Rock band Switchfoot was among the winners at the Gospel Music Association’s (GMA) 35th annual awards show, held April 28 at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium. The GMA Music Awards is considered gospel music’s biggest night of the year, where the GMA presents winning artists with gospel’s highest accolade, the Dove Award. Switchfoot took home top honors for “Rock Recorded Song of the Year” for “Ammunition” and “Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song” for “Meant to Live.” The Sparrow/Columbia band’s album “Beautiful Letdown” received the “Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year” award.
Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman credits “The Beautiful Letdown’s” raw, live sound in part to the band’s do-it-yourself approach. On the band’s web site Foreman says, “We didn’t want to waste time screwing around in a $1000 a day studio.” He laughs, “So we did all the pre-production in my bedroom. When we finally recorded the album, we did the whole thing in two weeks. John [Fields – the album’s producer] works fast and so do we. There were no lunch or dinner breaks – we worked straight through, and it turned out great. You can ruin things if you spend too much time in the studio.”
Jon Foreman took home the most Dove trophies of the evening. Besides the awards won with his bandmates, Foreman received additional recognition for his songwriting and production work on the latest album. His brother and co-writer, bassist Tim Foreman, also won a Dove award for “Meant to Live.” UPN will broadcast the GMA Music Awards on May 28 from 8-10 p.m. ET/PT
