Vice Verses is the eighth studio album by American alternative rock band Switchfoot. It was released on September 27, 2011. "Dark Horses" was the first single released from the album, with an August 2 radio date and digital release on the same day. Vice Verses debuted on the US Billboard 200 at number eight. "Afterlife" impacted radio on February 28, 2012. "The Original" impacted radio on September 11, 2012.
The song "Afterlife" was nominated for the 2013 GMA Dove Award in the category Rock/Contemporary Song of the Year.
As of November 2013, the album has sold 188,000 copies in the U.S.
History
Background
The title track "Vice Verses" was first performed by Jon Foreman at an acoustic benefit show on April 12, 2009. Foreman iterated to the audience that the song was not slated for release on the upcoming Switchfoot record, Hello Hurricane, but would appear on the following record, saying "This isn't going to be on that record [Hello Hurricane], it's going to be on the next one... I think it's the title of the next one." On April 23, 2009, Switchfoot officially announced via Twitter that the album that would release following Hello Hurricane would be titled Vice Verses. This announcement came on the heels of a Twitter post in which the band said they had recorded four albums' worth of material during the Hurricane sessions and intended to release the records one by one. This plan was short-lived, however, with Foreman later stating that the band had "already replaced a lot the songs on Vice Verses with new songs" and that Vice Verses was a departure from Hello Hurricane.
In October 2009, Foreman said that most of the songs were ready to go and "if the next record came out today, it would be called Vice Verses." In December, bassist Tim Foreman was quoted saying that the album was nearly done and that he thought it was going to be even better than Hello Hurricane.
However, nothing more was heard about the project until July 2010, when Jon Foreman and guitarist Drew Shirley said the band was aiming to complete Vice Verses by the summer of 2011. On several occasions during the summer, the band stated that they were pushing for Vice Verses to be a double album, but they eventually decided to scale the project back down to a single disc collection.
During the Hello Hurricane tour, Switchfoot began debuting new songs that were candidates for inclusion on Vice Verses, for example in the summer 2010, the band played a song titled "Against the Voices", which Jon Foreman stated was "from the next record." On August 8, 2010, Switchfoot debuted a song titled "Dark Horses" at a show in Chicago. Foreman also played other new songs at his acoustic aftershows throughout the tour, including "Thrive" and "She Says (The Black Eyed Blues)". After the conclusion of the Hello Hurricane tour, the band members each took personal time off but very quickly resumed work on Vice Verses. On November 21, 2010, Shirley tweeted that the band were "tracking new songs in the studio tonight. You'll see..." while the next day, Foreman simply tweeted "making vice verses."
Recording
In January 2011, the band began the official recording for the project, announcing via email that they had enlisted Neal Avron and Mike Elizondo as producers for the album. Adam Hawkins, an engineer during the Hurricane sessions, was also brought in to work on Vice Verses. The decision to work with Avron was influenced by recommendations from other bands who have worked with him in the past. "Sean O'Donnell from Reeve Oliver, who's now in Yellowcard, [and] Jordan [Pundik] from New Found Glory [have talked up Avron]," explained Jon Foreman. "They're both just like, 'You gotta meet him, and you're going to work with him.' I'm really glad it worked out for both of our schedules to make a record together, it's been so much fun. I feel like everyone's pushed each other in a really good way."
On January 31, 2011, the band tweeted that bassist Tim Foreman was laying down bass tracks on a song titled "Selling the News". In February, a tentative track listing was posted on the web.
On April 6, 2011, the band tweeted that they were "going into the studio one last time to put the finishing touches" on Vice Verses, with final mixes to come later that week. Final mixing was completed on April 13, with band photographer Andy Barron tweeting that he was "watching the band sit in a dark room in hollywood listening to #viceverses front to back."