Surfing requires a sense of adventure, a hunger for adrenaline and a pronounced sense of balance. So does being in a rock and roll band.
On more than one occasion, the men of
Switchfoot have said that they all wanted to be professional surfers when they grew up, but they settled for being in a rock band. Even the group's name, Switchfoot, refers to a surfing technique where a rider changes which foot they put forward—altering position for the best overall ride.
In a sense, it's what the band has been doing for nearly 20 years. Switchfoot—comprised of lead singer Jon Foreman, bassist Tim Foreman, guitarist Chad Butler, guitarist/keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas and drummer Drew Shirley—has been operating at a breakneck pace just about since their formation.
Throughout their storied career, which has seen them through eight studio albums and adventures around the world, the band has continually been in a place of switching their footing. In the early days, it was the tongue-in-cheek fun of The Legend of Chin and New Way to Be Human. But then, starting with Learning to Breathe, the band tapped into a deeply contemplative, emotional place—a place they stayed for many years.
And then, with their last album, Vice Verses, they switched to an aggressive rock sound trumpeting the ultimate victory we all have over inevitable struggles.
Now, Switchfoot is putting a different foot forward with its Fading West project, giving old and new fans a look inside their adventures and seeing the raw, real life issues the band deals with. The combination film and studio project runs the gamut of themes with Switchfoot, dealing with issues of life and death, Heaven and Hell, and of course, surfing.
In advance of their film and full-length album, Switchfoot has released a first taste of the new music with the
Fading West EP. I sat down with Jerome Fontamillas and Drew Shirley to talk about it.
Stoked to be with you guys. So how are you? Have you been able to slow down since Vice Verses? Have you guys been able to take a break?
Jerome: I can't even remember. What is a break?
Drew: It depends what you mean by break.
Time off.
Drew: We don't take too much time off.
Jerome: I would call time off time home, but that doesn't mean we're on a break.
Drew: We have a pretty driven work ethic, but it's been fantastic to be home and recording a record. The last six months we've been home making a record. We toured in November, didn't we?
Jerome: We toured, but we were still making the record at the same time.
Drew: When you own your own studio it's like having a home office and you can always go into your home office.
What have you guys been working on? I know you've got the documentary. You've got Fading West and then the new record. What can we expect?
Jerome: We've got Fading West the movie and then now we have Fading West the album—so that's the title of the album.
Drew: Even though the movie has some songs that aren't on the album, it's some soundtrack stuff that we'd done, too. Basically the movie is about finding inspiration for the album. It's a trip round the world. It involves surfing, rock and roll, travel, inspiration, music, family stuff, struggles with the band and stuff and that all goes into making the record. That's kind of the fuel for the record. We documented that process. We'll call it Fading West and the album is a full studio album of the songs written over that period.
So it's a multifaceted experience with Switchfoot. Now that you saw what was poured into this album you'll get to listen to it.
Drew: That's exactly right. They'll get to see what was recorded like in Africa, recording the kids.
Jerome: We went to Indonesia. We wrote some stuff in New Zealand, Australia. We were all over the place.
Drew: There are some surprises. There's some sorrow, depth as far as why we do what we do in there. I've heard Tim say it's somewhere between U2's Rattle and Hum, the Endless Summer surf film, and Dumber and Dumber. It's cool. It's a new project, a new venture for us.
Musically sounding, what are you guys doing on Fading West?
Jerome: We were trying to find inspiration. When you travel the world there are a lot of aspects that we were able to get inspiration from.
Drew: We tried to do things differently. We only put guitars on last—if it needs it. We just made that the mantra. Tracked the drums first and the vocals first and some keyboards first and some more vocals and then have this thing start to be created. Then, maybe, put the guitar on.
Jerome: If it's necessary. It's always like guitar last.
Drew: It's not a guitar-heavy record at all. It's about the songs. We really are focused on the songs on this record. I think some of these songs have taken John 15 years to write. There are songs that are reaching so far into who he is and who he's been struggling with, what he's been wrestling with for so long and is now just being able to articulate. Do you know what I mean by that? Where you wrestle with it for a long time. I think now in these songs he's articulating a lot of things.
Jerome: He's put it in a physical type form. It's been brewing inside of him for so long.
Music is what our feelings sound like and he's finally able to express that. Are we going to see any strange instruments—not strange, but strange to Switchfoot instruments—on this next album, world instruments? Didgereedoos or anything?
Jerome: In the movie you'll see us trying out a whole bunch of instruments like a teakettle.
Drew: He literally played a teakettle. It's in the movie.
Jerome: I did the gamalons, which is Indonesian. We went out in Indonesia, Drew and I, and tried to sample a whole bunch of sounds from that country.
So what do you guys still dream about? You guys have been at this a long time. You've done a lot of things. What do you guys still dream about doing? What's left?
Drew: We're always looking for things that make us excited to play music. That's the been the start of everything was that. When you first pick up a guitar and hit a chord and just go, "Whoa. The way these two chords fit together is so fun," you're excited. For a musician, there's nothing like that feeling of stumbling upon something new that's exciting, whether it's a band you just heard or a cool part in a song.
That's what makes us energized as musicians. It's life-giving. That's life-giving to me when something just works out. That doesn't change no matter what stage you're playing it on. That's a very internal thing.
Jerome: You know, to be in a band doing music is doing something that you love. You're going to work, but you don't feel like it's work. It's something that you love to do and you never want it to end. You want to just keep making music for the rest of your life. We always like to see ourselves trying to reach more people that haven't heard our music. We're always trying to get our music out there, but the bottom line is, this is music that we love to do. We're blessed. We're fortunate. We get to play it with our best friends. To be able to play with your best friends, I feel very blessed to be doing music.
