SWITCHFOOT will perform on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Monday, September 19th. The GRAMMY®-winning band will give “Dark Horses,” the lead single from its upcoming album, Vice Verses, its television debut. The track is climbing at Modern Rock radio, where it has already been added by KTBZ (Houston), San Diego’s 91X and KBZT, CIMX (Detroit), KPNT (St. Louis), WXDX (Pittsburgh), KXRK (Salt Lake City) and numerous other stations.
Credential Recordings/lowercase people and Atlantic Records will release Vice Verses, the eighth studio record from the multi-platinum rock band, on September 27th. Working with producer Neal Avron (Sara Bareilles, Weezer), SWITCHFOOT recorded most of the album in their San Diego, CA home studio. Mike Elizondo (Eminem, Dr. Dre, Pink) who produced 2009’s Hello Hurricane, served as executive producer. Hello Hurricane entered The Billboard 200 at No. 13 and contained the Modern Rock hits “The Sound (John M. Perkins’ Blues)” and “Mess of Me.” The band won “Artist of the Year” honors at the San Diego Music Awards earlier this week.
On September 22nd, SWITCHFOOT will launch a co-headlining tour with ANBERLIN in Wilmington, NC. A pre-sale for fan club members is underway now at http://switchfoot.artistarena.com/. Tickets will go on sale to the general public this Friday, August 12th, at http://www.switchfoot.com/switchfoot/c/tourdates. (See below for itinerary.)
SWITCHFOOT and ANBERLIN have also teamed up with Eventful http://eventful.com to give their fans in the cities where the tour is routed the opportunity to bring an exclusive VIP acoustic performance to their city. Fans have until September 15 to cast a vote for their city at http://eventful.com/switchfootandamberlintour. The tour city with the most Demands will host the VIP performance prior to the regularly scheduled show. Eventful’s “Demand it!”™ service is used by over 100,000 performers who engage with millions of their fans to find out where they are in demand, and then utilize this essential data to optimize future tour routing.
Local chapters of StandUp for Kids (www.standupforkids.org), a national nonprofit volunteer outreach organization dedicated to making a difference in the lives of at-risk, homeless and street kids, will be collecting new and used backpacks at the concerts. The backpacks will be used to distribute food and essentials to kids served by the organization.
SWITCHFOOT has raised more than $500,000 for San Diego-based children’s charities, including StandUp for Kids, with its annual concert/surf contest/silent auction, the Switchfoot Bro-Am Presented By Hurley (http://www.switchfoot.com/c/bro-am). The seventh annual Bro-Am took place in June at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, CA.
ESPN college football will host an exclusive stream of Vice Verses on September 17th and the album will provide the soundtrack to the NCAA games airing that day on ESPN. SWITCHFOOT will perform at the San Diego Padres-Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game on September 18th at PETCO Park in San Diego.
SWITCHFOOT – comprising Jon Foreman (vocals/guitar), Tim Foreman (bass), Chad Butler (drums), Jerome Fontamillas (keys/guitar) and Drew Shirley (guitar) – expands its sonic palette on Vice Verses. Songs like “Afterlife” and “The War Inside” take the harder-edged approach of Hello Hurricane a step further, creating what Billboard has called “powerful, anthemic rockers.” Tracks such as the groove-oriented “The Original” and “Blinding Light” benefit from a hip-hop backbeat as does “Selling the News,” a Beck-like song that finds Foreman performing spoken word. “The War Inside” really puts the rhythm section up front while the snappy “Rise Above It” recalls the Chili Peppers punk-funk. “‘Restless’ is the story of my life: thirsty, reaching, yearning for more,” confesses Foreman as his unflinchingly honest lyrics drive the current single rapidly climbing the AC/CHR Christian radio charts.
With its play on words, the new album’s title suggests its theme: everything has two sides. “Every blessing comes with a set of curses,” singer-guitarist Jon Foreman sings on the title track, all the while wondering if “there’s a meaning to it all.”
“The whole thing is about polarity,” says Foreman. “We wanted to write about the polarity of what it means to be human, the lights and darks. I’m always intrigued by the tension that exists between life and death. When making Hello Hurricane, there was a graveyard right by the hotel we were staying at while we were mixing it, and I spent a little bit of time there each morning walking through and sorting it out…really Vice Verses started there. This record is as much about loss as it is about what we still have while we’re living.”
The pre-order for Vice Verses is currently underway at www.switchfoot.com.
SWITCHFOOT/ANBERLIN FALL 2011 U.S. TOUR
9/22 Wilmington, NC UNC-Wilmington
9/25 New York, NY Best Buy
9/26 Philadelphia, PA Trocadero
9/27 Oneonta, NY SUNY College
9/29 Grand Rapids, MI Hoogenboom Center – Calvin College
9/30 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
10/1 Bourbonnais, IL Olivet Nazarene University-Centennial
10/2 Dekalb, IL Northern Illinois University
10/5 Bowling Green, OH Bowling Green State University – Stroh Center
10/7 Boulder, CO Boulder Theatre
10/8 Salt Lake City, UT Gallivan Center – X96 concert
10/10 San Francisco, CA The Warfield Theatre
10/11 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
10/13 Amarillo, TX Azteca Music Hall
10/14 Siloam Springs, AR John Brown University – Bill George Arena
10/15 Longview, TX Le Tourneau University – Belcher Center
10/17 Dallas, TX House of Blues
10/18 Austin, TX Stubbs Waller Creek
10/20 Albuquerque, NM Kiva Auditorium
10/21 Phoenix, AZ Grand Canyon University Arena (SWITCHFOOT ONLY)
About the Author
