Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Jon Foreman of Switchfoot

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Jon Foreman of Switchfoot. The early aughts band rang in a big milestone last year with the 20th anniversary of The Beautiful Letdown. They celebrated by curating a special deluxe edition, featuring newly recorded tracks from fans of the band — including the Jonas Brothers, twenty one pilots’ Tyler Joseph, and Owl City, to name a few — in addition to a re-recorded version of the album and B-sides from the vault. After performing the record in its entirety last year, they’re hitting the road again this summer with fellow vets Blue October and Matt Nathanson as part of a triple co-headliner, which features a rotating lineup every night. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠Spotify.⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'll be talking to singer, songwriter, and producer, and the frontman of Grammy-winning, multi-platinum, rock band, Switchfoot, John Foreman. Let's go. I don't want to bed times. I don't want to have bad. Perfect day for me. You surf every day? I try to. I got my board in the car right now, just in case. Just in case you're like, maybe I'll go check a L.A. I'm after this between my next thing.

Is there a good surf spot in L.A.? I mean, I honestly think L.A. is a really tough spot to be a surfer. Yeah. I have friends up here that do, but it's just, I mean, two hours to get anywhere, and you're like, ooh, I don't know, how good are the waves anyways? Yeah. What about Ventura? Yeah, Ventura is great.

A lot of friends who surf up there. We have a house in Santa Barbara. Yeah. And, like, that's my favorite place. It's good. Because it's super chill. That's where I want to like retire move. Yeah.

And like leave behind the stress of L.A. So I, there's a, um, my brother lives up there actually. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's such a good spot. Years ago, whenever I needed space, there was a monastery up on top of the hill that burned down actually. But I'd take the train from San Diego. Yeah, the surfliner.

And they would pick you up at the station and take you up to the monastery. And it was like, I mean, I think it was like 75 bucks a night and they gave you food and the only rule was it monks yeah oh wow only rule was you couldn't it was a vow of silence from like sundown until after breakfast which was kind of amazing though you can't talk to anyone you're just sitting up there like 12 hours a day you can't talk yeah I mean you're sleeping for a big chunk of it but it was this thing where um really helped me kind of collect my head you know because I think we're surrounded by noise and I think I was just really craving silence at the time, you know. Yeah, definitely

saved a lot of me, you know, to try and find that piece. Yeah. Were they like Buddhist monks? They were Tibetan. Francescans. So like the brown robes, Jedi-looking guys. Right. The like Catholic-style monks. Yeah. I got it. So, and they were, all, I mean, you just show up and they wouldn't really ask any questions. They're all very kind. You could participate or not. You just go for walks. That's cool. But yeah, Santa Barbara. I love it. It's a good spot. It's sweet up there. Yeah. But there's a lot of people surfing. I always see in Ventura. There's like a beach, there's a couple beaches over there that I always see people surfing.

I don't surf. Yeah. I'm terrified of the ocean. Well, if you ever want to take a foray into the ocean. Never going. Never. That's a hard and fast rule. I actually feel like I got given a very good fear because it doesn't prohibit me really from doing much except going in the ocean. Okay. So I'm terrified of the ocean.

I'll go in a boat. Yeah. Life jacket. Yeah. Or I'll go fishing. Yeah. Like as long as I have a life jacket near me, I'm good. Yeah.

What about do your kids share the same fear? No. My daughter, like, surfed. She's not like a, she, she liked to surf and she had a moment where she really, like, liked it and learned how to surf. I feel like she still does it. I don't know that side of her life because she goes to the beach, usually with her friends or my wife. Yeah. And I'm not a big beach person.

You just like, you do your thing. Go for it. Yeah. I do a lot of other stuff with you. Yeah. You can have the beach. Yeah. And she, like, surfed.

And I went and saw her a couple times to surf. And it terrified me for her. Oh, my gosh. But she's like good. She's good at it. It's great. No, I take my, I've got a five-year-old son, 12-year-old daughter. I've taken them both out.

I mean, you just paddle out. And for me, that's my happy place. That's terrifying. You took a five-year-old out there? When he was little. I mean, you just, I mean, that's where I feel most at home. Yeah. Maybe that and like in a crowd of people, like, you know, when you're playing a show

or you just, everything melts away and you're present to that moment in that moment alone. That's it. It's like, it's a mindfulness. Yeah. And I could see how the ocean would give you that.

I'm trying to think I like my mindful practices where I feel the most present in my body and in the moment. Yeah. Good question. It's funny because for me, especially when it's really,

like when it's big and there's consequences. It's kind of a forced mindfulness. Right, you have to be. Yeah, your entire body is very alert. It's like a tight rope. Yeah. You're present to the fact that there's consequences to every decision you make.

Yeah, and there's some danger. And you are not in control. Yeah. And so you're just very aware of everything. And you feel very alive in those moments. Yeah. Mindfulness is a real thing. It's part of, I think, why we all look for things in religion, faith.

That's mindfulness. Prayer is mindfulness. reading can be mindfulness. I think we look for those things because I do think that all of us have like this need, whether we realize it or not, to get back in the moment and in our life. Actually, I was thinking about you,

obviously driving in because I was going to talk to you. I don't do a whole lot of prep to talk to people because I kind of like it to, I like to be honest. Yeah, in the moment. In the moment. So I try not to like, learn too much. Yeah. You don't want to know too much. I know enough to know that I want to talk to you

and I want you to come here. There's a real honesty to like how we book the show, how we do everything here that I like and maybe we'll continue to tweak it or whatever. I'm not, I'm never too rigid in how I do anything. Yeah. But for the most part, I try to just feel my way through everything. I get excited about the opportunity to like, I get you for an hour. I want to, I want to, there's some things I want to know. But there's certain songs that you've had that really hit me. And one of them that I fucking love, and I listen to it on the way in again. And I love the Al City version of it with you guys in Al City is gone. And that's kind of mindfulness. Yeah. That song is low key. Like, because it's, it's a, it's a really great easy song to sing along to. But then I, the lyrics

have always hit me. It always reminds me. I'm always thinking about trying to remind myself that nothing matters. Because we all get caught up in our life. You're raising kids. You're trying to like navigate life period. Yeah. And anyone out there listening, it might be their job. It might be their relationship. It might be what they're trying to accomplish in life. Whatever. We are all different. But we all get caught up in these things and we hold on each of us different, but we hold on to ideas that we kind of like let impose on our ability to just be present and be happy. Yeah. And find the right now. And I need that all the time. Yeah, for sure. And that song, like, I was just talking to my brother, all this stuff we're doing and we're not just like work, but like, you know, kids and this and that.

And I sometimes get overwhelmed with adulthood. Yeah. So I feel very immature most of the time. Same. Same. And I feel like I'm a little behind sometimes when I see other adults. Like I'll be at some school thing or at some work thing and I'll, and everyone's just so together. No, I show up. I've got, you know, long hair. I just got out of the water.

I want that, though. But no, I feel you because like, you show up and they're like, oh, yeah, that guy's, he's in some sort of band and who he doesn't. What does he know? What does he know? Yeah. That's how you feel. I don't.

I don't know what I know. But you do. Yeah. he wrote that song. Well, so yeah, that song, it's... That's wisdom, bro. I do think recognizing our death is something that is having that in the back of your mind while you live is a form of wisdom.

And I'm not a dark guy, but a large portion of my songs are all about death. Making sense of it. Yeah, and trying to let that inform. form my time here. Right. You know, because I feel like we all look back at seasons of our life where we're like, oh man, I chased the wrong thing for two years. Or 10 years. Or 10 years or whatever. And you're, and I do think that the deathbed moment where you could look back and say, well, on my deathbed, is this something that I'm going to say, man, I'm so thankful that I did that. And it puts it into context. Or if we say like the death of anything.

Death of anything. Yeah. So like if we zoom out and we say like maybe you've thought about this, maybe you haven't. I hear you say that and I go like the metaphor there of death is not just about a physical death. There is like the death of anything. Many and we're continually, there's portions of us, our skin relationships that are dying all the time. And regenerating. Yeah.

Where something dies, something grows. and there is that thing in our life too that I haven't thought about or worked it out, but I'm thinking about it in real time. I do believe that like where we lose something, something else grows in its place. You can't have a garden that grows 1,400 different things in the same spot. The soil, it's, you know, I've been thinking about that a ton. Good soil matters. Yeah, and it's usually good soil is made of the feces of yesterday.

Yeah. Right? The crap that you went through yesterday. day that you like are like oh this is the worst you let it go you get rid of it you put it in the composter and then you know the next year you get something beautiful from it like that's kind of the season i'm in right now like i just the solo record is all about it's your second solo record yeah so this is like it's called in bloom yeah that's the whole concept though um it's this idea that i think it's not just me but the last couple years have been weird

Yeah. For the world. For the world. And I feel like there's been a lot of things that I've had to let go, let die. And none of that is pleasant. You know, starting something is always so fun. You're like, this is amazing. But letting something die and moving past it and mourning it, friendships, relationships, all these things. And yet, I feel like there's been these beautiful wildflowers that have grown from the places where other things have died. It's almost guaranteed. That's the thing we always forget is I think what I've been kind of thinking about and listening to Gone. And if anyone's out there, you should go listen to the Switchfoot Al City version of Gone. It is a banger. Al City also is like low-key, like legend in the scene. It's awesome. I love super.

I don't know him, but like Adam. He's influenced so many like artists today. Yeah. And if you look at their influences, like tons and tons of kids are like Al City. Yeah. I don't think he even realizes like the, maybe he does, the reach he's had. Because it feels like he's super low key and he's just like somewhere in like a little space making his whatever. You know what I mean?

Like, but Al City continually pops up with these like, we work with tons of new artists. Yeah. And they're like these cool, the coolest kids. And Al City's like a through line with a bunch of artists. That's great. I've been a fan of Al City since that first record. But that version of Gone is like such a banger. Yeah, he crushed it.

It's so fun. What I was thinking about was need. If we can, me personally, what I need to constantly work on is letting go of need. The feeling that I need anything. You know what I mean? Yeah. So a need versus want is really interesting. I think we throw a lot of things into the need category that are wants.

That are wants. Exactly. So the feeling of need, though, is something that's deeper. So I think we replace want with need when we maybe we didn't get enough of what we needed when we were younger. Probably, that's probably it from my years in therapy. It's probably something like that. Yeah. If you're stuck in the past in a need place because you did actually need things. You needed love, you needed food, you needed shelter. And everybody has their own experience of like what they got enough of and what they didn't get enough of. I think all of us are going to have some deficits no matter what. Yeah.

Deficits and perceived deficits. Yeah. We're like, yeah, I got to stockpile this. Yeah. And then I think if I carry the need somewhere back in my past into the present, the present is actually good. I have everything I need. Right. But there's still a sense of.

need. So I'll replace a want with like I'd love to achieve that or I'd love to get that or I'd love to do that. And instead of just saying, yeah, that's a, that's a want. It feels like a need. And it's not a good place. It's never a good place to negotiate anything in life from a need place. Yeah. So if you, if you go into any exchange anywhere in life with a need, you're not, you're never going to, it's never going to be equal footing for that exchange. Right. Have you heard of the philosopher Renee Gerard? I've heard of French. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, he's got this phrase, memetic rivalry. It comes from the idea that he says our needs are intrinsic. Like as humans, we're mammals. We have like, we've got to have food, water, air, shelter, pretty basic stuff, clothing. But our needs, our wants are learned. Kind of like how we learn language or mannerisms. like, I want that hat because I see you and I'm going to imitate you. You can have it. I'll give it to you. Okay. You know what I mean though? Like you see someone's

tattoo or someone's car. I want that. Someone's surfboard and you're like, oh, that's sick. And so we learn what we want. Right. And because of the limited supply of, let's say, gold, I want that gold chain. And then suddenly gold goes up and up and that all of the human conflict is from this memetic rival. I mean, we see it with kids. kids. Like, there's a toy in the corner that no one's played with for, like, weeks. And then one kid picks it up and starts to play with it. And every kid in the playground's like, oh, that's sick. I'm going to steal that. And then there's a conflict over this toy that nobody played with for months. And it's made me think of, like, what are the things in my life? Like you're saying, like, coming at it from a place of, yes, I have needs. Those are real. But is this a want? Or do I actually need? need it, you know. That's, that's it. That's the, but for whatever reason, gone made me really think about that. It like drove the nail in because I'd had this conversation with my brother. We talk all the time. And most of our conversations are, they're not too strategic. They're like

therapeutic. Yeah. What's up? Yeah, we're just like going around on stuff. And we could talk on the phone for an hour, hour and a half, no problem. And like, or whenever we're apart, we're the best friends but we had this kind of like more therapeutic conversation about like all this stuff we're doing and all this stuff and that idea is like none of it's a need all of it should be about joy should be feeling inspired feeling like you're going forward in life and you're aiming upwards and you're inspired do you feel that way when you're doing something well if you don't you should stop and check the gauges and go if I'm not inspired by this why am I doing it and maybe it's this, this, this, and that. Maybe you, maybe then that inspires you. Right? If you're like,

I'm not that inspired by this, but I'm doing it for the money. Okay, well, let's look at that. How do I feel about that? Actually, I feel pretty good about that. Then I kind of get inspired to do it. Yeah. And you have to just keep checking the gauges of like, because the joy has to be there. Joy is huge. Period. In my opinion. Joy is a wonderful engine. And if we can't be happy right now, when can we be happy? Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And it's also that's, thing too. So much of my life, I mean, you're a driven person. Like you, you know, you have ideas and dreams. Sometimes I can be, I'm not nearly as driven as you. I'm much more laid, but I got bare feet. Yeah, but that's just like cool. So, but like I think about it all the time. When you achieve those

goals, a lot of times it can feel like a checklist. Like I've got my to do list. I thought about, I still haven't done it, but I thought about retitling my to do list to enjoy. Maybe that's the parentheses of the album title. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So where you're like, how do I enjoy it? Like you're saying, you got to clean the toilet.

Okay, no one really wants to. You got to get done. You got to get done. And I do enjoy having a clean toilet. And there's some meditation and cleaning. There's something to be found there. How do I find the joy? There's also like the pride of ownership and doing it.

I didn't pay someone to do that. I freaking did that myself. I like doing stuff myself. Yeah, me too. My friend, he did his floors. He did his floors himself. He did his floors. I kind of always wanted to do that. He said he did it because he wanted his kids to see his dad sweat and accomplish something. Good for him. And I was like, yeah. What's his name? His name's Andy Powers. He runs. Andy, good, Taylor guitars. You know what? And he could, he is like a master Lutherer, but chose to, you know what? I'm going to do the woodwork on my floor.

I bet he did a pretty good job. Very incredible. But like he did it not because it just like, yeah, I want to see my, I want my kids to see me sweat and get it done. I agree with that idea. Yeah, pretty amazing. And I bet he enjoyed it too. So while we're on the subject, his dad, I've known him for years and his dad had this amazing. Yeah, San Diego.

He had this great saying. His dad would say, if you learn to love hard work, you're going to love life. Yeah. Which is kind of it ties into the joy. You're like, oh, yeah, that's so true. We said that the other day on like a team call. We were having like a team call with our, with our company. My brother said something that really struck me. He said, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. The process of growing is uncomfortable and we're always growing. And he's right. Like this, this company's constantly. It's just nonstop growth. And I kind of had heard him ish, but he never put it that clearly.

He was like, it's going great. Everybody's doing a great job. If you're uncomfortable, that's a good thing because this is uncomfortable work. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you're comfortable, check. Check because it's uncomfortable to always be growing. Yeah. To keep pushing forward, push forward, push forward.

Yeah. And that hit me because that's the truth about everything, whether it's like working out. trying to like change your body or start a business or even like some people's relationships like some people struggle i've been in the same relationship for 18 years not to say it's like not work but i think i'm comfortable having a partner yeah but i have friends who struggle with that they're like they struggle to stay in relationships for a long period of time but that's the part you can't you can't bail out when it gets uncomfortable so it's like making a record i'm sure making a solo record even if you go from you're making band records then you make your first solar record probably more

uncomfortable than the second solar record yeah i mean all of these things though right like um relationships um records the best things in life are this awkward messy conversations that yeah like you know any any friendship it's after you have the fight and you get to the other side then you can actually then you're close you then you're tight yeah right like you you you're you're tight yeah like you fight the kid in playground, the first day of school, the rest of the high school, you're like, no, that's my best guy right there. That's true. Yeah, I always, I've said that a few times in friendships, like, yo, if we can't talk about this, what can we talk about? Yeah. Like, this is friendship. And it's awkward. It's like the thing that you don't want to talk about.

So I had a strange thing happen years ago. I was shopping for a Mother's Day card from my mom. This is like 20 years ago. I'm not even married. Pretty young kid. And I, I, I'm downtown San Diego in a Barnes and Noble, and this guy, I hear this rich, sonorous voice from the next aisle over say, ask a runner how he got to be so fast, and he will say, I've suffered. Ask a weightlifter. Ask a fighter how he got to be so strong. And he'll say, I've suffered. Ask my people how we have gotten to be so strong. And I look around, is this like just chiseled, whizzed African American, like, like, dude, it just looks super cool in a three-piece suit. Ask my people how we have gotten to be so strong,

and we will tell you we have suffered. Any nation. And I'm like kind of just like peering in on this incredible monologue that he's giving to somebody. And he says, any nation that makes comfort their goal is already doomed. Do not find yourself seeking comfort. And it was just this thing. It stuck with me.

I mean, my hair's standing up just telling you right now. I still don't know if that was like an angel or what that was. Yeah. Like, were they filming a movie? But that stuck with me forever. And when you're talking about comfort and being uncomfortable, I mean, all of the things in life that are worth doing. Yeah, they get messy.

Well, I do think there's angels. I think there's like people and places and moments in time like that. That like, it's almost like, did I just feel that? Did I just see that? Did I just hear that? is a real thing. And I think we brush it off a lot of times and dismiss it. So I do think there's a side of life that's like transcendent side of life that's like hard

to explain. But why you needed to hear that at that moment. Yeah. And like probably made a deep, deep, deep impression on your. It likely could be like this really important thing that you just tell it. You tell it a story like it's a moment that happened because you happen to be there. But it's also kind of connected to your mom and you were doing something good for. for your mom.

And then there's also, I have these theories, like if we go seeking to do good things, especially if we're going forward with intentions of like doing something for someone else that's good, right? Even if you say, oh, it's just Mother's Day. Still, you're putting effort going forward, doing something for someone else and you find yourself in a moment where you witness something that like you could dismiss as like place in time, whatever, whatever, but also could also be part of the DNA of like all your success. Yeah.

You never know. You don't know. It's also like you think of, if you think of our lives, like the entire life is one big swing of the bat. Yeah. If we're going baseball. Yeah. You connect with the ball, this one specific thing. But the entire swing is like all the things that preceded that.

And then the follow through, who's to say what is what? You know, I always think about that with the tour. You do all the work to book the tour. You're away from your family, all these things. And you think about like, oh, we played for, you know, 2,000. people here and that this and that this was the big show and and and you think that's why you're there but you might have been there to just have that one conversation with the parking attendant that was having a hard day and you just happen to be there sitting down and spent 15 20 minutes and that was the

entire reason why you're on tour I agree with that I talk about that I've talked about that a few times. You actually don't know what you can't judge your own catalog. Because you don't actually know how many different connections it's made out there and whatever moment that person, whether it's me in my car hearing gone and having this reinforced moment, you don't know what in the next 48 hours, if there's a decision to be made or the next two weeks. You don't know where that message that came from your song that you recorded, you know, you can't track the butterfly effect of all the connections. Yeah. If we looked at like the amount of like neuro pathways we have and all the different connections we're making all the time with things. But to think your songs that have been

living in the world and every time you put another record out, you're stacking another group of songs into that group that's like going out into the world and making you. hundreds of thousands to millions to tens of millions to hundreds of millions connections through people to people to people and whether it's the message they got from the song and they shared with someone and it made its way into their kind of consciousness and then into their messaging out in their own stuff like that's the thing that's impossible to track about music so we could never quantify no no the impact who was the kid that was about to do that was about to do something bad that would have affected the world or their community or in turn the world or who's

the kid who got inspired and went and did something incredible like they put them on a path to become the next doctor and they cure some rare disease or they you don't know exactly where your music weaves into the consciousness of the group yeah and that's the part to me that i always like Like, if I'm staring at the wall for two hours, it's usually something like that idea of trying to understand. Could you ever sum that up? Right. And I still haven't come to a conclusion if you could. No, I mean, I think, yeah, I feel like music is the scaffolding of the soul.

Yeah. So it helps us get to places that we can't get any other way. Right. Like logical, well-reasoned rhetoric cannot get us there. but a song that can traverse landscapes that we could never get to. And I mean, whether you're writing it or listening to it, I think it changes the architecture within us. Yeah.

You know, like it somehow rearranges the furniture, lets us into rooms we weren't able to get into before, you know? And yeah, what a privilege. I think about that too. Like you go to a show, opening band goes on, the entire room feels a certain way, you know. If they're a great opening band, you're, it's like a great surprise. Right, you're just like, wow.

Then maybe the middle band comes on. Entire room changes, you know, especially if it's a diverse lineup. And suddenly you're like, is this the same room that I was just in? Are these the same people? It feels completely different. Everyone's moving different. A headliner comes on. Same thing.

You know, I love that. that we same group of people, same souls, can cover such diverse landscape. And then listening to it live is just a whole different experience. It's listening to live music with people up there making music together in harmony. Yeah. With people singing along or listening. There's a reason why it will always be something we do. And how crazy is that for both of us decades in to still, like I was at a show two nights ago,

just enraptured. Just so happy to be there. All the problems and weirdness of the week dripping away, you know. And I always feel that way. I take it for granted, but I always feel that way when I'm at a show. Yeah. And maybe I'm not even really aware of it all the time. Sometimes I'm like, man, that was special.

But sometimes I go and I always feel good. Yeah. Yeah. Always feel good about what I chose to do with my life. You know, the other thing about your music and switch. Switchfoot is how many artists really love you guys. You've had like 21 pilots, Jonas Brothers, all these artists covering Switchfoot songs, shows you.

It's weird. Like I keep saying, like you can't quantify the impact of any song or record, maybe ever as far as how many people it's touched, but certainly in like, culture, if you look at how many artists are fans, likely your songwriting informs some part of their process, because especially the younger ones, like Taylor Swift or the Jonas Brothers or 21 pilots, somewhere in their like early development of writing songs and developing like what they like to think that you in any way, shape, or form, whether it was a song, an album, or part of the information.

Yeah. Yeah. You never know. That inform them how to write songs. Right. It's pretty cool. It is wild. I am reminded of the first, we met the Jonas Brothers years and years ago.

We're like on tour. These three young kids come on our bus. And I had no idea. And I'm kind of clueless. I don't read in, like Rolling Stone or anything. I'm not like up to date back when Rolling Stone was around. But someone's like, hey, there's these guys. They're the Jonas Brothers.

They really look up to you. They want to, they're here and they want to meet you guys. And so I give them like the pep talk of like, you know, follow your dreams and, you know, just write something that feels honest. And literally the next day at the airport, I look down at the Rolling Stone, like, magazine. And they're on the cover. Dude. I'm like, with my brother, I'm like, is that the kids that were on our bus last time? And we were giving the like, you can make it?

Yeah, dude. They're huge. I do that all the time, by the way. I don't know. I'm just trying to inspire you, dude. It's hard out here. So there's this book called Finite and Infinite Games. It reminds me of what you're talking about,

where at any given moment, there are two games being played. There's a finite game. These are games with winners and losers. There's distinct rules. Short term, usually. Yeah. Like, top of the charts, it's a finite game.

Money, finite game. politics, finite game. Music, infinite game. Right. You're, you're not playing to win or lose. You're playing to further the game. Right. So like love, infinite game. Like you are, you're not playing to win. You're playing to, that you might give. And it definitely changed my thinking in terms of this. Because I think even in music, which is such a pure endeavor, you can get caught into the numbers of like, oh but we didn't sell as many as that guy or whatever but like what you're talking about you're not playing that game that the game is that you might you know give the gift of music to somebody else some kid the middle of the country you could make his day a little bit better you know it might be

the Jonas brothers it might be you know Tyler from 21 pilots or whoever it is or it might be just joe's having a tough day you know as an accountant if that that that that infinite game feels like a worthy reason to play. And you actually don't know which is more important. Like which person did your music reach that was the most impactful? Absolutely. You couldn't, you know, you could never measure that ever. Like that's the big question mark. You can't quantify it. You know that it has though. Yeah. The only thing that I would say a platinum record or chart, a Grammy's a great example of a measurement of. of cultural agreement and impact that this thing, we all agree that this thing is good.

We enjoy it. Yeah. Right. It moves us. Whatever it is for each artist, each record, it doesn't mean that the record we have that wasn't platinum wasn't more important in some way. I don't know. But I do know that the culture agreed on this and that and that, that it was something they all

agreed on. I think about that all the time. Like, I think of the Beastie Boys record that that was like their big, huge record with them in the sardine can on the front. Intergalactic. Yeah. That was a single for sure. And that was the one that if you looked at the timeline blew up. Like numbers, they got a, I think it was a Grammy, all sorts of different things.

But I think as a fan, all the stuff that they did before that was, it made, for me, I can only speak for me. I mean, check your head changed my life. Yeah. Yeah. Ill communication. Unreal. That was the first concert I went to. Okay, yeah.

If you're looking at it from the metrics, you're like, dude, make more like intergalactic. But for anyone who's like lived with all the albums, you're like, no, dude, make more like check your head. Ill communication. Like Paul's Boutique, get a, that for me, I think that all of those records were the most meaningful ones that paved the way for that. Or, you know, Pinkerton for Weezer. Pinkerton was one of my favorite records. All time and completely panned by everyone in the industry. They're like, Weezer's lost it.

This is the worst. And so if you're Weezer, you're like, oh, we can net. Don't make any more music like Pinkerton. But if you're a fan, you're like, give me another record like Pinkerton, please. I remember when it came out, it was like magic. Yeah. And then I went and saw them at the night. 30 Club on that tour like a month after the record came out or something like right around when the

record came out yeah and it was such a magical time to be a music fan to like hear pinkerton and then go see it with 14 other people i'll never forget that that show felt like magic to me like hearing those songs and knowing every word i listened to every word i would read the album notes and yeah um listen to the cd over and over again like that was a really magical time to like learn what it meant to make records. Yeah. What an album. Yeah.

Gosh. Yeah. It was pretty special. But yeah, so like the infinite game, I feel like you play to further the game. You play to pass it to the next person. What would you say you're the most proud of? The Bro-Am, which is our event that we do down in San Diego for the kids. Absolutely.

20 years of that is probably our proudest thing. I think the other things are a little harder to name. They're the unquantifiable connection points. I think that that's the thing that I cherish and value more now than ever, especially in a digital age. I think that humans like us are made for connection and that music gives kind of that short circuit. I listen to your song.

I understand you from a different, way. It would take us hours of conversation or a three-minute pop song. Right. And so those moments of connection live, I think that those are the things that I feel most proud of where it feels like we had a moment, whether it's five people in a room or, you know, 5,000. Those are the things I'm proud of stuff. What I get inspired to see is bands that have long careers that feel like, I think we had to learn how to do it, but we're there now, is we have to forge our own path. Yeah. You know, I think being independent has been really good.

Yeah. I just feel really great about everything we decide to do. We all decide to do it. Yeah. But watching bands that still like each other. Yeah. And still, like, enjoy playing music and you see them play, and you can tell that they're up there.

They really want to be up there. Yeah. And we made it a commitment to each other that when we stopped. touring it was for our families we all said it we all had wives and kids and we were like we want to chase that yeah and get and actually because the first few years of my kids life i was still touring all the time and i had missed some stuff and i couldn't get it back yeah and we all agreed that like we were gonna not stop but let's stop doing everything and let's start thinking about what we want to do and let's start like if we do anything it's because we all want to be there we all want to do it we all talk

about it we agree and then we go do it yeah actually do a better job now we're better live than we've ever been we're better and we're about to make some music i think it's going to be good i can kind of feel it yeah um which is a good feeling to have when you're excited yeah totally like i want to go do that yeah seeing a band like switchfoot i see i get the same sense i like see a band that likes to be a band We love each other. Like, yeah, I don't know how, like, it seems like I feel the same way about you and your brother. But it's that thing where you're like, yeah, man, like, life's too short. It's my other family.

Yeah, for sure. All in. Yeah. And there's a phrase that our friends in the band, Nickel Creek, I love Nickel Creek. They're the best. So they're like. I listen to their music all the time. They're like, yeah.

So I'm in a band with Sean. Oh, my God. In fiction family. We haven't made records for a little while, but we've made a couple records together. But he said this phrase one time that really stuck with me. He's like, we reached a point in our career where we wanted to make our own mistakes. Like everyone else is making mistakes for you. I want to make my own mistakes.

Yeah, I want to own my mistakes. Yeah. Like, I don't want to make your mistakes. Yeah. I'm going to make my mistakes now. That's a really good way of putting it. And it's great because it's just this ownership of like, yeah, there's a bunch of dumb decisions. And sometimes I'm going to make the right one, the wrong one.

But I'd rather do it. I'd rather make my own mistakes. Yeah. And that's kind of where we're at as a band. Let's own it. Let's all decide. This is where we want to go. All right.

And then let's go. Let's do it. I really, really, really like the Switchfoot story. It's cool. It's exactly to me what a band should do. It just feels good, you know? I just feel. Congrats.

Thank you, man. I feel thankful. I'm filled with such gratitude. But it's good. good to have models. Like we look out in the world and we look for models of things that we like the way they did that. Yeah. We like how they roll. And that informs, that's how we all come to our idea of how we're going to do something or what we want to be like. And I think you guys have a real, you guys have established something that you should be very proud of. The catalog is great.

The band is proven itself enough times over to not have to prove anything anymore. It's really cool thing to be switchfoot. It's cool that you had to do that yourselves. Well, you were talking about how like there were no models for you when I felt like the same thing for us where we were like, I don't know. There's no one we can like say, oh, that's the band. And we were kind of, we fell in between a lot of the genres. There was no genre that embodied what we wanted to do. And for a long time, that's, that was an annoyance because you're like, ah, we don't fit on any of the bills. We don't fit on that. We're not punk enough for this.

Right? Same, right? Kind of weird little like, we weren't really punk. We were kind of, but we weren't. Yeah. I mean, we liked punk, but we were like not as straightforward. Yeah. But we were kind of really pop.

Yeah. Like super pop. Right. There were aspects of good Charlotte that were always and always are going to be like this really weird super pop thing. Yeah. It's just weird. And because of that at the time, it's this annoyance because everyone's,

because everyone's saying, oh, you're not this enough. You're not that enough. And so you're forced, you're not on any of these bills or you're kind of on the bill, but you're the weird one on the bill. Yeah. And, but then, like, you're not ska. Skaw comes and goes. Yeah.

You're not this. That comes and goes. And suddenly you're like, oh, I'm really thankful to be different because we didn't get moved around with the tide. We're just our own thing. Yeah, you're on your own little island. Yeah. You got to keep building that out.

Just, we're just going to be us. We're not going to try and be anyone else. Yeah. And I think it does force you to kind of look inside and say, well, okay, we're not anyone else. Who are we? You know, how do we do this? That's what we all got to do.

Hmm. Yeah, I always try to take these things away because I always hope that someone out there listening is getting something about what you've done for their own, taking that idea and applying it to their own life and applying it to their own. mission, their own dream, their own... I'm super happy to have this conversation. And I kind of assumed we'd have this conversation, but you never know, right? Yeah.

You see someone who's figured out how to navigate life and build out their life, not anyone else's life, and like be happy and get the most out of life. I think that's kind of what life's about is. Go to your highest potential. Be the most you can be, whatever that is. Yeah. And get back up and try and get back up and try. Yeah.

aim upwards, try hard and get back up. And I think that what I feel the world kind of does, it's almost like people enjoy it, is watching people fall down and then kind of looking away and not caring if they get back up or not. And then when they get back up, we all watch and it's kind of exciting.

But the everyday person out there who maybe just got pummeled online because they wrote some dumb comment or they did something or they lost their shit on a video or who knows, Right? We watch, now we get to see all kinds of train wrecks, not just great athletes or pop stars. Yeah.

We get to watch everyone have meltdowns and we start to realize like, oh, we're all. Yeah. We all share the potential of being a train wreck. We all have the potential to fail. And we all do fail, actually. So we all have that in common. Yeah. None of us are special.

We could all fuck up. We could all be a train wreck. We could all fail. We could all fall down. So if we all share that potential, don't we all share the potential of winning, of succeeding, of being happy? And what I like about what you do is you don't package up perfection. It's more like real, which is what I think is I always look for that because I have a chip on my shoulder when I see people trying to get other people to follow them. for me it's more about coming together to support each other coming together to celebrate coming together to sing songs

watch sports this is a lot of reasons a good reasons to get together for good things yeah but everyone in the group matters right there's something about people that are living in in a way that i admire where i go i want to be a little more like that if I can. I want to try to go towards, to keep going towards that and encourage other people to go towards that, not to follow me, but to see themselves as worthy and special and like worthwhile to try something, to go for it, to aim up and to believe that they can, you know, achieve what they're putting their minds to. So whenever I have these conversations, I always like really hope that people are pulling that out of it. And when they hear you talk, especially, you know, Switchfoot fans, but also people, music fans.

And then people that are just listening, hopefully they're pulling out like this overall theme of living well. And figuring out what works for you and figuring out like how to how to be happy. So that's my help anyways. So far. So I'm gonna. And like my music, my hair can't change with me and has to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, potion 9 of Sebastian Professional has everything my

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on records. Funny you talk about the followers and things like when we were

doing those big arena shows and and like we We had this phrase that we would say all the time, like, our goal was never to be famous. We just wanted the songs to be famous. Yeah.

You know, like, I don't want people to see my face ever. I just want you to hear the song. Yeah. And when I sing, people have always talked about hope. And, like, hope kind of gets a bad rap. But I think that for you to sing from a place that you're seeing a hopeful song is to begin by understanding the depth of darkness and pain. Yeah, and suffering.

Yeah, you can't, hope is not something you possess. It's something you're aiming towards. Like if you say, I hope to get married, you're probably not married, right? Yeah. Yeah, I hope to have kids. You don't have four of them. So, like, I think for me, happy songs are really hard to write, and I have a hard time trusting them, but hopeful songs are the ones that, we're like, oh, I want to know that

if I'm listening to you that I feel like you can understand the pain. That's dope. You know? I never thought about that. Is there anything you still hope for? Yes. Yeah. I mean, gosh, I think the funny thing is that the easy things, the to-do list, the checklist of bucket list, whatever it is, becomes less about the numbers, but and not the quantity, but the quality of what you're doing.

Less is more. Yeah. like it's not just I don't want to get married I want to be a I want to try and be an actually good husband yeah you know like and so like instead of like I want to make a record someday it's like no I already did that I've done a couple of those and yeah but okay if you want to do that I want to make a great one you know and any endeavor becomes judged by how well it's done you know I actually haven't thought about that and said it out loud like what do I hope for yeah what do you hope for that's a good question I hope

to be married a long time. Yeah. And like happy. Yeah. And I guess I've always hoped for that. And I've gotten far enough down the road to like respect the work it takes. Yeah. But to still hope for it is kind of like I feel good about that.

Yeah. Because it means I still like want the same thing. So I feel good about the decision I made back there. Yeah. Which is weird because you don't how many decisions very, you don't get to make too many decisions in life that you look back on in 20 years and go like, I'm either like, that was a big mistake or that was a great decision. There's only like a handful or a dozen decisions you can make in life like kind of like that. That's consequential. Yeah. So I feel like the hope to still do

that as long as I've done it, like to double that. Yeah. If you could double 18 years. Yeah. I think I'd be stoked. Yes. So that's, I feel like that's a good place to be. I hope to make some more music that's that's impactful. Whatever that means. I don't know what that means. Because I don't know if it's the size of the record or however well it does. I don't know if I'm not sure how I feel about what impactful means, but I feel like at least important to me.

To move people. Yeah, that feels like. Yeah. Feels like something's at stake for me. And though, I mean, at the end of an album, you can never judge like who's going to be moved by what. If it moves you, I think that's the only job you have as a musician. That's the only metric you have, you know?

I think also just like I hope that I'm always close with my kids. I think that's a weird one for me because I was never that close to my parents. So I think that's probably like more emotional for me. Yeah, and that's one of those things where if we are imitators, you're like, oh, I'm on my own. This is a new uncharted territory. It's uncharted. Yeah. It's weird.

It's weird to say that because I have friends who don't even have to think about that. Right. They just expect it. Yeah. Because they're close with their parents. Right. Yeah. Just like a normal.

It's normal. Yeah. It's weird. Like, think about that a lot. Like, do you have to try? Because I'm close with my kids. Yeah. But I don't know what it feels like to be super close in adulthood.

Yeah. I had a very complicated relationship with my parents. and I don't know that they had the like tools to be close with us. So I'm not mad at them. Yeah. But I don't know what I feel like real closeness is like different than we say we're close. Sure. Real closeness is like you know someone.

Yeah. And like so far so good. It's also like their decision too. Right? Yeah. Where you're like, oh, I hope they kind of want to hang out. Yeah. I think about that all the time.

Yeah, we don't even have to hang out all the time. I just have to, I just like, I always think about like, what if my kid, like, say my daughter, like say she decides to go to college. Yeah. Great. If you're going to college in New York, I'm just going to move to New York. Yeah. I'll be right there.

I won't, like, move near you. I'll move on the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll move like 30 minutes away. Yeah. Just so that you know I'm there. She's like, don't. Anything goes down.

She's like, don't do that, dad. And I'm like, I'm like. Maybe, okay, so I'll still be there quite a bit if I don't move there, but I'm not going to try to push her away or anything, but that's funny. That's wild. Thanks for coming, dude. Thanks for having me. This is great.

Yeah, what a blast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of artist friendly. If you really liked it, you can follow, like, subscribe to the show anywhere you listen to podcast, Spotify, Apple, Amazon. We appreciate your support and we'll see you next time.