Some big news on the Switchfoot MySpace blog. Sony Records and Switchfoot have parted ways and now Switchfoot will go independent. It was also mentioned that a new Switchfoot album will come out in 2008 in support of this new venture. Furthermore, Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot will release his solo music and the music he makes with Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek (under the name The Real Sean Jon) on this new indie music venture.

Switchfoot, based in San Diego, was first signed to an indie label called re:think, back in 1997. The re:think label was run by Charlie Peacock and was for artists who were Christian but didn't want to be marketed just to Christians. The goal being to allow Christian artists to not be limited to selling their albums just at Christian bookstores. Soon after, the re:think label was bought out by Christian label giant Sparrow Records, even though the name re:think remained. Switchfoot's debut album, The Legend of Chin was released in Spring 1997 and they began making the Christian tour circuit. Chin had very modest sales but through relentless touring the band began building a dedicated fan base.

In 1999 Switchfoot released New Way To Be Human on the re:think/Sparrow label. This album was a bit different than "Chin" as it seemed to be a bit more in-your-face about Christianity. It contains some amazing songs from the guitar-driven title-song ("New Way To Be Human") to the call to fight loneliness and finding contentment in "Let That Be Enough". This album started to push Switchfoot up the Christian music totem poll and the follow-up in 2000 called Learning to Breathe solidified them as a popular Christian band. The desire of the band was still to be heard outside just the Christian realm but that was with limited success.

Somehow some of Switchfoot's music was heard by a few people inside the music and television industries and their songs were beginning to be placed in some of the teen angst shows and were in the movie A Walk To Remember. This led Sony Music to take notice. The original re:think/Sparrow record deal was for 3 albums. Switchfoot had already begun working on their forth album, The Beautiful Letdown, without a record deal. I distinctly remember this time (May 2002) as I'd spoken to the band just as they'd finished up recording the album and were going to release it soon after (September 2002). A couple of months later Sony signed the band and immediately delayed the album for extra re-mixing and marketing. The album was finally released in February 2003 and made the Billboard Top 100 Albums  the first week.

A couple of months before the release of The Beautiful Letdown they released a single called "Meant To Live". They even gave it away for free for Christmas in 2002 as an MP3 on their web site. They'd recorded a live video at The Roxy in Hollywood but it hardly got played at all. Once the album was released they began two years of marathon touring to support the album. In the summer of 2003 "Meant To Live" started getting some air play. Switchfoot then did a concept video for the song and it started getting played on Fuse, VH1 and made it onto MTV in the fall of 2003. The song was able to get the album back into the Billboard Top 100 Albums. The follow-up single, "Dare You To Move" helped The Beautiful Letdown top out at number 16 on the Billboard Top 100 Albums. At the end of two years the band went on four full tours and sold over 2.5 million copies of The Beautiful Letdown.