We're awakening the Footsoldiers!

In the four years since I started We're Awakening as a promotional site for Switchfoot's "Awakening" single, I've had the absolute pleasure of blogging about my favorite band and interacting with a ton of awesome people (i.e. you, my lovely readers). Even that word, "reader," seems a little too formal. I consider you all my friends, and as Jon Foreman said, "co-conspirators." What started as a hobby has opened up friendships and opportunities I could've never expected. And four years later, I still consider this a hobby in the best way possible.

The reason for this blog post is just to keep you all aware of the changes that have been going on internally with We're Awakening. As you know, we have been working in close tandem with our partner site Land of Broken Hearts, which was started and run by the ever lovely Jeanna. In the same time period, Red Light Management entrusted us with the running of Footsoldiers, the official street team of Switchfoot.

The Footsoldiers are not a single person or a single identity. The Footsoldiers are all of us. Since day 1 that I've been able to take charge of this entity, we've stressed the importance of involving everyone. No sign-ups, no fees, nothing. We wanted to make Footsoldiers a common banner for anyone and everyone who loves Switchfoot to be empowered to help spreading the word and the love of their music. That was the original vision for Footsoldiers, and what began six years ago has continued strong.

So, at this point, I'm rambling. I sincerely apologize. If you want to get to the nitty gritty, scroll on down to the bottom of the post!

Anyways, as Footsoldiers began to take on a life of its own in many ways, I found that I was double-dutying my time in the Switchfoot world. We're Awakening was still posting daily updates, while Footsoldiers was hard at work getting "The Sound" to the Top 10 of Alternative. All of this while Job, the student, was getting swamped by college work. Clearly, it was time to reassess the time that was being put into this thing.

Therefore, in order to make an already long story a little shorter, I would like to announce today that We're Awakening is now officially the blog of Footsoldiers! Over the past few months, you no doubt would've noticed the less frequent amount of comprehensive updates. We've decided to truncate the news coming through We're Awakening to the bare minimum, and, once "Vice Verses" comes out, focus on promotional efforts and campaigning. We will continue to operate through Facebook and Twitter as well, so be sure to like/follow those accounts to stay up to date.

That way, we allow our partners, LOBH, to keep on doing what they're doing, providing the most comprehensive, detailed, and best Switchfoot experience on the web. Meanwhile, We're Awakening will live on with its original vision: promoting the band to the best of our abilities.

Again, thanks for coming along for the ride. Let's continue to make beautiful music available to the world, together as one.

"We're awakening!"

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Oh, and p.s. Your minds are going to be blown next week and in the coming months. #ViceVerses

New Layout

Like it?

My good friend Isaac Lee (or izakly), put it together. Give him some love!

oh, and check out his Switchfoot tutorial videos on Youtube.

Switchfoot Stories and Camera Phone pics from the 3 Doors Down Tour!

As many of you know, Bobby is the new daily footer for this 3 Doors Down Tour, taking over for the great Andy Barron. (Andy, you'll be missed!)

But Bobby has a style all his own, and his inaugural post can be found here. Since it is the new guy's first post, I thought I'd reproduce it here. Awesome stuff Bobby!

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today was a wet shoes day. not a good day for tom's. put those sucka's away! weather was threatening rain, and occasionally it followed through. by the time the foots went it on, orange beach had changed from fall to winter, losing 20 degrees. brrrr! I escaped the chill by frequenting the bus only to hear a new Switchfoot song with each entrance. i think they're making a 100 song record! Each song is just another pile of evidence that these gents put a lot of heart and soul and sweat and tears (and blood?) into their art. Reminds me of Reverend Robert Evans and his nightly plight to stare into the stars for hours counting supernovas - of which he sees very infrequently, maybe 3 a year or even 1 every 3 years. Just the idea that he knows it's out there and that he's gonna chase it down like a wild fox hiding in the dark cosmos... anyway, you get my drift. a lot of work for an undetermined return on a timely investment.

welcome to the first night of the 3 doors down tour! thanks jordan, sweet tea was fabulous!

hope december is kind to you. come say hi!
bobby

ooohhh... 100-song record! ;) Though said mostly in jest, this is exciting news. I don't think he was joking when he said there was a new Switchfoot song every time he entered the bus! Woot! Switchfoot are beasts!

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Site News

Ah, now for some site news. We've updated the layout! Like it? Hate it? Let us know... It's a bit more Fiction Family-ized, because I thought it'd be sweet to give some attention to Jon Foreman and Sean Watkins for a little while. After all, we're posting banners for them all over the place, and they have a full-blown album and tour cycle coming up, so let's get psyched, man! Get psyched man!

Alright, peace out!

Switchfoot Gets their own Countdown on Steelroots!

Jon Foreman, Tim Foreman, and Chad Butler recently did a show with the Steelroots Top 10 Countdown, who were honoring their music videography over the past few years by dedicating an entire countdown to the guys' videos. Check out the entire show here.

Really proud of the Switchfoot guys. Here's to conquering MTV and Vh1 again in the future! Hey, who knows right?

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In site news, we have a brand new affiliate called "Abundant Skies", and its an awesome graphics site run by our friend Brandon. We hope to see work by him in the near-future on our site and other goodies. Glad to have him as a friend.

To check it all out, go to Abundant Skies now! They do some really good work.

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We have no news of how the Battleground Earth performance was yet, although we have gotten reports from various places that Switchfoot not only played "This Is Home," but also rocked "Meant to Live" in their two-song set. Stay tuned for more news on that front!

Switchfoot Studio Webcam Aftermath

Ok everyone. As you all know, the Switchfoot studio webcam is up and better than ever. Featuring live VIDEO streaming (still no audio), it is even better than back in 2006! For those of you poor souls (including myself occasionally) who will be missing parts, if not all, of the webcam this summer, we've formed two new place dedicated to the 2008 Switchfoot webcam!

~~drum roll pleasee...~~~

Tada! First, introducing The Switchfoot Webcam Blog!

There's nothing much in the way of design there yet, but we've got detailed stories already from Jacqui and Chelchie, two of our team members. If you would like to join in and offer up your amazing blogging skills to this, email us at

wereawakening@yahoo.com

Help will be grandly appreciated!


Secondly, dontcloseyoureyez on the official message boards made a Switchfoot Webcam photobucket account for us all to dump our photos in.

Here's what's been seen so far! And feel free to participate, and if you screen cap anything amazing, dump into the bucket!

For password and login details, go here

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In other news, our friends at LOBH continue ceaselessly to out-do themselves.

First off, they have a new interview with Jeff Stone, one of the key editors for our past two favorite Switchfoot music videos, "Awakening" and "This Is Home."

LOBH: Was there any cool footage in the videos that got cut out? What do you do with the extra footage?
Jeff: There was PLENTY of amazing footage that was cut out of "Awakening". Tony Hale and Adam Campbell are such great actors---they were basically given the green light to do what they wanted---and we ended up with too much. The video was really about deciding what was the best of the best, not just what was usable. All that extra footage exists somewhere on a hard drive...possibly to never be seen again. For "Home" we had a similar amount of outtakes, most of which was hard to cut out.


LOBH: How long did it take you to edit Awakening? How long did it take you to edit This Is Home?
Jeff: Awakening was originally a 4 day edit, we ended up going almost two weeks. Our cut was done in 5 days, then we had to begin the process of creating the game footage. We cut the footage in the computer, printed every frame on multiple printers and then had too many guys cutting, organizing and manipulating those cut outs. Photos were taken and we then cut that footage into the video and composited it onto the TVs. Phew. Home was around 7 days. Much more manageable and straightforward. We working with Disney and the Narnia people, so part of what we were dealing with was the availability of footage from the film. More than once we had to replace shots we really wanted to use.

Read the FULL INTERVIEW here! You won't want to miss it!

LOBH also has a scan of Switchfoot in none other than Alternative Press Magazine!



Switchfoot promoting bad posture?! YES! More power to them!


All of this makes me think Land of Broken Hearts should publish a magazine... hmm...?

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Also, Jon Foreman talked to crossrhythms UK about his solo ep's.

Mike: So doesn't that mean that as a songwriter you haven't really got a hope of communicating anything. It sounds very wonderfully post-modern, Jon, everybody getting from a song whatever they can.

Jon: Everyone's going to take something that doesn't belong from a song. I think the idea of conversation is an incredible concept. You can actually converse with people through a medium like song. You say your point of view and then of course, no matter whether you like it or not, they're going to have the other side. For me it's been an amazing journey to see people taking different things from the songs, applying it to their own lives.

Tony: I would consider you an artist and a serious artist but don't you think it ironic that much of pop and rock music is shallow and banal yet whenever an artist tries to bring a more thoughtful and creative dynamic to his or her music critics are lining up to call it overblown or pretentious or things like that?

Jon: Yeh. I think that is a tendency right now. The easiest thing to do is throw a rock. It's a lot harder to create a stained glass window. I used to get upset at the people who threw rocks but now I'd rather spend my time building the stained glass windows.

Mike: There is a song, "Baptise My Mind", which reminds me very much of Sufjan Steven's albums. In fact, Sufjan is playing on it.

Jon: I definitely wanted to give him a nod on 'Spring' because I find his music very sprightly. It was also incredible to get a chance to work with a friend of mine named Karl Denson who's in a band called the Greyboy Allstars, kind of a legendary band around San Diego. So he played this incredible flute solo half way through. It was a really fun thing to be able to work with him.

Read the full interview here

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Lastly,
keep voting for Switchfoot on Radio Disney and Vh1! We need to give Switchfoot all the help and support that we can give!

Switchfoot and Food Festivals

Switchfoot will be playing a food festival this Friday (May 9th) called "Taste Addison," in Addison, Texas. Gavin DeGraw, The Afters, and The Black Crowes will also be playing. ~gets Gavin DeGraw's "In Love With a Girl" stuck in head~

Taste Addison Website

Anyways, I thought it was rather funny that Switchfoot was playing at essentially a celebration of food.

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Here's a short blurb from a news story about Switchfoot's show at the Roberts Wesleyan College:

Jon Foreman's (lead singer) punk roots are obvious in his passion for his music and general stage presence: playing guitar with his face, climbing on the drum set and lighting fixtures. His vocals and guitar are backed by his brother Tim Foreman on bass, Chad Butler on drums and percussion, Jerome Fontamillas on keyboard and guitar, and Drew Shirley on guitar. The longevity of the band is obvious in the tightness of their sound.

In addition to the rock was a ton of flashing lights, which were impressive considering the show was in a gymnasium.

Read the rest...

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Gibson, which happens to be the supplier of Jon Foreman's electric-guitars-of-choice, posted a summary about his gig in Singapore earlier this year.

Switchfoot, a five-piece gospel-rock band originating from San Diego, California, recently played a one-night gig in Singapore at The Max Pavillion. As part of the band’s short whirlwind trip, they also played a short set at local tertiary institution, Temasek Junior College. Jon Foreman & his fellow merry-makers wowed the students with a solo intimate acoustic session on a Gibson SJ-300 guitar. The acoustic set was staged at Temasek Junior College.

Source

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Site News:

-New layout. well... new header graphic and color scheme. Hope you all dig.
-Also, be sure to check out the new "This Is Home" Promotion HQ Post we have put up. Lets get going, footsoldiers!
-The Voting Links Section on the sidebar is back!

"If you’ve done it before, you can’t do it on this project."

Happy Thursday folks!

Today, we have a nice little article, from Christian radio station Air1's website. Switchfoot is the Featured Artist of the Month, and they have a nice blurb about the band. It has the standard "indie/Sony Split/Appetite For Construction" bit, but the Q&A section was a bit of an eye-opener for me. Jon said something interesting that caught my eye:

So the rule for this record is, "If you’ve done it before, you can’t do it on this project." So that’s forcing us to choose different songs to pursue, different ideas, different ways. At this point, we’re ultimately trying to challenge ourselves more than anything else.

Source

Jon also talked about his solo Ep's, as well as the challenges he and Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek had with the Real SeanJon record. Read it!

Also, Air1 has added "Head Over Heels (In This Life)" to the playlist...finally...

Make sure you continue to request that single at your local Christian radio station.

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Local News

This is probably not relevant to anyone of you, unless you live in Southern California (L.A., O.C. area). But Star 98.7, the Hot AC radio station based in Los Angeles has inexplicably begun to play "Meant to Live" quite frequently. It has played at least once everyday for the past three days. (I saw this while browsing http://www.yes.com/#Switchfoot).

This occurrence was quite the surprise for me, considering that station NEVER plays Switchfoot, not even occassionally. They played "Awakening" once back in January or so, but never again, and never any of the "old" hits. This is quite exciting news, considering mainstream Southern California hasn't seen/heard Switchfoot since the "glory days" of 2004-2005. Maybe all those requests that we put in for "Awakening" back in the summer are making them check out Switchfoot after all... ^^

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Personal News

I just received my late Christmas present from myself--the Live at Ventura Theatre DVD. My initial thoughts on it are:

The Good:

-The visuals are very engaging and pretty. The lighting is much more sophisticated than it was in "Live in San Diego."

-The crowd was loud and noisy, but not very excited-looking. At least you could hear them though, thats an improvement.


The Not-So-Good:
-It seems very rushed... there are several major and noticeable audio errors, and the "Behind the Scenes" feature is just under two minutes long.

-Why are "Company Car", "We Are One Tonight," and "Burn Out Bright" all in the bonus songs section? Doesn't really make sense, since its pretty much the same show...

-No "Dirty Second Hands" or "Ammunition"...

-The guys seemed a little tired.

I will probably watch it again from start to finish before the day's over...

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Site News

The polls are closed, and it seems the naysayers for the auto-playing widget thingy barely won out. So, as you requested, the mini-ipod player thing on the sidebar will be removed, after today. So long, little friend.



This may very well be the last post of 2007. Unless we do a little year-in-review sorta post. Hmm... that random thought = interesting... stay tuned...

News!

Tada! New layout! How do you like it?

Also, to celebrate our new direction, I'll be rolling out some youtube vids of past Switchfoot music videos, in a segment I'd like to call, "Past Glories." Once completed, the series can be accessed with the Music Videos button on our brand new sidebar. ^^

So look our for that.

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-The "Awakening" video on Youtube has lost its honor. Start linking to it again to get it back up! Might I suggest using Autoreloader on Firefox and Auto-refresher fo Internet explorer.

The best place to auto-refresh is prolly switchfoot.com/awakening. This is an easy, non-time-consuming way of getting more views on Youtube. Just set it, and leave it!

-Keep voting on Vh1 and FUSE. It's still No. 1 on FUSE. As for Vh1, just pray they get their heads on straight. haha

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Well, that's it for now. Peace out footsoldiers!

A new direction

After nearly three months, We’re Awakening is undergoing a goal change, if you will. Initially, we set out on a little journey to help promote “Awakening” to the masses. So far, we have made significant ground, but this task is still far from completion. Let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished so far:

-Youtube: 1 million + views, peaking at #68 most linked of all time in entertainment. Not bad for a grassroots effort!

-FUSE TV: Yes, we have kept the video at No. 1 on FUSE TV’s No. 1 Countdown show as a guilty pleasure for just about four straight months now. Keep voting fellow footsoldiers! We are doing great!

-RELEVANT.tv: We retained the No. 1 spot for a considerable amount of time, but it has now been “retired” from their Top 10 charts. It was a great run though!

-TVU Live: We reached the No. 1 spot!

-Christian Hit Radio: It has peaked so far at #3

-Christian Rock Radio: #6 so far.

-Billboard Hot Christian Songs: #16

That is great! Our next step is to move “Awakening” into the mainstream. VH1 and MTV have been our targets, and they will continue to be.

Also, as you all know, "Head Over Heels (In This Life)" is the new christian radio single, released under Sparrow Records (Switchfoot Christian distributing label). Calling in to your local radio station about adding that song will definitely be a good thing too. Don't forget to request "Awakening" as well.

However, I am here to announce today that “We’re Awakening” is transitioning from an “Awakening”-based site to a more general Switchfoot site. This means, we’ll be focusing more on spreading the name of Switchfoot, and not just focusing on the one single, “Awakening.” I believe it is important, especially following the band’s independence, to sort of spread the Switchfoot name as much as possible, in any way possible.

What will we have to do to accomplish this? Well, there are several things:

1. Word of mouth. We experienced a taste of this approach with the Youtube release of the Awakening video. I think it was done pretty well. We have to keep to that approach, whether its using myspace bulletins, blogs, video links and embeds, Switchfoot shirts and apparel, whatever it takes. (teenybopperish approaches are strongly discouraged… haha)
2. Emails to stations. Emailing your local radio station to play Switchfoot isn’t a bad thing. Emailing TV stations isn’t either. In fact, I believe our emailing back in April was a huge reason FUSE TV added Awakening to their database and to the Voting list. You know the story from there.
3. VOTE VOTE VOTE!... which is what we’ve been doing a lot lately, haven’t we? But it goes beyond Vh1 and FUSE… it goes to all the different polls out there. Anything that has Switchfoot as a nomination, we’re there!
4. Fan Sites like this one are huge, in my opinion. Tell all your friends about Switchfeed, Land of Broken Hearts, and this site, as well as any others that spreads the Switchfoot love.
5. Love. For the band. That’s the easy part. Haha.

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So what do you think of the change? Yay or Nay? Please let us know. It’d be greatly appreciated. Stay tuned for even more fun stuff in the future. With the Jon Foreman ep's, the Real SeanJon record, and Switchfoot's new record in '08 to look forward to, the future is bright for Switchfoot nation!