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Switchfoot returning to the area, bigger than before

The band plays Cedarville University on March 28

Switchfoot is (from left) guitarist Drew Shirley, drummer Chad Butler, lead singer/guitarist Jon Foreman, bassist Tim Foreman and keyboard player Jerome Fontamillas.

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 7:37 PM Thursday, March 25, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — Back in 2001, you could’ve seen a newish band called Switchfoot at Maiden Lane Church of God.

Maybe you saw their potential — maybe, had you told them after the show that, “You guys are going to have a double-platinum album a few years from now,” they would’ve looked at you as if you’d just said, “I’m going to make it rain frogs tomorrow at 4:30.”

No maybe about it.

But here’s the funny thing — years after they did, in fact, go double-platinum with “The Beautiful Letdown,” you get the feeling lead singer Jon Foreman still has that look on his face.

You know.

The one that says, “Frogs? Really? Wow, man, you’re crazy.”

“We just put out our seventh record. That’s phenomenal,” Foreman marveled this week. “I never thought we’d put out one record.”

So when the band returns to the area, playing Cedarville University on March 28, they do so as rock stars to most of us, but just friends in a local San Diego band to themselves.

The success they had with that 2003 album — and, specifically, the Top 20 hit “Meant to Live” — caught them so far off guard, it would’ve been a come-to-Jesus-moment for sure if they weren’t already, you know, a Christian band.

“You spend most of your life in a band trying to start fires,” Foreman explained.

You play little shows, he said. You try to tell as many people as you can about what you’re doing.

But if it’s like trying to start a fire, it’s like trying to do it by rubbing a couple of sticks together — most times it never ignites.

Only the lucky ones get access to a can of lighter fluid.

“With ‘The Beautiful Letdown,’ it felt like the fire got out of control,” Foreman said, “and burned the house down.”

If you need an idea of how things have changed for these guys since that Maiden Lane gig nine years ago, consider this — on the same day of this phone interview, Switchfoot was set to play “Mess of Me,” their turbo-charged latest single, on “The Tonight Show.”

Obviously, some things will never be the same.

“I used to hand-write letters to everyone who wrote to us,” Foreman said. “Those are the types of things you can’t do. It begins to take over your day.”

But some things don’t need to change.

“If success is defined by external record sales, you’re allowing other people to have power,” he said. “We’ve always defined success by playing songs we believe in. I’d rather write songs I believe in than play the numbers game.

“Music has to come from a deep place for me to even be interested. My friends, my family and the community I come from are a huge part of who I am and where these songs come from.”

The emphasis is on family, and not just because Foreman and bassist Tim Foreman are brothers.

A few years ago, the band had just flown to Australia from the U.K. on tour when they got a message that David Letterman wanted them to play his show.

“We turned him down the first time,” Foreman said. “We hadn’t been home in such a long time. That’s a silly place to be, to be so spent you do something like that.”

But for them, it was the one big realization that, hey, this is really happening.

“It’s a matter of saying we need to build some kind of relief into our schedule,” Foreman said, “because it’s not going to happen naturally.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn

@coxohio.com.