Foster The People - In The Darkest of Nights, Let the Birds Sing (2020) Hi-Res

Everything musical started early for Mark Foster, front man for the now-platinum-certified band, Foster The People. But more accurately and acutely, everything musical stated with simple, pure sonic vibrations. Before he’d even turned three-years-old, Foster’s parents found him with his ear pressed up against the family upright piano, pushing his index finger down one note at a time as he worked his way along the keys chromatically. A few months later, Foster performed his first recital. In fourth grade, he was working with the Cleveland Orchestra in the children’s choir, exposed to the inner-workings of professional musicians and high standards of performance. Today, all that experience (and much more) has paid off for Foster, whose group is set to release its latest EP, In the Darkest of Nights, Let the Birds Sing, on Friday.

“I remember I started playing the guitar the week I heard ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” Foster says. “When I got home after hearing it, I tried to figure it on piano by ear. I asked my dad, ‘How come this doesn’t feel the same?’ I didn’t understand how it didn’t have the same feeling. My dad said it was because it was played on a guitar. So, I said, ‘I need to play guitar then!’ That was another milestone moment for me.”

The Grammy-nominated group’s forthcoming, six-song EP, which was recorded musician-by-musician during quarantine and is the first the group will put out independently, is eclectic, musically, but tied neatly, thematically. Everything on the album has to do with the concept of love and most of the songs are about the love between Foster and his wife. The two married a year ago.

“I think this EP is really a reflection of everything Foster The People has touched on sonically from the beginning,” Foster says. “It spans genres, pulls from different areas of music. The songs, lyrically – it was important for me to be really authentic. Love is arguably the most powerful thing on earth. All these songs are about a different facet of love.”