Jon Foreman - A Tightrope Stretched Toward Infinity

Infinity in a song. There's a constant tension between contingency and eternity in the music of Jon Foreman. At the helm of Switchfoot, over more than ten years of career he has earned platinum records and Grammy nominations. As a solo artist, last year he bared himself through the intimate songwriting of a series of EPs inspired by the changing of the seasons, on a journey where the constant focus is the ongoing urge to measure everything against his own questions. In the exclusive interview he granted us, every word carries an unmistakable weight: that of experience faced right down to its roots.

In Italy, your name and that of your band don't yet enjoy the same fame they've earned in the United States… If you had just one sentence at your disposal, how would you introduce yourself to someone who knows nothing about your music?

Guitar-based music for people capable of thinking.

Can you tell us something about the early days of your professional journey? When and how did you discover that you wanted to become a musician?

I've always made a big racket with pianos and guitars. To be honest, I'm not sure there was ever a moment when I didn't want to become a musician…

After ten years with a successful band, what pushed you to challenge yourself again as a solo artist? In your view, what does it take to never settle, to keep your own questions alive?

I'm afraid of the unknown, but I'm also drawn to it, I want to know what's on the other side. In a way, these EPs stem from that pull. But for the most part the songs shaped their own destiny, I just followed the scattered threads.

I suppose most of the truest questions in my life come from pain. When we experience things in life that point to something beyond our own experience, we often encounter the most important thing, perhaps even the Other. Fear can kill these questions, if you're not careful.

The songs on your EPs are woven, more than ever, with biblical references, drawing above all on the verses of the psalms. The Dylanesque model (like that of songs such as “Every Grain Of Sand”) seems to have marked you deeply. What do you think makes those words still able to speak to the human heart today?

I'm not exactly sure what gives words their power. An old song can lose its power, no matter how true it is. I believe the role of a songwriter / prophet / lover / friend / human being is to seek and bear witness to truth in ways that are appropriate to their own particular situation.

In the Judeo-Christian creation story there is a God who turns words into flesh. Whether you're writing a song or offering encouragement to your girlfriend, you're entering that same divine realm of creation and relationship where words hold incredible power.

Today faith and artistic expression are often seen as almost incompatible: at best, tailor-made categories get created (for instance the so-called “christian rock”), starting from the prejudice that anyone who believes in something has nothing to say to man as man, but should address, at most, an audience of people who share the same faith. Your experience, on the contrary, seems to show something different…

All of us living beings have one thing in common: death is coming. It's within this tragicomic condition that we search for meaning and hope. That's where my songs come from. That's the common ground. Hope, the search, the dream, life, death. These are my fellow travelers: atheists, Christians, agnostics, surfers, students, homeless people and millionaires.

It's annoying and far too predictable to believe that the only people worth loving are the ones I agree with. That way of thinking feeds racism, fascism and fear. And you can see this ugly streak of intolerance just as much on the right as on the left. Yet music is one of the few guests that sneaks into our minds uninvited. I treasure many songs written by people whose way of understanding life was different from mine. I hope open-minded people listen to my songs in that same spirit: simple expressions of truth, beauty, pain and hope.

The concept behind your EPs, built around the changing of the seasons, seems to revolve around the theme of the sense of time. In particular, in the closing track of the cycle, “Again”, you use the image of the conversion of men's hearts as the key to history: “You are turning our hearts back to you”. Given the dramatic nature of the times we live in and the skepticism of those who believe nothing can change, do you think such a stance is realistic or utopian?

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said he supported democracy because he distrusted all men equally. I can understand that sentiment, I have very little faith in men. I believe the Infinite Other is the only hope for any kind of freedom from our many forms of self-tyranny. Without that hope, I'm not just skeptical, I'm hopeless, almost suicidal.

At the heart of your lyrics there's often a reversal of perspective: in “Revenge” vengeance coincides with love, in “Baptize My Mind” love coincides with sacrifice… What do these apparent paradoxes mean in your life?

Most of life exists in a state of tension. Darkness with light, bitter with sweet. Like a guitar string pulled tight between two ends. Tension is uncomfortable, unsettling. And yet without tension the string would have no tone. The human spirit often turns out to be the same. I'm drawn to poetry because the tension of these paradoxes is accepted without being explained. I hope mine is one of those lives that ventures into the tension instead of trying to run from it.

The symbolism of the four EPs also spills over into the individual cover images, where a tree appears whose form changes as the seasons pass, in parallel with the colors and the paper-like texture of the landscape in the background. The care given to the artwork, the use of recycled paper, the taste for the physicality of the CD: did you personally take care of all these aspects?

I did all the artwork myself.

“Limbs & Branches” was recently released, a collection of tracks taken from the four EPs, with the addition of a couple of previously unreleased songs. From what we've been able to read around, you selected the tracks keeping some kind of ranking of your fans' favorites on hand. What are the four tracks (one for each EP) that are Jon Foreman's favorites? Can you tell us something about the two unreleased songs?

Mmmmmm… I honestly don't know how I could pick just four. The two unreleased songs are tracks recorded during the process but which, for various reasons, never ended up on any of the EPs. One of the two is a decidedly dark song. The other carries a bit more hope beneath it.

On the cover of “Limbs & Branches” the tree symbolism reappears once again. The colors and setting suggest that for this collection you chose a "mid-season" setting, returning to a scene similar to that of the first EP. This brings to mind Kim Ki-Duk's film “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring”, in which the Korean director expresses, through the seasons, a conception of the slow and ineluctable cyclicality of existence. For you, is life an eternal circle or a road with a destination?

Most of life is in continuous circular motion. Meaningless, meaningless, it's all meaningless. And yet, despite this, there are sparks and flashes of transcendence… moments in which the temporal makes room for a shred of infinity in the room. I believe this points to a meaning greater than the continuous circular motion. I believe we are responsible for how we treat others, that neither love nor hate are inevitable or random – both war and kindness are the fruit of choices.

"Beauty will save the world," to use Dostoevsky's famous prophecy: in your view, what does a song need in order to carry a fragment of that absolute beauty?

Honesty would be a good starting point.

You grew as an artist in a band born out of a circle of friends. Someone once said that in life you can get everything wrong except the choice of your friends: looking back at your story, how important do you think friends have been to your journey as a man?

I'm alive precisely because of my friends.

On your MySpace you say you've been going back and forth doing live performances since way back in 1997. Back in 1997, what did you feel when you walked on stage and silence fell, just before kicking off a show? And what do you feel today?

In 1997 the audiences we played for rarely stayed silent! I hated playing music live because of its finality: in a live show every note, right or wrong, is final. I much preferred recorded music, in which I could find a bit more grace.

My feelings today often go in the opposite direction. I love the finality of a live show. Anything can happen. When things go from right to wrong, you find yourself pushing harder than ever. In those moments the music pulls you forward rather than backward.

Last year you and Switchfoot made a track for the soundtrack of the second "Chronicles of Narnia" film. C.S. Lewis claimed he wrote the Narnia saga because he didn't want education to be based on duty and moralism, but on empathy. "An obligation to feel can freeze feelings," he stated. What do you think of that?

I'm not entirely sure of the context of that quote… but my sense is that as a motivating factor, empathy works better than math. The most educated men in the world are often employed in winning wars. Duty can be found at the root of some of the lowest moments in the history of the human species.

"Lowercase People Records", the label that has released your solo work, is part of a broader project founded by Switchfoot to give visibility to the "lowercase people" (i.e. people written with a small "p", ed.), from promoting artists unknown to the wider public to supporting Third World communities. Can you tell us something about this project?

Lowercase People was a dream to see beauty in action. It was a fire that didn't take the direction we'd hoped for. So we decided to tie our music to these projects in other ways. The proceeds and awareness tied directly to the music through tours and in-store sales…

Your solo EPs are like a kind of personal diary. What's at the heart of your new project Fiction Family instead, born from your collaboration with Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek?

The heart of the melodies written with Sean is represented by fiction, as the project's name itself implies. For instance, "Please Don't Call It Love" draws inspiration from "The Sun Also Rises" (Hemingway's novel, ed.).

The word "switchfoot", which gives your band its name, comes from surfing slang and refers to the ability to surf with either foot forward, right or left, almost as if you were ambidextrous. Surfing is one of your greatest passions, and whenever you get the chance you fly off to the ocean to practice it. What lessons have you drawn from this sport that you've been able to apply to your music?

Patience.

(19/05/2009)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google