People worship anyone in the entertainment industry. You can be a used-car salesman and have a television commercial on the local station, and that makes you a celebrity.

We're not trying to be a mega-pop-band, but we also wouldn't be opposed to selling millions of records, either.

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.

Foster the People wouldn't exist without Mophonics.

Mophonics is kind of a creative home for me.

I wanted to be an attorney all the way up until I was 17.

I had really bad grades in high school and didn't want to go to college, and my dad said, 'Why don't you move to L.A. or New York and pursue music? You've always been good at it.' It was the first thing that made sense to me and... It was the right move.

I don't like to write the same song twice.

I love to honour people and to write positive songs about them.

Arcade Fire has kept their indie cred. They will sell out stadiums yet still have underdog status. But when you're a band like Coldplay, people are waiting to knock you down.

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.

I'd rather be a poor singer/songwriter doing what I love than get rich from selling my soul.

Writing for other people is easier than writing for myself - it's not as personal.

Art brings to life things that can seemingly be dead, and can put a fresh perspective on things that are living. It's so important we keep creating.

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.

In Cleveland, music was always a big part of my life. That's really where I cut my teeth.

I didn't want to be a soul singer.

I want to make music for everyone. I'm not trying to start a super exclusive group. I don't want a clique of people where you have to wear a certain type of clothes to come to our shows, or you have to be the ages of this and this.

I don't care if it's Dr. Dre or Dr. Luke or Brian Eno. When you're in a studio and making music together, it becomes pretty apparent if you see eye to eye.

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.

We're not the corporation of Foster the People. We're a band.

Our audience isn't One Direction, Katy Perry, Rihanna fans.

I love countermelodies, I love hooks and melodies that stick in your head. If I could put 20 melodies in a song and they would all work together, I would.

We've grown up on the Beach Boys and the Beatles and Blur and Bowie and the Clash. Also E.L.O. and Hall and Oates. Those are all artists who write songs that are accessible but still left of center. It's intelligent pop. There's still something different and complex about it.

I like to write about real-life topics, and I like to write about different walks of life.

One thing about Foster the People is that it's taking pieces of a lot of different genres of music and kind of melding them together.

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.

I'm a really extreme person, and balance is probably the hardest thing for me to maintain.

With 'Torches,' I wanted to make a great pop record; I wanted every song to be exciting, not to have too much space, no long pieces of music without vocals. I kind of wanted to write the perfect pop album.

'Torches' opened a lot of doors. Ultimately, it turned into an experience to be reckoned with.

I write songs based on things I see in the culture around me.

I didn't record 'Pumped Up Kicks' out of a sense of moral obligation.

I love exploring music.

When I'm writing songs, my favourite thing to do is to try and rabbit-trail and go places I've never gone to before. Just like exploring a new terrain or a new country or something.

Culturally, it's really funny to me that people respect the weird guy as an artist. There can be a curmudgeon in the corner with spiders building nests in his hair, and he hasn't bathed for three weeks, but for whatever reason, he's more creative than the guy sitting next to him that's showered and is talking to everybody.

I wrote 'Torches' before experiencing touring as a band. I really had no idea what they would sound like live, and that was something we had to figure out along the way.

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.

I was always extremely independent growing up.

I write in character a lot.

I started out with piano when I was little. That, for songwriting, is my favorite instrument.

I play guitar, bass, drums, piano, and pretty much any sort of stringed instrument - besides violin or cello.

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.

I remember, when I heard Jeff Buckley's 'Grace,' on first listen I just thought it was such a great song.

When I started really playing music, I pretty much quit sports. I quit everything.

I was an only child, so I was alone a lot.

Travelling alone was like laundry for my thoughts.

When I write a song, the music comes from my spirit, which is very playful and optimistic, but then the lyrics come from my head, which is in a different space.

Art is observing society around you, representing it through your eyes.

I'm not really worried about writer's block.

Going out and volunteering sounds simple, but many people don't volunteer because they don't know where to start.