I am constantly on the lookout for new venues so when Grand Canyon University Arena in Phoenix, AZ was announced, I knew I had to drop in to check out a concert. I ended up at the Switchfoot concert and to say I was impressed by the band would be an understatement. I first heard about the band years ago when I fell in love with their song Dare You To Move. I had the opportunity to chat with Jerome Fontamillas about tours, the band and so much more! Make sure to grab Vices and Virtues on iTunes now!
Arin: What got you personally into music?
Jerome: When I was around seven or eight my parents forced me to learn piano and take lessons, and I hated it. All I did was scales for a couple of years. I didn’t really enjoy it, but a few years later, I learned about this really cool band you might have heard of, called The Beatles, and I was like, “I wanna play like that!” So I started to learn their songs, and I really loved music! It was kinda weird because all of a sudden I loved playing these pop songs, but I hated playing scales. It grew from there, I started listening to lots of other kinds of music, and I tried to learn and play it, that gave me the love for music I have now.
A: The band’s name parallels the way your song works, I read that Switchfoot has to do a surfing and switching direction, the sound of you guys is always evolving, growing and changing. What is this new album like in comparison to the rest?
J: Like you said, we are always evolving and changing, and musically. But when you are recording and performing music, you always want to be the best in your craft. You’re always trying to push yourself to be better. At this point in our career and in our musical journey, we’re still trying to find the best way that we can make music and portray these songs how they are. And we continually challenge ourselves to do or try something new, just to make it better than the last. This has been our journey so far.
A: Your album came out recently, and there have been a lot of really great albums coming out, do you have a favorite new album of someone else’s?
J: Radio Heads, King of Limbs. I really like that album. A recent album that came out is DWIGHT, it’s really great.
A: What can fans expect to see on this tour?
J: We are playing a lot of the new songs, they are really fun and really great ya know. So you’ll be hearing a lot of the new songs from Vice Verses, at least 3 or 4. We still hope to connect with the audience on more of a family level; we love it when the audience sings along with us. I’ve been hearing that our live show has been top notch, I can’t tell because I’m on stage, but people tell me the light show is really good.
A: What’s your favorite part about playing a live show?
J: It’s the connection with the audience. It’s the communal experience when the audience is singing the songs right back at you. It turns into one voice singing the same song. It’s one of those things where you’re like “Wow! I love playing these songs, and I love hearing people sing it!”
A: Do you have a favorite song to play live?
J: These songs are like my kids, so it’s hard to pick a favorite and leave the other kid out. But one of the most meaningful songs to me, because it’s one of the first songs I learned, is called ‘Dare you to Move’, and it will always have something special when I play it.
A: If you had to choose a T.V. show for your music to be on, do you have a specific one in mind?
J: It’s weird, some of our songs have been in shows or movies, I would never fathom the context. One of our songs, a really deep and meaningful song called ‘This is Your Life,’ was in a hot tub scene. It’s an honor when people feel like these songs will help elevate a scene in a show or movie. If these songs mean something to you, or portray something in the scene, it’s an honor for us. It’s hard because a lot of these songs are personal and mean a lot to us. So it’s difficult to say where I feel like a song can be in a movie. A song we’ve done called ‘This is Home’ was in The Chronicles of Narnia. That was pretty meaningful, because I read the books as a kid.
A: Do you guys support any charities or organizations that you devote time and attention to?
J: Yes, that’s a big part of who we are as a band. We do this thing every year in San Diego called the Switchfoot broam. It’s an event that we do on the beach and we have a surfing contest and a concert. We raise awareness for this organization in San Diego called Stand up for Kids. We’ve been supporting them for the past 7 years. They help at risk and homeless kids on the streets or that have been kicked out of their homes, just really trying to help them adjust to society. It’s an amazing organization. In fact, this tour that we are one, we’re trying to get back packs from each city we go to, to donate to this organization.
A: Do you have a favorite song lyric you have written?
J: Oh yeah, in the latest album, Vice Verses, we have a song called ‘Where I Belong,’ it’s the last song on the album, and that song to me reflects a yearning that we are in this world for a short time but we are preparing ourselves for the next world. One of the lyrics says, “I’m not sentimental, just skin and bones for rental.” It’s one of my favorite lyrics.
A: What’s the rest of this year looking like for the band?
J: Well, the album just came out a month ago, so in a couple weeks we are going to go to Europe to do some shows. Then towards the end of the year we are going to be playing a lot of radio-type shows. We’ll be touring our Vice Verses album for the next year and a half. We really believe in it, and we really want to play these in front of you guys, they’re awesome.