Switchfoot

Rarely does a rock band combine explosive guitars with an intense longing for meaning. Jon Foreman and Switchfoot, however, yearn for something more than what pop-culture is selling. “If I’m content as an artist to write a hit song or have a platinum record, then I’ll have failed a lot of my fellow human beings,” says Foreman. “We have the best jobs in the world because we play music for a living and love doing it, but we didn’t get into this to try and sell something. For us, it’s about communicating and connecting with people on a different level.”

Musically, Switchfoot draws as much from The Police and James Taylor as from The Beatles and Stevie Wonder to create swirling guitar pop, full of effortlessly arching melodies and textures that shift in continual, sensual motion. “We’ve never fit in any of the genre boxes,” says Foreman. “I think that diversity is our strength.”

Produced by John Fields (Andrew W.K.) and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge (Goo Goo Dolls, Michelle Branch), Tom Lord-Alge (blink-182, Rolling Stones) and Jack Joseph Puig (John Mayer, No Doubt), the band's latest album and first for Columbia/RED Ink, The Beautiful Letdown, entered the Billboard Top 200 at #85. In spacious settings, Foreman's singing connects with subtle emotional power, surveying a landscape of mediocrity in “More Than Fine,” digging for painful truths in title track “Beautiful Letdown” and stepping on a distortion pedal to scream about the dissonance of the modern age in “Ammunition.” On lead single “Meant To Live,” inspired by T.S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men,” he strives to survive in a world where love and hate breathe the same air. “It’s not a dark album, but it talks about dark things that have happened to me,” says Foreman.

The Beautiful Letdown comes three years after Switchfoot’s third independently-released and critically acclaimed album Learning To Breathe. In between the two discs, the band won the 2001 ASCAP San Diego Music Award for “Best Pop Album” and “Best Pop Artist,” won the 2002 ASCAP San Diego Music Award for “Best Adult Alternative” and contributed five songs to the gold-certified soundtrack for the Mandy Moore film A Walk To Remember (including a duet with Foreman and Moore). “We were at the movie premiere,” recalls Foreman, “And David Hasselhoff was sitting behind us bawling his eyes out with his daughter. It was a bit surreal.”

Switchfoot’s roots can be traced back to the beaches of San Diego in the mid-‘90s, when the Foreman, his brother/bassist Tim, and drummer Chad Butler connected as surfers (keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas joined in September of 2000). Though they competed in national surf championships on weekends and earned product endorsements from equipment companies, the real bond came from a common love of music. They decided to form a band, chose the name Switchfoot (a surfing term), put themselves through months of sweaty garage band workouts, and then hit the road. After just 20 gigs, they signed with re:Think records and released Legend of Chin in 1997. They’ve averaged 150 shows a year ever since, while selling more than 400,000 copies of their first three albums (Legend of Chin, New Way to Be Human and Learning to Breathe) combined. Shortly after recording The Beautiful Letdown, Switchfoot signed with Columbia. The album has since become the band’s fastest-selling record to date.

Originally called Chin Up, the alternative pop/rock outfit Switchfoot was formed in 1996 in San Diego, CA. Singer/guitarist Jonathan Foreman, bassist Tim Foreman, and drummer Chad Butler had only played several shows before adopting the Switchfoot moniker (taken from a surfing term) and partnering themselves with Charlie Peacock, an influential label executive who sought to promote Christian music to mainstream pop markets. After signing with Peacock's own label (re:think) in 1997, Switchfoot recorded and released their debut LP, The Legend of Chin. New Way to Be Human followed two years later and found an audience amongst Christian listeners, with the title track garnering a 1999 Dove Award for Song of the Year. Keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas joined up for 2000's Learning to Breathe, which found Switchfoot taking more steps toward mainstream modern rock. Breathe would prove to be a transition album for the group, earning a Grammy nomation for "Best Rock Gospel Album" (an award that had more to do with the band's label affiliation than the album's specific sound) and selling over 500,000 copies, thus acheiving gold status. Its success, coupled with the band's presence on the hit soundtrack to the 2002 film A Walk to Remember, set Switchfoot up for a healthy major-label run.

The Beautiful Letdown, Switchfoot's debut album for Columbia Records, was issued during the spring of 2003. It represented the quartet's full evolution toward a more accessible mainstream sound and eventually earned double platinum sales, due in no small part to the success of "Dare You to Move" and "Meant to Live." Supported by frequent tour dates, the album hit number one on Billboard's Christian Albums chart and peaked at 16 on the Top 200. Switchfoot then returned in September 2005 with their fifth album, Nothing Is Sound, which marked the band's first Top Ten entry on the Top 200 (the album debuted at number three). Nothing Is Sound went gold, sparked another radio hit in "Stars," and was the first Switchfoot recording to include the work of additional guitarist Andrew Shirley (formerly of the contemporary Christian group All Together Separate), who had been a touring member of Switchfoot since 2003. Wasting little time, the band was soon back in the studio with veteran U.K. producer Tim Palmer (U2, the Cure, etc.) to begin work on their sixth album, one that found the guys broadening their musical scope; Oh! Gravity then appeared at the tail-end of 2006. While the band set to work on a proper follow-up in 2008, Columbia Records issued a greatest-hits compilation entitled The Best Yet. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide