Hello Hurricane acknowledges the storms that tear through our lives, states Switchfoot singer and songwriter
Jon Foreman. This album is an attempt to respond to those storms with an element of hope, trying to understand what it means to be hopeful in a world that keeps on spinning.
With Hello Hurricane, Switchfoot is set to thrive in 2009 with a newfound independence: a new home studio HQ, a new label, and a return-to-roots creativity and sense of purpose. After ten non-stop years of working as the world's most humble multi-million selling rock band, the hard-charging North County San Diego-based quintet saw recording sessions for their aptly-titled seventh full-length album as a unique chance to reassess, reflect, and rededicate.
"We built our own studio so we wouldn't be paying and playing by the hour", says Foreman of their self-styled Studio of the Foot home. Beginning in 2007, the band tracked more than 80 songs and allowed themselves to get lost in the music again and get back to basics. That's why we see this album as a new beginning of sorts,continues Foreman, citing the inspiration that likewise moved bandmate/brother
Tim Foreman (bass),
Chad Butler (drums),
Jerome Fontamillas (keyboards), and
Drew Shirley (guitar). For us it was a feeling of true freedom.
The album's driving and urgent
"Mess Of Me"with its personal declaration of independence, as Foreman passionately announces to the world that "I wanna spend the rest of my life alive!" powerfully demonstrates the edge behind the new tones. Not content to settle into a single groove, the band moves from the high flying album opener,
"Needle and Haystack Life", to songs like the stirring
"Always Yours" and the sweetly soaring
"Your Love is a Song", which by its very nature cries out for many waving hands illuminated by a blue cell phone glow.
The anthemic, riff fuelled
This is the Sound, with its utterly timely generational themes, finds Foreman spitting, This is the sound from the discontented mouths of a haunted nation! The
Hello Hurricane title track is even more poignant when it comes to the band's perspective on themselves and the world around them. I'm not talking about Rock You Like a Hurricane, says Foreman with a wink before turning reflective. There is a real despair that I see when we travel around the country_ and it's music that people turn to in a time like this. I wanted to reach out to those people with song.
Hello Hurricane is available in three different formats: The regular CD, a Deluxe Edition CD/DVD combo pack featuring a bonus DVD that contains over one hour of live footage and behind the scenes footage, and a 2 CD/DVD/Book Box Set containing the audio CD; "Building a Hurricane" CD featuring alternate versions, out-takes, and demos; the bonus DVD from the Deluxe Edition, and an 85-page colour book featuring images of the band in studio and on tour; plus other exclusive content.
www.switchfoot.com
