Switchfoot

About

Switchfoot are known for their catchy guitar work and the distinctness of Jon Foreman’s voice, at points falsetto, with a hint of wisp in his voice; giving it a sense of intense authenticity. The melodies get stuck in your head, but it is the rhythm provided by drums and bass that get you moving to the music. Switchfoot has perfected the contrast of loud and quiet.  They are able to use volume to create intensity, but are also able to become softer and use that to make great melodies, some of which have an almost lullaby like quality.

Switchfoot has been led for the last 15 years by Jon Foreman on guitar and vocals, along with his brother Tim on bass, and Chad Butler on drums.  More recently they have added Jerome Fontamillas on guitar and keyboards and Drew Shirley, also on guitar. The five are becoming veteran’s, finding their grove on their most recent album, Vice Verses (out Sept. 27), their eighth.  

The first single, “Dark Horses,” explores the theme of optimism.  In a world that feels like everything is going down hill, Foreman shouts:

We’re singing…
Hey, you can’t count us out
We’ve been running up against the crowd
Yeah, we are the dark horses
We’re singing…
Wait! It’s not over now
We’ve been down but we’ve never been out
Yeah, we are the dark horses

Switchfoot has often seriously confronted issues of brokenness and pain in the world, but continually appeals to love and humanity’s resilience to offer a word of hope.

While Switchfoot works from a Christian worldview, they don’t come off as didactic in this optimistic tone, nor do they shy away from real issues of injustice in the world. In their song “The Blues”, Foreman sings:

There's nothing here worth saving,
Is no one here at all?
Is there any net left that could break our fall?
It'll be a day like this one
When the sky falls down and the hungry and poor and deserted are found
Are you discontented? Have you been pushing hard?
Have you been throwing down this broken house of cards?
Does justice never find you? Do the wicked never lose?
Is there any honest song to sing besides these blues?

Switchfoot’s audience has come to rely on this honest questioning; to hear song that embody a response to chaos. From a theological perspective this is the chaos of doubt and hope, and the struggles of belief and loving others. From a political and cultural perspective, it is the unending and elusive search for, the quick sound bite, the trendy, the “new,” and the relevant. What can one do in a world that refuses a simplistic certainty?

Switchfoot is for those who have discarded simplistic answers and who want to sing along with the longing that their music and lyrics invokes.

- Greg Veltman