Oh! Switchfoot
Interview by James Payne
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While watching Switchfoot play at Metro in support of their upcoming Oh! Gravity record, one thing was evident, their energy actually increased steadily throughout the show in which I found the band peaking during the last few songs. Singer Jon Foreman was a dynamic presence and seemed to get stronger with every breath, while the rest of the band followed suit like a heartbeat getting stronger and stronger. As tired as Switchfoot may have been at the end of the show, they were still beaming with life and jubilance appearing as though they would have loved to keep the night going forever.
Though Oh! Gravity doesn’t hit the shelves until December, fans were treated to the first four tracks of the album including the catchy title song, which was instantly likeable and is still being heard in my head at this moment. Among the new songs was also “Dirty Second Hands”; a more rough-edged piece that starts off with a twangy western guitar then blasts into a heavy liftoff with fantastic changes and a ton of dynamics. Of course the band also rocked the crowd by playing favorites like “Ammunition”, “Dare You to Move”, “Meant to Live”, “Loser” and “Stars”, which they used to open their show.
The band, now on its’ sixth album showed their experience in their playing and interaction with the crowd but, without a doubt, maintained the youthful fun that Switchfoot has always been known for. While Jon manned the center of the stage, his brother Tim kept the left side of the room thoroughly entertained dashing over the fans in the front while thumping on his bass from beginning to end. One highlight was when Jon walked through the crowd and proceeded to sing while circling the floor, not forgetting to make a pit stop at the balcony.
As we met Switchfoot on their bus hours before the show, fans were already out front of Metro, keeping warm in sleeping bags and winter coats, making their bid for spots in front of the stage. When we stepped onto the bus drummer Chad Butler was fast at work on his laptop, while guitarist Drew Shirley and keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas were busy talking music and Jon was just chillin’ after an apparent sub sandwich lunch.
Buzz - As kids did you envision that you would make your living by being in a band?
Jon Foreman – I don’t think it was so much envisioning the future of being in a band; all of us were just in different bands growing up. My brother and I were in a Led Zeppelin cover band. You start there, in junior high, then your voice changes and you can’t sing those songs anymore so you start writing your own tunes. There was never a point in my life where I looked to the future and thought, “Man, someday I’m going to be in a rock n’ roll band and travel the world in a tour bus.” I don’t think any of us had that aspiration, one thing just led to the other. My goal was to graduate college…and that never happened (laughs).
Buzz – Were your parents always supportive of your band life?
Jon – Yeah, for the most part. It was more like if we got good grades, music could be something we could do on the side. My parents were both musicians so they knew the reality of how hard it is to make it in music. They were very supportive, but at the same time very wary of the guy who drops out of school to go play guitar. So school was always something that they highly encouraged.
Jerome Fontamillas – I think our parents were just being parents who want what’s best for their kids. They don’t want to see us end up on the streets somewhere, but my parents were very supportive.
Buzz – (to Jon) What has it been like to be in a band with your brother?
Jon – (Laughs) I mean we fight like every brother would fight with their brother, but we get along fairly good. I think when you’re on the road with the same people all the time you’re gonna fight. When you’re constantly in each other’s living space it can be a little bit trying at times. But at the same time we probably fight less than most bands. I think you have a lower threshold for fighting as brothers because you’re always honest and that’s the way it is. Whereas someone you don’t know as well or all your life, you’re going to have more rounded edges.
Drew Shirley – It’s interesting – brother’s in the band, but like Jon was saying, the way they fight, it’s like everything is on the table. It’s very fun to watch actually.
Buzz – Who wins?
Drew – It’s different every time, you know. What’s interesting is sometimes they’ll fight for a while and they’re like, “You know what? You were right.” But you reach a point and you realize you’re not in high school anymore and you settle things like adults. The thing is, they’re both fighting for something to make the band better anyway and nine time out of ten it ends up, “Ok, ok, you’re right.”
Jerome – We are brothers with different mothers.
Buzz – (To Jerome) How did you get involved with Switchfoot?
Jerome – Before I joined up with these dudes, I was playing in a different band – we were rivals. We actually played together in different clubs in Southern Cal.
Buzz – So Switchfoot stole you…
Jerome – No, our band broke up and the guys asked me to play for them.
Buzz – How about you, Drew? How did you hook up with the band?
Drew – Same kind of story. I was in a band that broke up and they asked me if I’d be interested in playing another guitar in Switchfoot. I was like, “Yeah, I’d love to.” Because I was always playing shows with Switchfoot and I always loved their music. I started off as a touring member but after the next album was recorded I kind of turned into a band member.
Buzz – You obviously liked the fuller sound of two guitars live…
Jon – Yeah, we started out as a three piece and couldn’t do what we wanted live. You see all the Jellyfish tapes and The Police and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s great.” And even with Muse and things like that, you can’t do what you want without using tracks, and we refuse to have tracks. I want to be a band that plays everything you see and hear when people see us live, and to do that we absolutely needed to have five people on stage. I love it. It frees me up a lot to actually interact with the crowd instead of worrying just about notes.
Buzz – What was you biggest musical influence?
Jon – For me…I think you go through eras of time. I went through a big Zeppelin era, a big Beatles era…went through my Radiohead, Ben Folds Five era. A U2 era…Elliot Smith – those would probably be my eras.
Chad Butler – Gosh, I remember the first time we got to play at The Vic, it was years and years ago, and the first time playing Metro, we were just down in the dressing room and looking at the walls and the stickers of all the bands – some that I grew up listening to – the feeling that you’re in the middle of rock history that I think is only found here in this town. There’s just so many great clubs that brought up everybody from the Smashing Pumpkins and the bands who have passed through.
Buzz – What about non-musical influences?
Jon – Yeah, I think for me I derive a lot of the way I feel about the world from philosophers and different people I read. I took a lot of courses in college that probably framed the way I think about the world. I probably identify the most with Kierkergard, C.S. Lewis…maybe Pascale.
Drew – You’re influence by everything you take in. The first thought that came into mind was just some people in my life. Just guys that when we talk it’s not just “How are you doing” – we talk…It’s more like, “So what are you thinking about the world?” I just had a huge conversation last night about what the Internet does to kids. My daughter is just growing up and seeing I Chat her whole life – video conferencing. What does that do to a kid? She talks to me on the road on a computer screen all the time. Even things like that – they influence what you’re thinking about, what you’re writing about.
Jon – It’s so great to see a lot of the up and coming bands like Copeland. We took them on tour, we believed in their music and they’re still at it. Mute Math and Berlin, Revoliver, Athlete an incredible band from the U.K. These are all bands that we’ve listened to before taking on tour. It’s the same with this tour; we try to take out bands that we love. Ryan Ferguson is on this tour and he was in a band called No Knife. They’re kind of like this band who influenced a lot of people. They never had any big records but you have conversations with people around the world that are playing music they influenced. It’s an honor to have him out on tour with us. Then there are bands that we get the chance to open for like The Foo Fighters, Lynyrd Skynyrd. It’s a great thing. You get to hang out with them and talk about music.
Buzz – What’s the relationship like with the other bands on the road? Do you hang all the time? Keep to yourselves?
Jon – We’ll we don’t share beds. That’s the rule. No, we hang out and enjoy each other’s company. That’s another prerequisite for touring. We’ve spent enough tours out with people who are miserable, trying to live miserable lives, and we’re just not into that. That’s not our M.O. Like yesterday we spent our day off and had dinner with Moses Mayfield and Ryan and had fun. If only everyday off were in Iowa.
Buzz – What Switchfoot song really personifies the band?
Jon – I would think “Dare You To Move”. We first wrote it six or seven years ago. It’s a song that, for me, is still valid and is an integral song that maintains its’ integrity and keeps its’ meaning whereas some songs begin to lose their meaning. It may mean even more than it did. Lyrically, it’s a song that is pushing forward as we are as a band – trying to change things. Musically the second verse is kind of unique. It’s got a lot of starts and stops. That, as well, personifies us as a band.
Buzz – How did Oh! Gravity Come about?
Jon – Oh! Gravity had three distinct phases. The first phase being just going into the studio in between tours and recording some songs just for fun with John Fields, who did the last two records. I think that there is a certain amount of off the cuff honesty that you can have in recording songs that are not for a record – freely experiment – tracking songs for the love of music. The second experience for the record was going in with Steve Lillywhite to track a song called “Awakening”. It was kind of an awakening for the band because we were kind of going back to the way we did Legend of Chin, which was all of us in the room playing at the same time. We went back and found roughs that we’d listen to and be like, “Oh yeah, that’s good – we should keep that.” It was more about the pursuit of feeling rather than perfection.
Buzz - Do you do a lot of writing on the road?
Jon – Yeah, that’s our diary – the way we look at the world.
Buzz – You recorded Nothing Is Sound while you were touring?
Jon – We did. We got a lot of things out that were off our chest. For me, I still think that that was the best record we made up until Oh! Gravity. I love that record. It’s just a little bit hard to sing these days because we were in a different place at the time. It’s a little dark and pretty moody, and right now we’re pretty happy, stable people.
Buzz – I really like the Beatle-esque cover to Oh! Gravity. Was that done intentionally?
Jon – It’s one of those things where you want to pay homage without stealing.
Buzz –Did your visit to Africa change the band?
Jon – Absolutely. I think we’ve got a really small bubble here in the U.S. We’re fairly clueless as to how our foreign policy affects the world. We’re fairly clueless as to how the other 99% of the world live. We’re fairly clueless to the gifts and the fabulous opportunities we have here in the Sates that are at our fingertips every day – from hot and cold running water to education…Civil Rights. These are things that we take for granted. You go to Africa or India…or go across the border to Mexico, and you realize, very quickly, that what you have is a gift – what we’ve been given is a gift. And I think there’s this sense of obligation that we feel as Americans, myself included, that gets washed away when you put yourself in a situation like that.
Buzz – What’s the biggest lesson you took home from there?
Jon - The biggest thing, I think for all of us, that we learned, is that you think that you as a Westerner – you’ve got the financial means to get to Africa – you feel like maybe you have something to offer – that you’re going to go down there with a gift of some sort that you’re going to be able to help, you’re going to dig a well, you’re going to plant vegetables and those kind of things. You’re part of a community. But you realize that the gifts they give you instantly outnumber the gifts that you give. The wealth that you have materially is ridiculous to the amount of wealth they have in wisdom, endurance, and nobility. You look into the eyes of a seven-year-old child who’s lost both parents and realize that they are a wiser soul than you are at 28. You realize that you are the beggars in this situation. That was the biggest thing that I learned.
Drew – There’s a quote that I remember that was really intriguing to me and it’s still something that I’m trying to search out and find out. A guy when we were down there said, “There’s a part of the heart of God that you can only find through poverty.” Like Jon said, some of the people down there are richer than we are because of the poverty. Their lives have been enriched to a place where they value relationships more than possessions. I think that’s something America and myself really struggles with.
Buzz – Some would say you are a spiritual band, some would say you are a Christian band…or both. How would you define the band?
Jon – I am excited to be affiliated with the name of Christ. I’m a believer that he came to change my world. I think when his name is affiliated with our music to sell records; I get a little bit leery. With the idea of Christian music as a genre, you become very aware that you can use religion to make money. I just don’t feel comfortable with that. I want the songs that we sing to be completely honest. It’s one of those things where I don’t ever want to use my religion to make money. That’s where for me as a songwriter, I get a little bit leery of a genre. Maybe because I feel the name of Christ is such a high calling that to just tag it at the end of our music – I don’t know if we are worthy of that. I don’t want to just throw that word around because, to me, it means a lot. But at the same time, it’s an honor and privilege to be affiliated with his church. We’ve always been very open about who we are and our spirituality in the songs. At the same time, it’s not a club. It’s not a click where you can only listen to our music if you believe what we believe. I feel really fortunate to have open-minded people from all walks of life that find meaning and truth in our music. I find meaning and truth in other people’s music as well.
Buzz – How do you go about your own songwriting?
Jon – Songwriting is more like archeology than inventing. With inventing you have to come up with this genius plan and follow it through and it’s a lot of intuitive talent. I think songwriting is just digging. You just keep digging and digging. Every day you just dig and dig and then some days you just come across a city. The city’s always been there and you really didn’t have anything to do with it, you just dug. And that’s what you do as a songwriter, you keep digging and sometimes you discover a city.
Buzz – What’s your take on the politics in this country? Is there anything you’d change if you could about our government?
Jon – I think it’s disturbing that people of opposing parties can’t sit down and have a conversation. I think it’s disturbing if I vote for one person and somebody votes for somebody else – the moment we find that disagreement, the conversation stops. There is so much animosity and hatred built on the party, the politics, the partisan. I think it was one of the founding fathers that said partisan politics will kill the nation. I truly think that we cannot vote for red or blue; we have to vote on the issues at hand. I think towing the party line is ridiculous. There are things I disagree with about both parties. That’s what America is about; you vote for what you believe in. I think that’s the biggest thing – trying to find common ground. You learn from people you disagree with. You don’t learn from having a conversation that is filled with hate against one party or the other. I learn from people I disagree with. There are a lot of things I disagree with about how Bush has handled this or handled that, but you talk to someone who’d been to Iraq and you hear a different story and you’re educated and that’s forward motion.
Buzz – What are you guys like on the road when you have down time? Prank each other? Light firecrackers on each other’s shoes?
Jon – We signed 3,000 posters yesterday.
Buzz – For fun?
Jon – Yeah, that’s what we do for fun.
Drew – Two nights ago I went to see Snakes On A Plane. ‘Nuff said.
Jerome – I enjoy a good cup of coffee and a book. I’ll go to Borders and just…lounge.
Jon – Ideally, we’d just tour on the coast and surf everyday because that’s where our heart is. But some of the best days we’ve had are when we find a substitute for surfing. We might rent a boat get a couple of surfboards out of the truck, in the middle of Arkansas, and tow each other around in sort of a wake surfing. We grew up surfing in San Diego and it’s a big part of what we do when we’re on the road if possible.
Buzz – What kind of advice would you pass along if you could?
Jon – A lot of times bands will ask us what they should do next or what their next step should be and I always tell them to just enjoy where they’re at – enjoy it. Like, this tonight might be the best show you’ll ever play. Sometimes you’re so focused on the big show you’re going to play next week that you missed it. That goes for life in general where we’re focused on the next big thing while life is happening and we’re missing it. Music is a gift – life’s a gift. It’s not something that we’re obliged to so enjoy every moment of it.