An Interview with Switchfoot on Bro-Am and the Care House Organization

Tim Foreman, bassist for the Grammy-nominated, Dove Award-winning, San Diego band Switchfoot took time out from a busy day at Moonlight beach to discuss Bro-Am -- a day of festivities in Encinatas, California, to benefit a charity. This year, it was Care House. Switchfeed.com (the band's official fan-run blog) talked to Tim about Bro-Am, Care House, oil spills, and dodgeball:

SwitchFeed: Thank you for doing the interview with us for switchfeed.

Tim: Yeah!

SwitchFeed: How did the idea of bro-am originate?

Tim: I think we were on a flight back from Australia, and we'd been gone for a long time on tour--really missing San Diego, missing surfing,missing seeing our favorite bands play. And we kind of came up with, ya know; "Wouldn't it be great if we kind of combined all of the things we love about San Diego into a single day?'"

SwitchFeed: How did the name originate?

Tim: Bro-am [smiles]. The slogan is "More bro, than pro" Cause, ya know, the whole.....everyone's....at least in San Diego, we've all seen the surf competitions.

SwitchFeed: Right

Tim: We didn't want it to be a serious thing. We wanted the focus to be on the community, and the kids, and this year the Care House kids. And so, we wanted to be light hearted. And to kind of insure that, we forced people to ride "switchfoot"

[laughter]

Tim: Keeps you from taking it too seriously. So, Bro-am.....more bro than pro.

SwitchFeed: Now, did your trip to South Africa influence any of what's going on right now? What you guys have put together for the Bro-Am?

Tim: I'm sure that our trip to South Africa has probably shaped how we look at life and how we look at things around us. I know, just kind of, examining the platform we have as a band is something that hasn't happened overnight. But we, kind of, are still learning and growing into it. But just the idea that there are people who are listening what we have to say....we want to make sure that we're talking about important things.

SwitchFeed: How do you find out about and pick the organizations that you....like Care House, this year, you're sponsoring. How do you do you decide what you're going to do next year or which one you're going to sponsor.

SwitchFeed: Well, the emphasis is always something around kids. That's just something that has always [been] close to our hearts, ya know? Whether it was in South Africa or wherever we've gone, the kids are at the receiving end of most of the tragedies of the surrounding community, or a family situation. So to protect kids...and living in San Diego, you pretty much know which organizations are doing great things in our community. And it's not just one. I mean, Care House is one of several. And so we try to use a different organization every year. Last year it was Casa de Amparo

SwitchFeed: Do you have like a list? Like, "Okay, this year we're going to do one this year, and then next year we'll focus on this one, and then the year after we'll do this one"?

Tim: No, we don't want to decide until, maybe, 6 months out. Cause we want it to be really relevant to people that our doing great things right now.

SwitchFeed: Anything you've learned, or any thoughts you'd like to share from your experiences working with and getting to know...have you learned anything from them that kind of impacted....

Tim: The Care House kids, its kind of an ever-evolving group of these really bright shining lights. They come to a lot of our shows when we're in San Diego. Not always the same 20-30 kids, but a lot of them are the same kids. There's kind of a revolving door....on who's there, who's not. They came to the studio when we were recording this last record. They sang on a song called "Burn Out Bright". So, some of them are closer than other because they've been with Care House longer. But, most of them are here at the beach today getting guitar lessons. Unfortunately, we can't teach them how to surf like we were hoping. But, they do have surf boards from the first Bro-Am....so a lot of them have taken up surfing, which is awesome. [smiles] It's such a great sport. Most of them live in, more like, inner-city San Diego. Which is a half-hour south of here. And Care House is stationed (without traffic) 20 minutes south of here. So they don't really come up here all that often. But there opening a new branch right here, like, within walking distance. So that's exciting.

SwitchFeed: What has it been like, to see the impact the last to Bro-Ams have made on the community?

Tim: It's been so beyond our expectations. Initially we thought, "What a great idea, just to get all our friends together, through a big party at the beach for a cause" You kind of start with something small, and you hope that people get it, an jump on board. It makes me so proud of San Diego...everyone's coming together for a cause like this.

SwitchFeed: Sometimes they don't it exists until and they advertise for it saying "this is what we're doing and just bring in the kids..."

Tim: The opposition that we face with the oil spill and everything is kind of what the Bro-Am has always been about.

SwitchFeed: What was your first reaction to the oil spill?

Tim: Oh, gosh...disbelief? Um, I was actually watching the [San Diego] Padres highlights--about to go to bead Thursday night and... At first I rubbed my eyes. "Did they really just say Grand View to East Street?" Cause that's about there to there [points from one end of the beach to the other where Bro-Am is taking place] A half-mile stretch that was impacted by this oil spill. Oil spills are rare in San Diego. This is the biggest one we've had in the last 30 years at least. So um...and ya know, it just unfortunate--the impact on our waters. But the Coast Guard and HAZMAT did an amazing job containing it. It's...for the most part, its all been taken care of. And there aren't any long-term effects on our waters. But the short term effects, obviously, no surfing today.

SwitchFeed: You know what? Dodgeball has made a perfect fill-in today.

Tim: Dodgeball...[smiles] One of the bummers now, though, is that people are going to have so much fun playing dodgeball, that we're going to have to make that an annual event. So now, we're going to have dodgeball, surf contest, surf jousting-- which, I don't know if you knew we were going to have a surf jousting contest?--concert, after-party, auction...There's going to be this growing thing every year. But it's all good. We actually had a professional dodgeball team show up this morning in uniforms and everything. Just asking where the dodgeball tournament was happening.

[laughs]

Tim:They were asking us questions like "What kind of balls are you guys using? Are you guys using, like, weight A or weight B?" I don't know what the terms were that they were using. It was really funny.

SwitchFeed: Who came up with the dodgeball idea?

Tim: Um, we were all kind of brainstorming. We were just kind of laughing like, ya know, the oil is out of our control. We can't move the contest. So...We've got to come up with something on the sand. We're were thinking, ya know, "ping-pong...what else can we do?" And then, someone shouted out dodgeball. I think it might have been one of the Macbeth guys actually. Yeah and, the moment we all heard that we were just kind of a "Yup! I'm in" [raises his hand].

[laughter]

SwitchFeed: And last, any message for the young readers of the blog aspiring to make a lasting difference like you guys?

Tim: Everyday, you're alive to change the world. A negative example of that is the oil spill. Where on guy accidentally or on purpose leaks 1000 gallons of diesel that affects the entire community. So whether you're changing it for the better or the worse is up to you. And I think that's a heavy concept, but it's also inspiring. So, you've got your whole life ahead of you...today's the first day, ya know?

~~~

A big thank you to Cookie and Lori who conducted the interview with Tim Foreman on location. Also, another big thank you to Phil , founder of switchfeed.com who set-up the interview and gave me permission to publish a transcript. Thanks to Tim Formean for accepting the interview. To see a video of the conversation, as well as footage from the Bro-Am, click here

If this article interest you, checkout some of Switchfoot's music: The Beautiful Letdown, Nothing Is Sound & and their newest release Oh! Gravity.

For more music from Switchfoot, checkout: The Legend of Chin, New Way to Be Human, Learning to Breathe, & The Early Years: 1997-2000: