After touring relentlessly on the back of his band’s overwhelmingly successful debut, Mark Foster needed a break.
Released in May 2011, Torches was an immense worldwide success, eventually leading to two Grammy nominations and an abundance of fame for Foster, Cubbie Fink, and Mark Pontius. The trio toured the world for the next two years, and by the time it was over, Foster wanted to escape from it all.
Leaving his bandmates behind, the frontman embarked on a solo, “life-changing” two month trip to India, Israel, and parts of Africa, finding new inspirations and perceptions which would have a significant impact on the 30-year-old singer and the creation of Foster The People’s second album, Supermodel.
“The trip really gave me a different perspective on myself, on culture, and on people,” Foster said. “It made me look at some things in Western culture differently. It had a big impact on the new album.”
This new outlook is most obviously seen in the lyrics and general themes pervading the album, with Foster relentlessly attacking consumerism and capitalism. While lyrics took a back seat to catchy hooks on Torches, on Supermodel they’re placed in the spotlight, begging to be analysed and interpreted.
“I feel like there’s two ways to write lyrics,” Foster explained. “The first way is to write words that sonically sound good, words that when you sing them they just sound good. That was more the first record for me. I chose the sonics, how a word sounded, over the meaning sometimes.”
“With this record, it was really more about the words. I flipped it. I put a lot of importance on what the songs were going to say and how I wanted to say it.”
A range of issues and situations are explored on Supermodel, including a soldier returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder on ‘Pseudologia Fantastica’, the failings of the American Dream on ‘Beginner’s Guide To Destroying The Moon’, and Foster’s home of Los Angeles on ‘Fire Escape’.
‘Fire Escape’ displays an entirely new side to the songwriter, comprised solely of his intimate, vulnerable vocals and quiet acoustic guitar reflecting on his home. “Los Angeles I have waited for you / To pick yourself up and change”, he laments. The frontman moved to LA when he was 18 and immediately dived into its extensive social networks, at one point saying he felt like Hunter S Thompson. But his view has certainly changed following his success and travels of the world, quietly affirming: “I’ve watched the dreamers find their legs / And I’ve seen the ones that come get reduced to bones and rag.”
“With this record, it was really more about the words”The song typifies the musician’s new approach to songwriting, as well as a new perspective developed following the breakthrough popularity of his music.
The latest release is a much more personal creation for the band, and for Foster, it was “one of the hardest things” he’s ever worked on.
“For me, this record was a much more vulnerable record to write, and it was a lot harder to write,” he revealed. “These songs, they’re a lot closer to who I am and what I’m thinking at the moment I wrote them.”
When on the verge of the album’s release, Foster described the wait as “excruciating”.
“I just want it to be out.”
Australian fans were some of the earliest to catch on to the band, who uploaded a little song called ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ for free download in 2010. The country has served as a microcosm of the band’s worldwide rise in popularity, with the trio first visiting Melbourne in early 2011 to play the modestly sized Northcote Social Club before a triumphant return at Splendour In The Grass later that year. They would return in 2012, this time upgrading to the much larger Palace Theatre to reflect their skyrocketing popularity worldwide.
Australian fans may not have to wait too long to get another taste of the adored band, with Foster letting slip that they will be in the country in the coming months.
“I know we’ll be there this year,” he confirmed. “We’re really looking forward to coming there. Whenever we tour in Australia I always try to carve out days off so I can hang out afterwards.”
“We have a special connection to Australia.”
Foster The People will be returning to our shores with a drastically different sound and style. On Supermodel, the three-piece forgo the synth pop hooks of Torches, replacing it with heavy, distorted guitar and percussion-focused sounds, as well as the occasional acoustic refrain.
But was this a deliberate move away from the pop of their debut, or an inevitable progression for the trio? For Foster, it was “a little bit of both”.
“That was then and this is now. I’m pretty schizophrenic musically; I like to try new things and explore new styles and instruments”“I don’t think I had intended for this record to be so guitar driven, it just happened that way,” Foster explained. “Originally I wanted to record 25 songs, some of which were much more electronic, and they didn’t end up getting finished.”
“I think it would’ve been boring to try to do another Torches,” he continued. “That was then and this is now. I’m pretty schizophrenic musically; I like to try new things and explore new styles and instruments.”
“I get a lot of life out of exploring when I’m songwriting.”
Supermodel also sees the LA-native utilise the full range of his voice, after previously relying on an upper register. Many songs on the new collection more closely replicate Foster’s deeper, stronger talking voice.
“It was fun to experiment with my lower register on this record,” he enthused. “For a long time I relied on my falsetto as a crutch sometimes because I could sing that high, but my speaking voice is much lower. With some of these songs it just felt more natural to sing them closer to my natural voice.”
Coming off a release as successful and loved as Torches, there were always going to be certain expectations and outside influences, and the singer said he felt “a lot of pressure” going into the studio to create Supermodel.
“The biggest difference between the second record and the first record is that I knew people were going to hear the songs this time around. It sounds like a simple thing but it’s really profound.”
“It really messed with me creatively, so for a lot of this record I had to really work to play some mind games with myself and with my ego to basically turn all that chatter off and just try to write songs like I always have, just in a safe creative environment without any of that bullshit and the people’s expectations.”
The record will no doubt be polarising, especially for fans expecting more of Torches, but Foster said it wouldn’t have felt right to continue along that style.
“I tried to write from an authentic place, and I think trying to write with a flippant escapist nature like on Torches, trying to do that again I don’t think would’ve sounded authentic, and I don’t think it would’ve resonated,” he confessed.
But despite all the changed perceptions, focus on his inner self and his development as a songwriter, the Foster The People frontman still wants his fans to be happy.
“Hopefully people like it.”
Read our review of Supermodel by Foster The People here
Watch the clip to ‘Coming Of Age’ from Supermodel here:
