|PIC1|Switchfoot is currently working on the follow-up to their award-winning Nothing is Sound album, due in stores later this year.

Frontman Jon Foreman shares: "As a songwriter, you have a belief in all your kids, and I'm really excited about these new tracks. Obviously that's where my heart's at right now," he says.

"But at the same time, I look back at those songs and they are kind of tainted by a few of the things that went down last year. But at the end of it all you have to just look at what you've got, and we're really thankful that we're making music."

The tentative release date for the new set is November 7, according to Foreman.

In addition, the popular rock band will rock the stage with Tree63 at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, 8 August, 2006.

Both bands will talk about issues regarding the HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa and social injustice prior to their performance, encouraging the audience to give their support.

Hailing from South Africa, Christian band Tree63 recently performed in Edinburgh, Scotland where they performed for over 6,000 people.

Switchfoot also announced the rest of the dates for their European tour this summer, with gigs slated to take place in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and Denmark.

Their latest album Nothing is Sound follows the group's multi-platinum 2003 breakthrough, The Beautiful Letdown, which spawned the hits "Dare You to Move" and "Meant to Live."

|AD|From 2003 to 2005, Switchfoot performed around 400 shows from recorded Nothing is Sound while on tour, and used their live performances to work on the new material before committing it to disc.

"That was one advantage we had on this record," frontman Jon Foreman said in a press release. "We'd been playing some of the songs, like 'Daisy' and 'Politicians,' off and on for a while. We got to road test them, check the tires, and switch things up before we ever pressed the 'record' button. The audiences determined which songs were selected and how they turned out.

"The trickiest part is trying to capture what we do live and bottle it up into the 1's and 0's on a CD," he continued. "It helped to play these songs live, feel that energy, and say, 'OK, this is what we have to match.'"

The month after its release, Nothing is Sound was gold certified, signifying US shipment of 500,000 copies.

Claiming to be “Christian by faith, not by genre,” Switchfoot won five Gospel Music Awards last year, including “Artist of the Year”, and was nominated for another “Artist of the Year” at the 37th Gospel Music Awards this year.