Switchfoot gives back

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It's a rock concert, it's a Christian music feast, it's a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser and it's a homecoming of sorts for two members of the band Switchfoot.

The Music Builds Tour, which pulls into Virginia Beach on Friday, carries a lot of weight.

The tour combines Third Day, Switchfoot, Robert Randolph & The Family Band and Jars of Clay, bands that have sold more than 16 million albums among them.

More than 5 million of that total belongs to Switchfoot, whose lead singer, Jon Foreman, and bassist, brother Tim, lived in Virginia Beach in the 1980s.

Tim, 30, remembers it well. "We were just surf punks, so we would just spend all of our time in the North End."

The area has changed a lot since then, he said.

"I've been to town maybe once or twice a year since we've been touring for the last 12 years, so I've been able to watch it. It's really a fun, hip place these days."

You may recognize their music from the hit movie "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Remember "This Is Home"? That's Switchfoot. The song is still on the Billboard Christian singles chart, at No. 16.

The concert will have a direct benefit to the area, beyond the concert. The 21-city Music Builds Tour is contributing $1 from every ticket sold to Habitat for Humanity, and part of that money will stay with the local Habitat for Humanity organization, according to Music Builds Tour organizers.

As part of this effort to help Habitat for Humanity, which helps to build houses for people in need and raises awareness about the need for low-income housing, Switchfoot worked on a house in Indianapolis.

"Building right alongside the homeowner that was going to be living in the house, hearing her story and her dream and what she hopes to use the house for - it's really inspiring," Tim Foreman said.

Volunteering makes the tour meaningful for him.

"When you can put your guitar down and pick up a hammer and, three hours later, look at the roof you're building, it's a lot easier to kind of know what you're doing."

Their efforts as carpenters reflect a general outlook on their music career: Approach each task with passion, open minds and open hearts, and good will come. That's certainly the outlook for the live shows.

"We really do just fly by the seat of our pants a lot of times, 'cause it keeps it fresh," Tim Foreman said.

Sometimes, the spontaneity includes a few mistakes, he said.

"Those are sometimes the moments that make a show the most memorable. When your guitar breaks, you throw it down, and you jump into the crowd."

They don't worry about labels, either. Do the Christian rockers make up a "Christian rock band"?

That label doesn't quite work for Foreman.

"I think it shrinks what, to me, is the most important aspect of who I am. I think my faith is bigger than a genre, and genres were invented to sell records."

Genres are "tricky when you're talking about my beliefs on the eternal God. We've always said we make music for thinking people."

"Dare You to Move" is full of heavy verses: "Maybe redemption has stories to tell. Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell. Where can you run to escape from yourself? Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go? Salvation is here."

For their next album, they are taking a daring approach. It's their first since the 2006 hit "Oh Gravity" and their first since leaving Columbia Records about a year ago to launch their own independent label.

As they sort through dozens of songs, preparing for a spring release, they have Webcast some of them live on switchfoot.com.

"I think the freedom that we're feeling in that process is definitely carrying over into the recording process," Foreman said.

As for the name of the new album - "It's locked up in a vault somewhere. Can't give you the key just yet."

DeAnne Bradley, (757) 222-3897, deanne.bradley@link757.com