Mark Foster Quotes

It was really weird to have a hit. Of course, we had a certain level of fame in the Pixies, but nothing I had ever done had been mall-kid friendly.

I don't have a problem being on 'MTV,' and I don't have a problem being on the radio. I actually like it. So there. And anyone that calls me a sell out is just jealous.

Record companies tell me to play something more commercial, but I don't want to do anything else.

We don't want it to be obscure music. We're not trying to be indie. We want to be popular.

I guess the bottom line is I don't make music that is consumed en masse.

I've never personally criticized anyone else's music, but I know that the public's real problem is not the music I make but the perception that I play simple music for money only and for the notoriety and to increase my popularity.

When no one's buying your records, it's easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can't really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.

I'm making music that I love and I want to hear. At the same time, things like making money, making crazy money - you gotta find ways to reach to everybody but uplift everybody.

Roadrunner wanted to make Born in the Flood the next Nickelback, but I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to be a huge rock star playing songs I didn't like. I didn't want to be stuck playing 'Anthem,' the song everybody liked but I didn't want to put on the record, for the next five years.

If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately.

I am in a business that's built on record sales and reputation and how your single is doing and where your song is on iTunes. But the kind of music that I do comes from my beliefs.

I am very aware now that music is a business, but there is also a way to go about making music that is true to yourself as opposed to doing, you know, just going through the motions and making things that would just be commercially successful.

I don't really set out to please anybody, and I don't think I ever have. I have occasionally been encouraged to try to write something specifically for the purpose of releasing it as a single to get radio play. Those are not my best songs, as a rule.

I don't think it's so hard to be commercial and interesting. Look at Prince, or Neil Young.

Megadeth is a legend, and I'm not gonna cheapen it like some of these bands that keep going long after they should.

I prefer career artists that have spent time honing their craft, as opposed to, 'I won a karaoke contest on a reality show and now I have a record.' That's such a drag. The music that comes out of it is so poor.

If one artist sells five million albums, the tendency is for other artists to say, 'Maybe I should do a little of that, too.' That can be tough to resist.

If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout.

If I'd just been interested in record sales, I would have taken one of the deals I was offered after 'Soapstar Superstar,' made a quick covers album and probably had some success for five minutes. I decided that wasn't for me.

I don't feel I'm making a conscious effort to go more commercial.

I think you have a crossover when you are known to a wider audience and a different market. I've been able to sell out stadiums all over the world by doing my music. I'm lucky to be in that list without having done an official crossover. Now, will you hear me doing a little bit of R&B? Sure.

Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational. It always broke that notion that an artist can't think about money as well. Just so long as you separate the two and you're not making music with business in mind. At some point, it has to be real when they touch it, when they listen to it. Something has to resonate with them that's real.

People don't understand real musicians anymore. Jack White is great - he's the real thing - but he isn't having hits.

There's definitely been some songs in the past that we've put out, and it was purely us going, 'Okay, we think radio will play this. We think this will be a hit. This will be big for the show,' and all this stuff. But it's like, do you really believe in it?

I'm not making music to get played in a club.