fourth record. For me, every album is a book and every song is a chapter in that book. But when we cut 25 years from now and look back at all the records that we’ve put out, I think that is going to be the bigger book.
After your success with the first album, was there a lot of pressure prior to releasing the second one? Was it the same for your third record?
There’s a pressure always when you mix art and commerce. It’s like yin and yang. They need each other to exist but they’re opposites. We tried to just be creative and not let the idea of the music industry and success, radio singles, all that stuff, affect what we were making. Sometimes I found myself having to play tricks on my own subconscious because these ideas do creep in. I think artists are lying when they say they don’t care what others think. I know I want people to love my art, to love my music — I would love it if everybody loved my music. But I know that’s not possible and I have to trust myself and go to what I feel is honest to me. If it’s not truthful, then nobody is going to resonate with it.
Pump Up the Jam
