–P.Sutton
Tim Foreman from Switchfoot was returning to Australia for the seventh or eighth time. He had lost count. Each state was special, the surfing rocks near Brisbane, the beer in Melbourne and the party life in Sydney. I guess after 7 tours you get a feel for the locale.
With so many new releases (he thinks about seven) was there scope for much variation?
He speaks fondly of the last four releases where the band is comfortable with ‘shaking it up’ with different combos every night they play.
‘It is always good to come to the other side of the world with family,’ he muses.
‘Coming from San Diego, Brisbane and Sydney feel like a better version of San Diego. I’ve been telling people back here that if we could just talk enough people to move there, then we should.
A group exodus to Australia. I don’t know how you feel about that?’
I felt it was a good idea with California one day falling into the Pacific. A move away from the San Andreas fault before 2112 would be good.
Tim started Switchfoot over sixteen years ago when the guys were in high school together. Had he thought about changing the name to include the word ‘Old’ somewhere in the title. Perhaps a little like ‘Ol 55.’
‘Maybe we should be thinking of that. But the funny thing is I am thinking that we really are just getting started. ‘Hello Hurricane’ really felt like a rebirth for us. ‘
‘We took a lot of time making it. We recorded over 80 songs. We had left Sony by that time and felt we could do what we wanted. We built our own studio, we recorded a lot of music for about three years. I think we are more proud of this record than any record we have ever made.’
‘There’s a lot of stories behind the songs and a lot of meaning for us.
Just one?
‘There was a song that was written in a layover in Brisbane. ‘Enough To Let Me Go.’ We were in one of the airline lounges in Brisbane. John had the acoustic guitar with him and we put a demo down on our laptop computers and that became the song.’
And so the Aussie connection gets firmer and firmer.
‘That’s right!’
‘We want to record our next record in Byron bay, there is supposed to be a really nice studio there!’
World Travellers, does Tim find that different songs suit different parts of the world? Different parts of America?
‘I think that’s one of the things we like about live Music. Every night is dramatically different. You can’t predict it. Your mood dictates what song you’ll play or how you will play it. We can do dramatically different versions of songs from night to night, depending on how we are feeling.’
I guessed he was about 31. What has experience in the music industry taught him over all these years?
‘The biggest thing I have learned is that I have a lot to learn! It’s an inspiring thing. Our songs are more about the things we don’t understand rather than about the things we have figured out.’
It was about 1am in the morning and the interview was winding down.
Time to go out and have a pizza?
‘We’re all pretty adventurous eaters. In Japan we’ll pretty much eat anything they throw at us.’
Have you eaten our National emblem yet?
Tim was perplexed.
‘The what?’
Our National emblem?
‘Whaaa...’’
The kangaroo and the emu are on our coat of arms.
‘I have had croc and emu.’
C. Buzz Magazine 2009 |
