Switchfoot: Still not afraid to ask the big questions

Wednesday 16th November 2011

Chris Mountford caught up with best selling Christian rockers SWITCHFOOT



Continued from page 3

Tim: (deep breath) Yeah... We've never been afraid to ask big questions and I think that a lot of the great songwriters do whether you're talking about King David or Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash. We've got a lot more questions than answers and we don't pretend to have it all figured out. We can say that comfortably as believers - we don't have to pretend to have it all figured out. We are a small part of the bigger picture, walking through life trying to figure it out and what better way than through songs? Songs are such a safe place to explore and ask things that would be awkward to talk about in conversation but in a song you can go there with a complete stranger. You can sing a song and have a deep connection and we take full liberty with that.

Chris: "Selling The News" talks about the media and fact and fiction and it sounds like you're disgusted with certain aspects of media and reporting. What inspired that song?

Tim: There's always a dangerous double standard with commercial news, you're selling advertising and you're selling eyeballs. The more eyeballs you have on your newspaper or television the more advertising revenue you can generate. I think the song's bigger than that but it explores the conflict of interest in sensational news. We suffer from that a lot in the States and the song is pretty straightforward.

Chris: Was there a specific event that inspired that or is it a more general look at the topic?

Tim: I think we have so many distractions in our society and I think it's a song that tries to get perspective outside of that and discern what is fact and what is fiction and what have we been sold.

Chris: You did a song "Out Of Control" for the Hawaii Five-O soundtrack which isn't on this album. Will it be on a future album?

Tim: What do you think, Drew?

Drew: I don't know.

All: (laughter)

Tim: That's just the tip of the iceberg. We have so many songs, 60 or 70 recorded songs and we'd love to find a home for all of them, maybe not all of them deserve to find homes, but 30 of them at least I'd like to see go off to college and get out and explore the world (laughs).

Drew: On the latest album we wanted to cut down the number of songs we recorded and in that respect I think we came out with a more focused project, a more concise statement, songs that were all recorded in the same period of time and as an artist you're constantly changing so it does something to the music to put it all together in the same time period. 'Vice Verses' has captured that well. CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Chris Mountford
Chris MountfordChris Mountford is Programme Controller and Production Manager for the Cross Rhythms radio station in Stoke-on-Trent.


 
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