hi my name is jon foreman and this is my bio. I'm writing it from a backstage dressing room in Ohio. It's a beautiful fall day outside and the dying leaves make a fitting backdrop for the decaying junkyard across the street. Fall. Autumn is my favorite time of year. Everywhere. Even back home in San Diego where there is little distinction between the seasons: autumn is my favorite time of year Perhaps this is because the fall reminds me of the sunset: the beautiful death of another day or another year. A chance to look back- to . look out across the pacific and see gallons of beauty mixed with regret. I was born in October. Maybe that has something to do with the nostalgia. Even when I was young, the Autumn sunsets were sober reminder that everything loses it's leaves eventually. The body goes cold. The air grows dark. The fall. I have been on tour off and on since '97. I've had the rare privilege of actually doing what I love for a living with amazing people that I love to be around... And I'm thankful, this life is a real gift. I kinda grew up all over: lake arrowhead, boston, virginia... but from high school on I've lived in San Diego and the north county feels like home. It's a pretty incredible place where I can go for a surf with my dad or my brother and almost always see someone I know. Ten years ago, when I actually started making money with my songs I was nervous that the magic would disappear. That somehow, the passion, the joy, and the high that I got from music would evaporate with every step I took towards the modern music industry. I'm so thankful that that hasn't happened. I'm so thankful that these songs still mean so much to me. In fact, I am perhaps more drawn to music than ever. Lately music has been my compass: it's neither the map, nor the road but a steady constant that can help me make sense of the both. Most of the time, the songs that I write are more honest than I am. Sometimes I don't play certain songs for people because I'm not ready for that sort of honesty. I don't write many happy songs, at least not lately. Which is odd because I'm a fairly upbeat guy. So I've got a few theories as to why this might be the case It might be because life wears down on you. And you lose that part of yourself. Or it could be because the songs are the only place where these types of ideas can find a release- like a dream where your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Or perhaps I don't write songs when I'm happy. You know, a celebration requires a few friends and depression requires solitude. Either way songs have become my way of finding beauty in the midst of chaos and the pain. It's a way of finding redemption for mistakes and regrets that I have. In this way I feel like the creative process brings me closer to God. As a creator of a song I get to take all these broken fragments of failure and chaos and weave together something beautiful and meaningful. Decay. Death. Pain. Fall. And if God is a songwriter then these fallen leaves of mine can be redeemed.