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Since Switchfoot released Oh! Gravity in 2006, frontman Jon Foreman has won acclaim for his solo work and formed the new group Fiction Family with Nickel Creek's Sean Watkins. Meanwhile, Switchfoot built a new recording home, the Studio of the Foot, for their new independent label, lowercase people records. So is the band's new release, Hello Hurricane, back to basics, or did Switchfoot reinvent themselves amid all this change? Foreman sat down with Christianity Today and spoke about writing songs about finding hope amid hurt, theology, philosophy, and wearing the Christian label … or not.

Jon Foreman

What are some of the Big Things you're saying with the new album?

This record communicates hope. I've gone through really dark times, when I can't find hope to write about. This was the hardest record we've ever made, because we were pushing for something bigger than we already attained. A big part of that lyrically was trying to push through the clouds to find the hope that transcends the pain.

What can you tell us about those dark times?

The past four years of my life have been among the darkest times I've ever been through. To tell you more here would be giving a piece of myself that I feel less comfortable with. I'd rather sing it out. It's all in the songs. I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to hide behind lyrics!

With songs like "Red Eyes," "Sing It Out," "Mess of Me," and "Hello Hurricane," it's not the typical "positive and encouraging" CCM album, but you still say it's an album of hope. What is that hope?

Hope, for me, does not ever start with a sunny day. Hope, for me, does not start with what you've already attained. If it's there in front of you physically, it's no longer faith. Hope is an expectancy that is by the very nature of the word built into the future. Many of these songs are singing from a place where the punchline of joy and happy endings has not yet arrived. We're still living in a very broken world. I still have a broken heart. It's from that context that hope is possible. This record is definitely singing from broken places, but it's not landing there. It's continuing to press further than where the song began. Music is this incredible vehicle where I'm allowed to figure things out for myself in the song.

Especially in your solo work, your songwriting is often explicitly biblical. Can you describe the theological perspective that shapes your musicianship?

I would put philosophy and theology as almost twin brothers. Many times theology can be incredible, ornate words to describe God and the world we live in. It's like Kierkegaard said about philosophy: The philosopher has an ornate castle on the hill, but lives in a shack next door and doesn't ever practice any of it. For me as a singer and songwriter, I am continually wrestling with the idea that if I'm going to sing it, I have to live it. I don't want to live next door. I want to be alive within the context of the words I'm singing. There's a tremendous amount of humility I take when I'm writing songs. And I'm sure there is evidence of the transcendent nature of God in the songs.

Something I've been thinking a lot about is surrender—inspired by a book by John Perkins—that found its way into a song called "The Sound." This world believes that power is attained by guns and muscle and strong words, and that the power we read about in the Gospels is completely irrelevant and laughable. Many times as believers we adopt the power of guns or political strength or muscle. If you look at the Crucifixion, power is attained in surrender, asserting yourself through love. That's the river that runs through the album, most notably in the answer to the title track's refrain, "Hello hurricane, you can't silence my love." So the storm will pass—it might kill me, but my love is stronger than that. That love is obviously a gift from our Father.

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