SWITCHFOOT

The Legend of Chin

1997. For some reason I still think of it as not being that long ago, but it was before iPods, before DVDs and at a time when Pentium 300s with 2GB hard drives were cutting edge. (handy hint for non nerds: my cell phone today is faster) It was also the year that three college kids got together and started making music. The two Foreman brothers and their friend Chad Butler were typical teenage Californians, obsessed with surfing and hence when it came to naming their band for their first album they chose a surfer’s term for changing position on the board as both a reference to surfing and a picture of the different stand we take as Christians.

Prior to this, they went under the name “Chin Up” and by now you must be wondering who on earth Chin is and why they named both a band and their first album after him. In fact the inlay of this first album was full of pictures of some Asian kid in a variety of poses and captions like “Prom Chin”, “Musical Chin” and “Football Chin”. Apparently he is a friend of the band and someone who always keeps his “Chin up”, he’s also featured in several of their music videos. A bit random, but something all the people who started listening to the band after “A beautiful letdown” might not know.

The album itself is rough and ready, much like you’d expect from a bunch of “only-just-turned-twenty” year olds, but they already had deep songwriting from Jon Foreman and great production from veteran Charlie Peacock. When I first heard, the album it was neither here nor there for me, enjoyable rock but being on the young side I didn’t get
all the lyrics, but to others more advanced in maturity the band were something fresh and different.

Throughout songs like “Bomb”, “Underwater”, “Might have Ben Hur” and “Concrete girl” they got rid of some teenage angst through some great sounding modern rock. All good songs with neat lyrics but it was songs like “Chem6A” that showed us they were more than just another rock band. The song is about the apathy of young people and how rather than live their lives they’d rather watch the movie and has this catchy little guitar riff to get it stuck in your head. “Home” was another highlight, a gentle ballad with a hook that reads “All that’s in my head is in Your hands, if it’s in my head it’s in Your hands”. It also showed a massive creativity in mixing things up rather than following a verse chorus, verse chorus, bridge chorus approach, and it’s something Switchfoot have always managed to do throughout their careers: break away from modern rock conventions. “Life and love and why” is another probing song asking questions in the verses and answering them through more questions later on that suggest life can only be answered by living it in God. “You” was one of the songs picked on the career boosting “Walk to remember track” and is probably the one most people would know. It’s also a cleverly penned song about losing our lives and finding them in Christ. (“I find hope when I'm let down Not in me, but in You”). “Ode to Chin” is another perfectly crafted song with the urging that life is more than girls and God is more than just words. There’s also a line about doubting your doubts which may not make sense, but think about it for a little while. Think. See it’s just clever way of saying don’t listen to your doubts isn’t it? The album closes with the quiet “Don’t be there”, beautifully enhanced by a string section although the song itself is quite lyrically depressing. Not “I want to go and drown myself” depressing, but more along the lines of wounded love and the anxiety of trying to make things right, half wanting to, but at the same time not sure how to handle it. A song that set the tone for the band in terms of being “Deep man, really deep”.

Overall, the album had mixed reactions at the time. Some critics thought it showed potential whilst others didn’t get the band. I remember reading one review that goes on about the ridiculous references to Chin, (is he real or some made up person?). Of course most people nowadays agree that although it wasn’t perfect (debut albums seldom are) it showed a band that was geared up for bigger things with lyrics that were sharp and music that was inventive. The band then moved on to create two more albums before the whole world noticed them playing the “Walk to remember” soundtrack. Those albums are “New way to be human” and “Learning to breathe”, both classics in their own right and maybe one day I’ll blow off the dust and bring them out the vault.