Christian rock band Switchfoot is all about the surfing scene. In fact, the band's guitarist Drew Shirley revealed that they all met because of the popular water sport.
"Surfing has a big history in the band; that's how the band got started, met through surfers and the name 'Switchfoot' is a surfing term, so to our core, surfing is in there," he told Fevr in an interview.
And that is what they wanted to share in their album and documentary Fading West. Filming was difficult at first, Shirley recalled, and they initially thought that having cameras all around them would be pretty exhausting and horrible. But the more they got used to it, the more they found they were able to adjust their lifestyles. The next challenge was to figure out their movie's plotline and decide which story they wanted to tell.
The guys collectively agreed that they wanted to share the story of five different locations and how they were inspired by their travels.
"We took a country for each guy in the band. So mine was South Africa," he explained. "I just started to talk about what inspires me about South Africa. And then Jerome was Indonesia and what inspires Jerome about Indonesia. But it's really a story about our lives and the turns they take and the lifestyle we live – it's the most behind-the-scenes look that we've ever given at what we do."
The members of Switchfoot all wanted to become known, so they tried not to hide behind "cool promotional material and stuff," said Shirley, and their documentary Fading West gives a real honest look at the band.
Shirley added that there were songs in their album that were not included in the movie, as the album was inspired by their journeys.
"It taught us a lot," he said.
