Mark Foster

“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.”

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

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

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

“I'm not in this to make money. I would not have sold my soul to be on 'American Idol.'”

“I was always extremely independent growing up.”

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

“If I was 13 years old and Kurt Cobain tweeted me some advice or even just said hi, my whole world would be affected by that.”

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

“One of the things with the second record, a word I held close to my chest was 'brave.' To take chances to go outside the box and explore. To continue to toss off any expectation that our fans or anyone else might have of us, to just tap into who I am as a writer and artist and really just operate within that freedom of creation.”

“Through technology and social media, we're able to create an identity online that shows people the face that we want them to see and rather than who they really are.”

“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.”

“There were times when I was terrified to go to school because it felt like a jail sentence.”

“It's the meanest thing to abuse your power as a songwriter. To write pointedly about someone... it's kind of unfair to use them. They can't answer you or have a rebuttal.”

“In Morocco, a Muslim country, I got to hear the call to prayer five times a day. At first it felt kind of scary, kind of dangerous, because of the propaganda towards anything Muslim in the U.S. subconsciously coming out in me. By the end of the trip, it was so beautiful, and then not hearing it when I got back to L.A. really threw me off.”

“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.”

“If I'm with people who are really positive and go with the flow, that's when the best ideas come out for me.”

“Travelling alone was like laundry for my thoughts.”