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The boys of Switchfoot have got questions, all right -- questions about life's great mysteries, from politics to God to death.
But just because they managed to set those questions to music on their latest album doesn't mean they've come up with any answers.
"We're maturing, so we've been writing about things that are important to us now, that maybe weren't on our radars when we were in high school," says Switchfoot bassist Tim Foreman, who formed the band in 1996 with his brother Jonathan and drummer Chad Butler. "I've always been drawn to honest music, because honest music is like a dialogue. We use our music to explore the things we're wrestling with ... but a lot of those things don't have answers."
Take the title track of the band's new album Oh! Gravity. As Foreman explains, it's a conversation with the concept of gravity itself, "about why we as a community, as a country, and as a world, can't seem to keep it together."
"It's like, why does social gravity not work the same way as physical gravity?" Foreman muses.
Spiritual conundrums are nothing new for Switchfoot (now a quintet, thanks to the addition of keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas and guitarist Andrew Shirley). But one constant is its members' belief in a higher power, a topic they've never shied away from since their debut as a Christian rock act.
"We've always been honest about our faith," says Foreman. "We write about life, and it's funny, because in conversation, I often have a lot of fun talking with people whose beliefs are completely different than mine and I often have more in common with those people than with the people who claim to think the same way as I do. But the moment you put a label on your band, you limit the scope of your creativity."
Over the years, the band has moved into more mainstream modern-rock territory, as on the new disc, which saw Switchfoot paired with legendary producers Tim Palmer (U2, The Cure) and Steve Lillywhite (Peter Gabriel, Morrissey).
"They're really easy-going guys, and the most important thing they brought to the table was a big-picture perspective," says Foreman. "As a band, it's easy to get caught up in the minutiae ... so to have that big-picture perspective is really great."
One of the band's goals, Foreman says, was to block out any external pressures or expectations, and to work hard at creating the type of record they put out in the band's early days, "where the mistakes you make are your favourite part."
That, and to continue their growth as artists -- with or without all the answers to their questions.
"We definitely wanted this record to be a departure from the things we've done in the past," Foreman says. "But without anyone getting thrown from the train when we make our extreme right turn."
The band members' latest turn brings them to the Garrick Centre on Saturday night but, unfortunately for latecomers, the show is already sold out.