For ‘Supermodel,’ Foster the People chases muse, not hits

By CHRIS TALBOTT

AP Music Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

Mark Foster’s favorite hit songs are the ones written without thought given to eventual chart potential. So when it came time for him to pen the smash follow-up to his band Foster the People’s unexpected out-of-left-field 2011 hit “Pumped Up Kicks,” he didn’t even bother to try.

“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,” Foster said. “I’ve heard a lot of bands try to do that type of thing on their second record, especially if they happen to have a hit or a couple of hits on their first, and a lot of times the stuff ends up sounding like Budweiser commercials, you know? We don’t make music for that reason. We’re not the corporation of Foster the People. We’re a band.”

The tsunamilike experience of having a hit had left the trio feeling unmoored as they completed touring behind their debut. They weren’t sure exactly where they wanted to go, but directly to the studio wasn’t it.

“Fame is such a weird concept,” bassist Cubbie Fink said. “It’s sort of intangible. It’s a bizarre process to be striving for something, attain it, then have the whole world around you change — but you’re still kind of the same in the middle of it.”

So instead of enlisting music’s hottest songwriters and producers to capture the momentum, Foster and Fink traveled the world for inspiration for the 11 songs that would make up “Supermodel,” out this week. Drummer Mark Pontius stayed at home, processing the experience in a different way.

Foster returned from his travels with song sketches, half-finished ideas and a general concept of where he wanted to go. The band moved into a home in Malibu, Calif., that had a studio and sorted it all out with producer Paul Epworth.

The location — among the toniest in the U.S. — crystallized everything for Foster. He’d just returned from North Africa and the Middle East, where he encountered people who live a simpler lifestyle, and the juxtaposition resonates on “Supermodel.”