When you get the opportunity to sit and chat with two rock stars for 90 minutes -- even two as low-key and outwardly lacking in "Behind the Music"-style grist as Jon and Tim Foreman of Switchfoot -- oodles upon oodles of material is going to go unused, even though some of those oodles are quite tasty. Thankfully, we have the Internet, aka the Dumping Ground. In this Q&A, the Foreman brothers talk about the band, songwriting and music in general, and drop a few names in doing so.

(This question follows an exchange about how pretty much every band always says its lastest CD is the best one.) I read an interview with Oasis' Noel Gallagher where he said that he probably couldn't top his first or second album, but you don't see that very often.

Tim: Weezer says that.

Jon: Paul McCartney said it really well. He's been involved in some many incredible projects that have his name or the Beatles' name on them. Um, he just kinda approaches them as individual pieces where you can't compare and contrast. Is he ever going to have another "Abbey Road" or be involved in another project like that? Probably not. And if you approach it with that comparitive mindset, you can kind of quit making music. I'm really glad that he made this last project ("Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"). Again, it's about traveling to new places. There is something to be said for, it's kinda not in your hands. … Like with this project for example, having (producer) Tim Palmer on board, the mindspace we were all in, everything about it was very unplanned. If you tried to plan it out it probably wouldn't have come out this way. We started out in a way not even trying to make a record. We were just thinking we were going to make an EP or something.

Getting perspective on "Nothing Is Sound" may be too soon, but is each record in some respects a reaction to the previous one?

Tim: "Nothing Is Sound" is a record that we were really proud of and still are. I go back and listen to it. … At the same time, it's a fairly dark record in its content and you go and tour that for a year and it definitely shapes your mindset if you're playing songs that talk about darker issues. And I think with this record we wanted to make a record that makes you smile.

Jon: I have some of those darker issues in some clappy happy pop tunes. A lot of times it's not so much reaction as of a way of kind of responding to the past but a reaction as far as getting bored with something. You get to a point where you've played a song 50 or 60 times and you're ready to seek something new out. It's not because you don't like the old, it's just because you can't stay in the same place forever.

I read some press comments that "Nothing Is Sound lacks teeth," "Switchfoot is nonthreatning."

Jon: There's a certain amount of um --

I think of it as Switchfoot as a "polished, mainstream pop-rock band."

Jon: There's this thing that goes around. Call it buzz or whatever you want but there's certain times that you feel like everyone's on your side and then there's other times that it's not trendy to say anything nice about this band. Fortunately, we've never been a trendy band where it's like ska or we embodied a scene. So I feel that gives you a lot of freedom, but you're still going to ride the waves as far as the media's concerned. I think you learn as an artist to make the music for a higher purpose than simply what the reactionary media's going to do with it.

Tim: It's got to go both ways, too. You can't just kinda ignore any sort of negative press but then believe the positive press. You kinda have to play both sides of it. This last tour, for instance, we had a lot really really positive press and you kind of have to throw that out of your mind as well and just be like, "well, at the end of the day, we have love what we're doing and that's all that really matters."

Jon: It's the same thing where I feel like we're in the role of comedian. And you tell a great joke and if you no one laughs it's not your responsiblity to kinda explain the joke. Either you think it's funny or you don't. And if you do, you have to stand by it and move on.

Do you view the band as writing in a broad sense, trying to reach as many people as possible?

Tim: I think almost in the most narrow sense possible, which is for yourself. For it to be honest, you have to be writing for yourself. It kind of sounds selfish in a way, but that's the way we've always done it. It seems like the most personal song, the ones that are written about a very specific thing end up being the most universal because everyone can relate to pain and heartache and hope and all these human emotions. They might have been written about a specific situation but mean a lot to a lot of other people in whatever they're dealing with, too.

Jon: Most of the time you're wrestling with something in your head and that "wrestling," that is the song. The song is the vehicle to be able to travel to places that you can't go in conversation. You really can't go outside of therapy to talk about God or sex or politics, all these disparate ideas running around in your head that somehow in a song it's not only legal but appreciated.

Did any songs undergo lots of rewriting, radical transformations?

Jon: "Head Over Heels" went through like 14 of them; "Awakening" did as well.

Tim: "Dirty Second Hands," as quirky as it is, it was a lot more down the middle. It still had really odd time signatures, But it was kinda more big guitars from the beginning. We just didn't buy it, so we kinda stripped all that away. And started out with a little dobro, acoustic guitar and went from there.

Songwriters usually has favorite lyrical themes that they keep coming back to.

Jon: I would say again you're fighting the same demons. And as much as you'd like to move on and start fighting new ones, sometimes you're still fighting the same ones. … Many times these are songs that come straight from the heart. A lot of times, your heart still has wounds you're recovering from.

Tim: I remember U2 getting flak for putting fire in every song they put out. Sometimes you're trying to find new ways of saying something that still is important to you and was five years ago. I see that. And Jon mentioned Dylan. We get to know a lot of our favorite songwriters and if it's truly honest, then it's a scope of work over an entire lifetime that is dealing with one man's journey, you know, which quite often is going to be dealing with some of the same issues in different stages of their lives.

Considering the sort of anti-materialism, anti-consumerism songs you've written, has anyone asked you if you're open to Buddhism? You know, the idea of nothing?

Jon: Well first of all, I'm not anti-consumer, anti-materialist. I'm made of material. I have a physical body that needs food and a place to live. I think when all we're reduced to is a consumer, that's where I have trouble. And as far as it being a Buddhist idea. I think maybe it's much more Christian than it is Buddhist, the idea of "sell what you have to the poor,' invest in the kingdom of heaven." And certainly these are things we're still learning about. I think that's why I sing about them, because I don't have a handle on them.

I saw a Q&A where the interviewer basically asked you (Jon) if your lyrics kinda compelled you to live to a higher standard.

Tim: Accountability. There's a lot of accountability involved with sharing your take on life with a million other people, but I think that's a good thing.

Jon: I think about that a lot. Like yeah, I believe that but can I live it out? If you can't live it out then you shouldn't be singing about it. It's false somehow even if you're trying to live it out. … I guess accountability is a good word for it.

Have you had a fan take lyrics really seriously and ask you if you're afraid to drive a pricey car?

Tim: Fortunately that hasn't been a realistic temptation.

You haven't blown your advance on a fancy SUV?

Tim: I still drive a Bug, so that answers that question.

Jon: I think it's easy to throw rocks at things that you're not interested in, though. I'll buy it. I like old amps and old guitars and things like that. But still I won't throw a rock at that, so there is that where people, they'll call you out on certain things, which I think is a good dialogue. You want to be the same person onstage and offstage. I feel like our culture in general has it completely backward in thinking what happens onstage is somehow more important than what would happen offstage. What happens second hand is somehow more important than what's truly going on. The spin you put on something is more important than reality.

I made a note to ask you about the last verse (bridge, actually) in "Circles."

Jon: We invited our friends from Nickel Creek, Sean and Sara (Watkins), in, so they played and sang on it. That's Sean at the beginning playing the intro. It's one of those things that took on a new life. That's probably the most interesting aspect of that song. I feel like the reference to losing everything is maybe a reference to what happened on "The Beautiful Letdown." You get really close to the silver lining and you realize there are a lot of cracks in the things you thought were true and maybe even cracks in yourself were true. And that can either be a horrible ending to the story or a wonderful place to begin a new one.

Is it a risk to do something ("Amateur Lovers") that people are going to put "blue-eyed" in front of?

Tim: I think we discovered that when white guys try to do a Motown song it comes out sounding like the Stones. I like the Stones

Jon: I think again, you like it or you don't. So we really enjoy that song.

You still might be putting yourselves out there more than doing a guitar-rock song.

Jon: When you're not hiding behind walls of distortion I guess there's a few more holes in the armor.

Tim: We went through phases on this album where we were like, "let's not even play guitar on this album." Then we realized it wasn't the guitar we were bored with, it was the idea that it needs to be a wall of guitars. So that became another credo of the album, no more than two, maybe three guitars.

Is there a demarcation line between the first three records ("The Legend of Chin," "New Way to Be Human," and Grammy-nominated "Learning to Breathe") and the second three ("The Beautiful Letdown," "Nothing Is Sound" and "Oh! Gravity")?

Jon: I think there's a definite departure at "The Beautiful Letdown." I feel like you're continuing to discover, I think about it a lot. I wonder what I 10 years ago would think of what I'm doing now. I'm sure some songs I'd just wince and go, 'really, you're doing that now?' Then other songs, I'd probably be really excited about. You change, your interests change.

I once read someone on a blog say, "I liked them when they were just this quirky surf band."

Jon: Definitely quirkier. Quirky was the word everyone seemed to use for those first few records.

Tim: I love going back and listening to the older records. I think it just depends on where people joined us in the journey. We've been a band for 11 years. We've got on one hand people who think our first record was our best record we ever did, and the very next you've got people that say, "man, you've come a long way. You guys sucked on that first record."

Jon: I know one thing's for sure. We're a better band live now than we were back then. It's not really subjective analysis.