Stepping Into Liquid
Switchfoot are looking to ride the wave

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>> Switchfoot's Jon Foreman bathed in red. >>

>> Hollywood, CA, September 26, 2003 >> Mixing rock music with religious themes doesn’t always go over well.  The mostly secular world of rock music is much more about angst, energy and the rock star lifestyle that most adolescent boys dream about.  The two worlds rarely find common ground.

Enter Switchfoot, a group of former professional surfers from San Diego who mix a positive spiritual message with enjoyable mainstream rock, and do it without trying to hit you over the head with a message.  If their headlining show at the Avalon was any indication, it would seem that they’ve found their mark. 

Though frontman Jon Foreman made multiple mentions of the Radiohead concert taking place the same evening, the rather polite crowd of kids, some with parents in tow, seemed to be right where they wanted to be.  The majority belted the words out right along with Foreman, and in many ways it had the feel of a revival, with the kids as into the lyrics and the meanings behind them as they were the Switchfoot members themselves.

Having had their music featured prominently on the WB’s teen-aimed programs as well as in the feature film “A Walk to Remember,” Switchfoot have been lucky enough to gain major recognition without support from music television.  Their music is perfectly suited for the kids Switchfoot seem to want to reach: kids who place value in the message and aren’t filled with angst.

This was an evening full of hands waving through the air, a packed house completely supporting the musicians, and a feeling that none of those in attendance would rather have been at any other concert, especially as Foreman belted out Switchfoot’s current single, “Meant to Live.”  The undeniable good vibes flowing back and forth between the band and the fans was easy to get caught up in.

Talking with Foreman prior to the show, he consistently used water images and themes in his conversation, and seemed to take the greatest delight in discussing his other true passion, surfing.  Genuinely nice, he definitely doesn’t come across as having been changed too much by the success that he’s achieved.

>> Foreman works the devoted crowd. >>

VOX: Everything really seems to be moving in the right direction for you guys right now…
Jon Foreman: Yeah, it’s been descent…it hasn’t been a bad year at all.   We’re really just getting our feet wet in some ways, but yeah, a larger current seems to be pushing in the right direction.  For us, personally, it’s been an amazing year, and I think people are really starting to understand the record and what we’re all about.  They’re really getting behind it, really believing in what we do.  They see how passionate we are about the songs and playing them and I think it they feel it, too.  We’ve been a band for seven years or so, and we’ve played so many shows, but to lots of people, we’re a brand new group, and it’s really great to see them supporting us.

VOX: Do you guys still all surf?
Jon: Yeah, whenever we’re near an ocean and have a chance to get out there.  The US is such a huge place, and yet there are very few parts with really good surfing.   When we’re in Florida, it seems like we’ll be playing shows in areas where surfing isn’t the ideal thing to do, but we’ll be trying to figure out ways to get over the other side of the state and get in the water.  We’ve done some crazy things in the past to try and go surfing.
VOX: Like what?
Jon: There was this time we were playing in London, and we heard from someone that there was this great swell over in France, and we just had to get to it.  So, we spent basically all of our money to get over there and surf and get back.  We had nothing when we got back, so we actually ended up sleeping in the streets. 
VOX: Really?
Jon: No kidding.  And London is a rough place.  There were all these things going on around us, brawls and stuff like that, and we were sleeping in the streets with our possessions tied to our bodies so they wouldn’t get stolen.  All just so we could surf.

>> Foreman surveys the crowd. >>

VOX: You guys mix God and rock music, which isn’t always easy for bands.  Has it been difficult to make sure you don’t end up put in some category where it’s difficult to break out?
Jon: Well, um, I don’t know…it’s hard to think too much about it.  One of the things I’ve found in life is that, well, like with this record, many times when I wrote a song, it was the most personal song it could possibly be, and I would go to bed feeling that no one had ever felt the way that I felt, and no one could possibly understand what I was feeling.  Then, through playing the songs, people would tell me that they had felt exactly the same way, and that they knew that feeling.  I learned that some of the things that are the most personal are also the most universal.   Longing, pain, suffering, joy, whatever, when we feel it, sometimes we feel so isolated, but really everyone has those experiences, and we’re all not so far apart.
VOX: With the perspective that you were coming from, did that influence which label you went with?
Jon: There were some pretty clear reasons we went with Sony.  We had showcased for a number of different labels, but they were the one that didn’t want to change us.   They let us put out the best record we could and gave us the complete artistic freedom to be who we are.
VOX: Were the other labels looking to change you?
Jon: Well, there are trends in music, and the labels have to follow them.  You have bands like The Hives, The Strokes and so on, who are all really great, but that’s not Switchfoot.  It’s not who we are.  We’ve been at this 7 years, so we’re not a baby band that can we can let be tweaked to suit whatever the trend is right now.

VOX: In your lyrics and in your conversations, you mention water quite a bit.  Obviously, you’re surfers…
Jon: You’re right.  This is a very liquid planet…I think a lot of it comes through in metaphors.  Metaphors are often more true than talking about reality.   Life gets complicated, and sometimes people can relate to the metaphor more than to reality.
VOX: So where is the best surf?  Tavarua?
Jon: I haven’t been there, but I’m willing…I can say I love the North Shore of Hawaii.  There is so much awesome energy there, and it’s Mecca for a surfer.   It’s amazing to go there and see all your heroes out there in the water, rippin’ it up.  I can’t get enough of it.

It’s funny, because there have been some people who have tried to categorize us as surf music, but I think that’s a product of the human mind, to put you in a box.  Gospel is another box some people have tried to put us in.
VOX: How do you overcome that?
Jon: It’s about making sure our music gets out to people with an open mind, and having them make their own call about what they think.  Our music is more about asking questions than anything else.

VOX: Obviously, one of the big topics right now is downloading, CD sales and that sort of thing.  Where do you think things are heading?
Jon: Well, I know Universal just radically dropped record prices, so hopefully that helps some.  The biggest problem isn’t the Internet, it’s that music is so expensive.  There’s a huge deficit between the price of getting a record on-line and buying it in a store.  I think most people would prefer to buy the record, but the cost pushes them away.  Hopefully the Apple music store [iTunes] will change some of that and bridge the gap.  I’ve bought stuff off of [iTunes] and I think it’s great.  I do think mp3’s are great for smaller artists, because at some point you just want to get your music out there and get people to hear.  There’s really no better way than that, and I know it helped us out.  Kids could get our music when they couldn’t find it in the store.

VOX: Let’s talk about the record – why “Beautiful Letdown” and what does it mean?
Jon: It’s kind of…something that defines everything in life.  I feel like that at some point, everything will let me down, at least a little bit.  Somewhere, I believe there’s a place I’ve never been, where justice and righteousness rule, that I know exists, but I’ve never been there.  It’s like I see the beauty in a sunset or in a little kids smile, but there’s the letdown of watching the sunset while sitting in traffic.  It’s stuff like that.  Every letdown is laced with some joy and some pain.  It’s sort of taking the good with the bad.   With the record, it sort of an idea we can wrap our arms around and hold the record together.  It’s talking about all of life…I think it was Descartes who said – and I’m paraphrasing here – that if we look at life and ignore the terrible things, you’ll get overoptimistic and get crushed, and if you forget the good things and only see the bad side of life, you’ll end up suicidal.

VOX: The first single is “Meant To Live.”   Tell me about the song.
Jon: It’s a song I wrote while going through some stuff in my own life.  The kid in the song is me – I know I wrote it in 3rd person, but when I write I’m usually talking to myself.  My songs tend to be very realistic.  The verses are about what I’m afraid of, my fears, and the chorus is saying that life is so much bigger than all of that.