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Interview Podcast Audio Jon Foreman
"Your Love Is Strong"

It's hard to be vulnerable and bombastic at the same time.

So when Jon Foreman, frontman for rock band Switchfoot, found himself writing more and more introspective songs, he decided to find an outlet for them outside of his energetic, multiplatinum group.

The result is a 24-song solo collection divided into four EPs, each centered around a season. The Fall and Winter EPs are in stores now, and the Spring EP is available digitally. It will be packaged with the Summer for the physical release on May 27.

Foreman spoke to MP3.com about the evolution of his solo career, his work with Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, and the forthcoming Switchfoot album.

MP3.com: Hey, Jon. Hey, what's going on, Jim? How are you doing? Good. Good. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I appreciate it. No. Thank you. Thank you for your time, man. I wanted to know about the development of these four EPs that we're talking about today. What came first? Was it the concept of breaking these songs into the four seasons, or the songs themselves? I'm kind of curious whether you set into this idea of writing songs around the themes of the seasons, or if that's just kind of the way the song started to fall in terms of categorization and that kind of thing? Right, so the chicken or the egg? Yeah, exactly. [Laughs] Yeah. I think when it comes to music, and my involvement with music, most of what I do is reacting and responding. And I wish I could say that it was this masterminded plan that I hatched or something. But I feel like the songs just kind of started kind of rolling in. And it was sort of about trying to put the painting in a frame that makes sense for the painting. Sure. Often the frame is just as important as far as the context. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. With these songs, it just felt like they were really delicate, and they needed something special. They needed something other than just a conventional CD. So, that's where the whole concept of the seasons came in. And I just love EPs. I feel like there are very few records that anyone listens to in their entirety anymore. Right. Yeah, I mean it's a good way to both retain like the artistic conceptual creativity stuff while also focusing on the overall shortening attention span of the music audience out there. Yeah. And I felt like with these songs, they're so subtle that with the shortening attention span as you put it, you know? Yeah. Absolutely. Because it'd be a good way to put everything in a frame that would be understandable, especially if you're putting out 24 songs over the course of a year. That's a mouthful if you're putting it all out in the same time. Absolutely. And you'd be hard-pressed to get even the hardcore fans to dig real deep into a 24-song album when a lot of people probably think that there's going to be a new Switchfoot album this year anyway. Do you know what I mean? It'd be hard to get everyone to digest all of that. Yeah, I mean it'd be hard for me to digest all of that. [Laughs] Exactly. So, these songs have been stewing for a while? Yeah, some of them are really, really old, that they came up on the block for every Switchfoot record that passes by, and, for one reason or another, it just doesn't stay. And for years, [bandmates] Tim [Foreman] and Chad [Butler] and everybody have been saying, "You got to get those songs out there. They're so good." But they don't fit on our record, which I guess is kind of a backhanded compliment in one way.

I was talking with a friend of mine--she's in a band--and everyone in their band has solo records, and that whenever they don't like a song, they all say, "Oh, man, that's such a good song. You should put that on your solo record." Put that on your solo record. [Laughs] Yeah, so. No, but I think some of them are really fresh. I wrote one just the other day that's going to go on Spring. I think every season has been rounded out by the new and the old. I think it's been really great with these seasons being so thematically organized it feels like a really easy task on the one hand. I just think of what I want to be listening to as I'm driving down the road during that season, and then kind of look through the list of songs that I've already got, and then decide what song needs to round it out. Right. So, it's a little bit of a combination of the chicken and the egg, one coming before the other, and vice versa. I mean it's like you have songs that have developed that ended up working with this kind of categorization, but then also as you continue to develop those, you realize, "Oh, this fits pretty well into Spring, or Summer, or whatever? Yeah, absolutely, because the tricky part of it is wanting something that's cohesive as a unit of 24 songs, and at the same time, wanting distinctions between the seasons that make every season count for what it is. Right, a common thread but not losing the distinction between each season itself? Gotcha. Right. So, yeah, it is kind of a Sudoku--trying to mix and match. And I think the instrumentation and production--along with the themes lyrically of the songs--have been a good guide. Yeah, I gotcha. I mean there's a level of vulnerability and alienation that you express in some of these songs, at least the ones that I've heard in the Winter and Fall EPs that I imagine would be a little harder to convey if you have your full kind of robust, multiguitar band behind you. Yeah, I mean it's almost impossible to be vulnerable with a half stack. It's a position of power. So, you're right. I feel like that's one of the reasons perhaps why these songs needed this as a framework. Right. I read that you had said that part of the inspiration for these solo projects was learning more about roots music over the years from the Nickel Creek folks. And I guess I was wondering what the latest is on The Real SeanJon, the collaboration you had going with Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek. We pretty much finished the record like eight months ago, and we've been just sitting on it. And that needs to change. We've got to figure it out, and get it out there. Is it like in label limbo or what? Yeah, I mean, essentially, we're both free agents. The whole project has been a lack of labor of love. There really hasn't been that much effort that we put into it. Everything has been done at a "whenever we felt like it" pace. But now it's at a point where it's done. Yeah, we've got to start feeling like it pretty soon. [Laughs] Right. So, it sounds like Diddy or Puff Daddy never came through with that lawsuit you were expecting to get from calling it The Real SeanJon, huh? Yeah, we were hoping, you know. He needs to get a bigger team of lawyers or something. Yeah. Well, we found out that somehow I think the lawyer that represents him is somehow connected to somebody that represents somebody that's involved with us. So, we're trying to work that connection and see what we can do. [Laughs] So, the plan as I hear it is the Fall and Winter EPs are out now, then the Spring and Summer EPs hit stores May 27, and then a Switchfoot album in late '08. Is that still on target or anything? That's the plan. And, in the meantime, we're going to keep on touring. OK, gotcha. Is there a decent number of songs in the mix already for a Switchfoot record, or that's going to come about through the course of the bulk of the middle in the spring of this year? No, we've narrowed it down to probably within 50 songs for the next Switchfoot record. OK. And the work is there. It's just a question of whittling it down and all that stuff? Yeah. Songs are never the problem as far as like, quantity. The problem is that as you get better as a songwriter, it doesn't mean you have more consistently great songs. It just means you have less consistently crappy songs. So, in many ways, it makes it that much harder to determine what's a great song. The bar is raised, right? I mean the bar is a little higher. Yeah. Usually you've got 30 crappy songs and one good one, right? Right. And then now you're like, "Well, they all sound pretty good. I don't know. Which ones do we work on?" Right. It makes that editing process a lot harder I guess? Yeah. And it's not to say that there are any great ones; it just means that there's less crappy ones. [Laughs] Right. Are the divisions clear in your head between what's obviously solo stuff and what's Switchfoot stuff? I mean you're the band's principal songwriter, or have been over the years. So, is it a hard thing for you to figure out, or is it a kind of like a case-by-case, song-by-song thing that you figure it out? The guiding light has been--what we were talking about earlier--the vulnerability. It took us a long time to figure out that that was what we are talking about. I had a few friends helping me with the process. And then as it became more and more apparent what it was looking like, then you figure out what your guidelines are as you go. Right. That makes sense. Originally, it was going to be kind of an electronic project. This one? Yeah, because there were all these program things that I'd been doing that don't really fit on a Switchfoot record either, but it felt like this was a better way to go, kind of more the organic element. I started just cherishing the idea of going anywhere and playing your instrument. Right, having the whole setup in one hand kind of a thing. Yeah, you got it on your back. And you walk into the coffee shop or the bar, your friend's house, or whatever it is, and you are ready to go. And so with that in mind, I think that was a big part of what gears the song this way as well. Gotcha. So, can we expect to hear the Jon Foreman electronic project down the road sometime? There's a lot of songs that I think we might push them towards a Switchfoot record. I feel like we're all kind of in that mood to do something that offends a few people musically. [Laughs] [Laughs] Interesting. Well, that could be cool. That could be very cool. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. It was good to check in and see where you're at these days, and I look forward to hearing the Spring and Summer records. Are you going to do a lot of solo dates in the next few months? We're doing a lot of Switchfoot dates. Switchfoot dates. Gotcha. Thanks again, and good luck. All right, so long. Thank you.