Trivia / Foster the People

• Ascended Fanon: Their name itself; the band was originally called Foster & The People, but after people kept hearing it as Foster The People, they wound up making it their actual band name because Mark liked it more.
• Black Sheep Hit: "Pumped Up Kicks" isn't exactly radio friendly (in sound or lyrical content), so its success on pop radio was pretty surprising. It's also unrepresentative of Torches as a whole, as the album skews more towards electropop than straight indie rock.
• Bonus Material:
  • Torches: The first run at Best Buy included bonus tracks "Chin Music for the Unsuspecting Hero" (the B-Side to the original vinyl print of "Pumped Up Kicks") and "Love"; the iTunes edition includes "Broken Jaw," originally a one-off limited print single.
  • Supermodel: The iTunes pre-order included "Tabloid Super Junkie," and the Japanese edition has "Cassius Clay's Pearly Whites."
• One-Hit Wonder: It remains to be seen if they can release another single that reaches the great success of "Pumped Up Kicks", or at least comes close to it. At the very least, further singles "Helena Beat" and "Don't Stop" have been warmly received on American alternative radio.
  • "Don't Stop" later started to cross over to some pop radio stations, but it died out quickly. For now, it is safe to say that "Pumped Up Kicks" will probably remain their only song to ever reach the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100.
  • "Sit Next to Me" has since become their closest to do so, reaching #42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the alternative charts in 2018. On the latter, it spent over a year on the chart - longer than "Pumped Up Kicks"' alternative chart run.
  • "Best Friend" also performed well.
• Permanent Placeholder: The version of "Pumped Up Kicks" we all know is actually the song's demo; a proper studio version was never deemed necessary.
• Real Life Writes the Song: "Pumped Up Kicks". One of Cubbie Fink's cousins survived Columbine. Foster himself was bullied in high school.
• Sleeper Hit: "Pumped Up Kicks" didn't hit its chart peak until a little under a year after its official release. Not to mention that long before that it was a free download on the band's website.
• Word of Saint Paul: The opening line of "Pumped Up Kicks" "Robert's got a quick hand" led to theories that the song is referencing Robert Hawkins, the perpetrator of the Westroad Mall shooting. The band's publicist denied the reference, stating that the name was a coincidence.

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