With emotions raw after Vegas, Foster said that he and his bandmates decided not to perform “Pumped Up Kicks” at the Austin City Limits festival in Texas or at the “All Things Go” music festival in Washington because some people misinterpret its meaning. RELATED: Mark Foster reflects on “weaponizing joy”Īfter the massacre, many Democratic and Republican lawmakers agreed to ban the sale of bump-fire stocks, but a month later, Congress does not appear to be taking steps to outlaw them. The deadliest shooting in modern American history took place on October 1 when a gunman opened fire at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, leaving 58 dead and more than 540 injured. “I wrote that song seven years ago, predicting that it was going to get worse before it got better.”

“That song was written from a place of wanting us to do something about gun violence, wanting legislation to be passed that can limit our resources because it feels like these mass shootings are becoming common now,” Foster told CNN’s #GetPolitical. “All the other kids with the pumped up kicks/ You’d better run, better run, outrun my gun.”Īlthough its tone is jubilant and upbeat – prompting some fans to blast it during celebratory times – “Pumped Up Kicks” is about a boy named Robert, who fantasizes about shooting up his school. But not everyone immediately noticed the cautionary tale about gun violence that lead singer Mark Foster relates in the lyrics: When Foster the People’s anti-gun violence anthem, “Pumped Up Kicks,” was released in 2010, it quickly went viral.

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