We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marco Foster a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Marco, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I’m personally very happy with my life as an artist. Music is what I was passionate about ever since I was young and I’m very grateful to be able to pursue that passion as a profession. My first big break in the industry came within months of graduating high school when I signed to Flo Rida’s label and toured the world with him. Everything happened so fast that I never even really considered any other path for myself. These days, I think a lot about some of the missed opportunities I’ve had over the years. One in particular was an opportunity I had where I met extensively on multiple occasions with music industry titan Clive Davis. He was considering signing me to Sony Music and showcased me to RCA Records in 2015. At the time, I had a lot of great unreleased music, but I hadn’t developed any kind of following on social media and it was ultimately what led to them passing on signing me. At the time, I was crushed and over the years went from wondering what could have been to being grateful for what has become. I think a lot about what my life may have looked like if that opportunity had come to pass, but I no longer feel any kind of regret because I’m currently very happy with how things have turned out for me as an artist. It was an exciting prospect at the time, but there’s no guarantee it would have played out the way I would have expected. I could have had a tumultuous tenure with the label or achieved a short lived level of success that defined and pigeon-holed my career. There are infinite ways to analyze the outcomes, but the only one that matters to me these days is that I’m very happy right where I am making the music that I love.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a Brooklyn based musician who has been a full time recording artist for the past 13 years. I started out singing in the Washington National Opera alongside Placido Domingo when I was 12 years old and spent the next six years taking voice, piano and guitar lessons. After enrolling at Berklee College of Music in Boston and moving into my dorm, I dropped out during orientation and moved to New York City. I met my future manager Ross Michaels of Park Avenue Artists during my senior year of high school (he was an alumni who I interned for) and the plan was to work daily with them to refine me into a recording artist. Within a few months, I was introduced to Flo Rida through a mutual friend who quickly signed me to his record label, International Music Group. For the next five years I toured the world with Flo as his opening act, featured vocalist and lead guitarist. It was a whirlwind few years and an unforgettable experience, but ultimately I decided to leave the label to focus more on myself as a solo artist. Within a year I signed to a new label, Artbeatz, led by Steve Zap and have since released three singles, two albums and a Christmas EP. Over the years I’ve dabbled in many genres, but lately I focus on my more pop-centric originals and acoustic renditions of the Great American Songbook. I’ve had my ups and downs as any other artist experiences, but I’m very proud of the body of work I’ve so far left behind and I’m very excited for what I still have yet to come.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

During my career I experimented with many different genres and had found the majority of my success in the EDM space, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit that I took a step back and drastically shifted gears musically. Growing up, my parents had a big influence on my musical influences. From my dad I heard artists like The Beatles and Buddy Holly while my mom introduced me to others like Stevie Wonder and Carole King. The through-line here was always artists making timeless music no matter what genre. During Covid, I was stuck at home with a lot of time on my hands and I decided to start recording acoustic versions of songs I grew up listening to. One of the songs I worked on was a duet of Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s “Somethin’ Stupid” that I put together with my friend and fellow singer, Kaelin Kost. We posted a video of our version to TikTok and over night had gotten a huge reaction to it. I had previously experienced moderate success on social media, but nothing to this level. Over the next few years I’ve continued posting these videos to my social media channels and now have around 250K followers across platforms. I’ve also released two full length albums (self-titled “Marco Foster” and the follow-up “Full Circle”) through the label I’m currently signed to, Artbeatz. Looking back on it, I really couldn’t have predicted that singing these songs I grew up with would have the impact that it did on so many people. You never really know where inspiration will come from or what will resonate with a larger audience.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

After leaving Flo Rida’s label, I ventured into the music industry for the first time as an independent artist. It was a scary prospect for someone who had always had the safety net of one team behind me and although I still had my management who have been by my side since day one, I questioned what would come next for me. I spent some time living between New York and Los Angeles trying to focus on writing new material whether it be for my own project or to pitch to another artist. It was a tough year for me and I ultimately came to a point where I effectively gave up. I sat down with my management and through tears told them I just couldn’t do it anymore. I continued to write with the hope that I could pivot to becoming a songwriter. I contemplated shifting to the music business side of things whether it be as an A&R or managing artists. Ultimately, none of those paths felt right for me and it wasn’t until I met Steve Zap at Artbeatz who believed so much in my music that I started to believe in myself again. I signed to his label and we put out a song called “I Wonder” which to date has over 3 million streams on Spotify. It took me giving up on myself to come to the realization that this was always the only path I was ever destined to be on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marcofostermusic.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/marco.foster
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/marcofostermusic
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCURdlnU2xRj7iYI4_5apaFA
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/marcofoster

Image Credits

All professional photos taken by Cory VanderPloeg (all except Flo Rida / Clive Davis photo)