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Switchfoot

Switchfoot is an American rock band from San Diego, California. The band's members are Jon Foreman (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Foreman (bass guitar, backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums, percussion), and Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals). Guitarist Drew Shirley was also a member of the band from 2005 to 2022. After early successes in the Christian rock scene, Switchfoot first gained mainstream recognition with the inclusion of four of their songs in the 2002 film A Walk to Remember. This recognition led to the release of their major label debut The Beautiful Letdown, which was released in 2003 and featured the hit singles "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move". Their fifth album, Nothing Is Sound peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, and included the single "Stars." Their seventh album, Hello Hurricane (2009) received a Grammy Award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. They have been noted for their energetic live shows.

According to Jon Foreman, the name "Switchfoot" comes from a surfing term. "We all love to surf and have been surfing all our lives so to us, the name made sense. To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It's about change and movement, a different way of approaching life and music."

Formation and early years (1996–2002)
Switchfoot was founded in 1996 as Chin Up, consisting of Jon Foreman and his brother Tim along with Chad Butler on drums. After playing a few shows including the Foreman brothers' dad's megachurch North Coast Calvary Chapel in Carlsbad, California, the band was contacted by music industry veteran Charlie Peacock and eventually signed to his indie label Re:think Records under the current moniker, Switchfoot. Re:think went on to distribute the first three Switchfoot albums, The Legend of Chin, New Way to Be Human, and Learning to Breathe. Because Re:think was bought by Christian giant Sparrow Records before Switchfoot's first release, however, the band's and Peacock's intentions of being marketed outside of the Contemporary Christian music scene and reaching a wider audience were put on hold. Consequently, the band was mostly marketed to Christian radio and retail outlets early in their careers, a time Jon Foreman has described as when "half of who we were was lost."

Of Switchfoot's first three albums, Learning to Breathe was the most successful, receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Gospel Album.

Later in 2002, Switchfoot's music was featured prominently in the movie A Walk to Remember, starring singer and actress Mandy Moore, who sang Switchfoot's song "Only Hope" during a scene in the movie. In addition to Moore's cover of "Only Hope", Switchfoot's songs "You", "Learning to Breathe", and "I Dare You to Move" were showcased in the film, as well as their own original version of "Only Hope" towards the end of the film.

The Beautiful Letdown (2003–2005)
After the exposure which came from A Walk to Remember, Switchfoot attracted attention from multiple record labels and eventually they signed with Columbia Records/SonyBMG. Their major label debut, The Beautiful Letdown, under Columbia Records/Red Ink, represented the band's evolution from the predominantly lo-fi, indie rock sound of their early albums, toward a more layered, synth-influenced sound that helped launch the band to mainstream popularity. The shift sonically could be attributed to the fact that the album was the first to include keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas, formerly of industrial bands Mortal and Fold Zandura. Fontamillas had been touring with Switchfoot since 2000, following the release of Learning to Breathe.

The Beautiful Letdown has since been certified double platinum, selling more than 2.6 million copies behind constant touring and the huge mainstream radio hits "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move". A live DVD depicting one of the band's live concerts, Live in San Diego, went platinum as well and a third single, "This Is Your Life" was released to radio. In addition, the song "Gone" received major airplay on Christian radio stations as well.

After the runaway success of The Beautiful Letdown, a compilation titled The Early Years: 1997-2000 was released, which featured Switchfoot's first three indie albums released under Re:think records including the original artwork for all the albums. The collection has since been certified gold with total sales of over 500,000 copies.

Switchfoot also received five 2005 Dove Award nominations, and won four, including Artist of the year.

Nothing Is Sound (2005–2006)
In 2005, prior to the release of Nothing Is Sound, Switchfoot announced that guitarist Drew Shirley (previously the guitarist for All Together Separate) had joined as the band's fifth member after touring with the band since 2003. Nothing Is Sound was released on September 13, 2005; with Shirley's inclusion Switchfoot's sound became even more densely layered and guitar-heavy, resulting in an album which was edgier and darker than any of their previous work. "Stars" was released as the first radio single to promote the album, and was a solid hit on mainstream and alternative rock radio stations. It was used in ads for HBO. "We Are One Tonight" was released as the second single in early 2006; it was also featured in ads for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

The album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, an all-time high for the band, while bassist Tim Foreman attracted headlines by speaking out against the copy-protection used by the label and providing fans with a detailed workaround on the band's message board, which was quickly deleted by Sony. The copy-protection is known as Extended Copy Protection, which has been identified by leading anti-virus companies as being a trojan horse and a rootkit.

During the spring 2006 leg of the Nothing Is Sound Tour, the band introduced "a video diary of life on the road" in the form of free video podcasts available via iTunes and streaming online on YouTube. In addition to featuring snippets of upcoming songs and live performances, the videos gave fans an inside look at the more casual and humorous aspects of the band members' touring lives; it features footage of the band working on their follow-up to Nothing Is Sound.

Oh! Gravity. (2006–2007)
Switchfoot's next album, ''Oh! Gravity.'', was released on December 26, 2006, to considerable critical acclaim. It entered the Billboard chart at No. 18 and peaked at No. 1 on iTunes' Top Albums chart.

Before the release of the album, Switchfoot e-mailed a newsletter on June 2 which contained a free download of the song "Daylight to Break", a statement from Foreman implying that the band wanted to have a new album out by the end of the year, as well as a thanks to their fans for helping keep the band together for ten years. The band tried to involve their fans in the creation of the album, setting up a webcam in their recording studio and running a contest for a chance to play the cowbell in the studio with the band.

Promoting the album the band first released the song, "Dirty Second Hands", as a "preview" single via iTunes on September 26. The title track "Oh! Gravity" was also released to iTunes on October 21 and was sent to radio on October 31 as the lead single for the album, seeing limited success at alternative and modern rock radio. The album's second single, "Awakening", was released in early 2007. Although it had virtually no play on mainstream radio, the accompanying band-funded music video song received over one million hits on YouTube in less than three months. When ''Oh! Gravity was pre-ordered a 3-song EP called Oh! Switchfoot'' was included. The short CD included three songs: "The Sound in My Mouth", "C'mon C'mon", and "Oh! Gravity (Acoustic)".

Major-label independence, The Best Yet (2007–2008)
Later on August 10, 2007, Jon Foreman revealed that the band had severed ties with Columbia Records in order to release music as an Indie band. "Neither party has any hard feelings," he said of the split a few months later. "I think for us, the reason why we signed with Columbia was because of the people that were there. So it's very understandable when all those people are gone, you don't hold any real bad feelings or good feelings towards a company name. I think that's part of the problem with the corporate entity as a whole is that there's no true responsibility." In October 2007, the band announced that they had created a new record label called lowercase people records, in order to better make a direct connection with their fans.

Jon Foreman began working on his own set of solo EPs (one named after each season of the year); the first of these was released on November 27, 2007, the last on June 10, 2008. "Your Love Is Strong" is the most well known from the string of releases. Each of his EP's contained six songs. At the end of the process, he released a sort of "best of" album called Limbs and Branches. Foreman wrote two additional songs for this called "Over the River" and "Broken from the Start". Once all four EP's were released, they were re-released on vinyl in limited quantity. Foreman also began a side project with Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek which was originally called "The Real SeanJon" but later renamed "Fiction Family".

With their new status as an independent band, Switchfoot embarked on their 2007 fall tour, playing shows with Relient K and Ruth. The tour, dubbed the "Appetite for Construction Tour", was designed to benefit Habitat For Humanity with the bands donating one dollar per ticket sold to the cause. In addition, Foreman wrote the song "Rebuild" with Matt Thiessen from Relient K, and released it as a way to raise additional money for Habitat. By the end of the tour, the bands had raised over $100,000 for Habitat for Humanity. With no new album to promote, the band continued touring for philanthropic causes, booking a short national tour in March through May (titled the Up In Arms Tour), partnering with and benefitting the organization To Write Love on Her Arms.

In March 2008, the band wrote and recorded a new song called "This Is Home" for the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The song was included on the film's official soundtrack and an accompanying music video was also filmed, with footage from the film.

Later that year, Columbia Records/Sony Music released a Switchfoot greatest hits compilation album titled The Best Yet, a sort of "final farewell from Sony."

Hello Hurricane and Eastern Hymns for Western Shores (2008–2010)
Prior to the label split, Foreman had announced in a March 17, 2007 MySpace blog that Switchfoot had begun pre-production for a new album; he said that "the new SF record is underway." On October 12, 2007, Foreman also announced that the band had begun construction of their own studio in their hometown of San Diego. The studio, named Spot X Studio, was completed in the spring of 2008, and the band began recording their follow-up to 2006's ''Oh! Gravity.''

In April, the band announced that instead of one studio album, they had actually been at work on 4 albums-worth of material, and had decided at the time to release them one after another, starting with the first one on November 10, 2009, titled Hello Hurricane.

When Hello Hurricane was completed, the band began searching for "the right partners" to distribute the songs globally. On August 7, 2009, the band announced that lowercase people records was licensing the album to Atlantic Records, ensuring "these tunes are heard around the world." As a promotion for the new release, the band took a hands-on approach with their lead single, "Mess of Me"; they hid copies of the single all across the world and encouraged fans to share it by finding the discs and making copies of their own to hide. Through this, the single spread all across the world in grassroots fashion in advance of a traditional radio release; the track hit the Top 15 of Modern Rock radio. That was followed by the release of "The Sound (John M. Perkins' Blues)", which went on to become the band's first Top 10 Modern Rock hit since "Dare You to Move".

On December 1, 2010, it was announced that Hello Hurricane had been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. It won the Grammy on February 13, 2011.

Late in 2010, Switchfoot announced via newsletter, that they would be releasing an EP of songs that they wrote and recorded between Nothing Is Sound and ''Oh! Gravity''. It was called Eastern Hymns for Western Shores. For a time the location of the masters of these tracks were unknown. Once found, Switchfoot announced that the EP would be available as part of their holiday fan pack which also included a Switchfoot calendar, poster, sweatshirt jacket, and limited edition post cards with one for each of the songs on the EP. In their newsletter the band described these songs as showing their "darker" side. The EP included five never before heard songs along with a different cut of the ''Oh! Gravity'' song "Dirty Second Hands".

Vice Verses (2011–2012)
Switchfoot's eighth studio album, Vice Verses, was released on September 27, 2011, and debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200. According to Butler, the core of the record rests thematically in the idea of the polarity of life. A release date of September 27, 2011, was announced on AllAccess, with "Dark Horses" hitting modern rock radio on July 20.

In an interview with CBN.com, bassist Tim Foreman calls Vice Verses a cousin to Hello Hurricane, not a sequel to their last album but related in some ways. Tim, speaking of his brother (Switchfoot's lead singer, Jon) said, "It features some of his best lyrical work," and said that he is happy with the musical component of the project as well. "From the very beginning, we set goals, one of them being to make a very rhythmic record, a very soulful record, and a very hard-hitting record that really pushes the boundaries, the highs and the lows," he told CBN.com.

Switchfoot performed a song for the Hawaii Five-0 soundtrack, released October 4, 2011, titled "Out of Control". On Record Store Day 2012, Switchfoot released their latest EP record, Vice Re-Verses. The digital download of the EP was later released on May 1.

Fading West album and film (2013–2015)

In May 2013, Switchfoot was on tour and filming a movie, Fading West. The band's guitarist Drew Shirley said that it was "a surf documentary mixed with behind the scenes footage of the band" and that "the soundtrack will be released as a CD and it will be [their] next album". On September 17, 2013 Switchfoot released Fading West EP containing three songs from the full-length album. Two songs on the EP, "Who We Are" and "Love Alone Is Worth the Fight", were released in different radio formats as the lead singles promoting the upcoming album. The Fading West film premiered during the Fading West Tour which started in September 2013, and was released digitally on December 10, 2013. Switchfoot's ninth studio album, also titled Fading West, was released on January 14, 2014 through lowercase people and Atlantic Records.

In February 2014, in a YouTube Interview with Relevant magazine, Jon Foreman hinted that a new album was coming out in late 2014 or early 2015 which would mostly consist of the songs that were cut from the Fading West film. The album, an EP titled The Edge of the Earth, was released on September 9, 2014. Foreman also announced that he would be releasing between 30-50 new songs for his solo albums most likely during 2015.

Switchfoot toured in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands in May and June 2015. In July and August 2015, Switchfoot toured with Needtobreathe, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, and Colony House during the second leg of the 2015 "Tour De Compadres" tour.

Where the Light Shines Through and hiatus (2015–2017)
In August 2015, it was reported that Switchfoot would be releasing their tenth studio album in 2016. On April 29, 2016, Concord Music Group announced that the band had signed a worldwide recording and co-publishing deal with Vanguard Records imprint and Concord's sister publishing unit, The Bicycle Music Company. On May 12, 2016, Switchfoot announced that the album, titled Where the Light Shines Through, would be released on July 8, 2016. It was produced by Switchfoot and John Fields, with whom the band has worked on The Beautiful Letdown, Nothing Is Sound and ''Oh! Gravity''. The band supported the album with the Looking for America Tour, featuring Relient K and traveled to over 70 cities from September 17, 2016 through February 2017.

On December 6, 2016, Switchfoot revealed through an email newsletter and on their website that the premiere of their new film, Live from Hollywood Palladium, would coincide with their 2017 Summer Getaway event.

In July 2017 the band took to the road touring with Lifehouse on the "Looking for Summer" tour. Where the band delivered 30+ shows across the U.S. and Canada. It was the first time that both Lifehouse & Switchfoot had toured together, where rock fans across North America got to hear both dynamic Rock bands of the same era. A new single by Lifehouse and Switchfoot had been released to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey while on tour. The song, "Shine Like Gold".

On December 15, 2017, Switchfoot announced via their website and mailing list that, after returning home from their fall tour, they will be taking a hiatus "for the foreseeable future". The band said in their announcement, "For the first time in twenty years, we are taking an extended break."

Native Tongue and Covers (2018–2021)
On March 30, 2018, the band posted a clip on YouTube; they said that they had come out of their hiatus and were working on "Project 11". They previewed a heavy metal version of "Meant to Live", claiming it was their new sound. Two days later on April 1, it was revealed to be an April Fool's Joke.

On August 9, 2018, the band's song "You Found Me" was released as the single promoting the drama film Unbroken: Path to Redemption. The soundtrack album for the film was released on September 14, 2018.

On October 19, 2018, Switchfoot announced the release of their eleventh album Native Tongue on January 18, 2019 through Fantasy Records. In support of the album, the band embarked on a 2019 concert tour of the United States, supported by Colony House and Tyson Motsenbocker. The first single "Native Tongue" and its music video were released in conjunction with the album announcement.

In spring 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Switchfoot started working on an EP titled Covers, containing the band's take on songs by Frank Ocean, Vampire Weekend, The Chainsmokers, The Verve, Harry Styles, and Jon Bellion. It was released on June 19, 2020 via Fantasy Records. They also played a monthly livestream concert called the "Fantastic Not Traveling Music Show" during which they played a variety of song requests spanning their career.

Interrobang and Drew Shirley departure (2021–present)
On May 7, 2021, Switchfoot released "I Need You (To Be Wrong)" as the first single from their twelfth studio album Interrobang. The album was released on August 20, 2021. A "deluxe" edition of the album was released on July 8, 2022, the six year anniversary of their 2016 album "Where The Light Shines Through". Switchfoot returned to live touring opening for Needtobreathe on the "Into the Mystery Tour". They also collaborated with Needtobreathe on an Amazon original Christmas song titled "Hometown Christmas".

On February 21, 2022, the band announced that Drew Shirley and the band were amicably parting ways.

Christmas album and The Beautiful Letdown rerecording (2022–present)
In September 2022 the band announced their first Christmas album This Is Our Christmas Album. The album was released on November 4, 2022.

In May 2023, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album The Beautiful Letdown, the band released The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version) and went on a tour playing the entire album live.

In June 2024, the band hosted the 20th annual Bro-Am which featured a guest appearance of former lead guitarist, Drew Shirley

Style and influences
Since Switchfoot's first release in 1997, the band's sound has significantly changed. The style of the early albums with independent label re:think Records consisted primarily of guitar-driven alternative rock, hard rock with characteristics of a three-man lineup, though they also incorporated string arrangements with slower songs. Switchfoot's frontman and guitarist Jon Foreman cites his musical influences as U2, The Beatles, and Keith Green; he said that he admires the vocal "strength and vulnerability" of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Guitarist Drew Shirley cites U2, Miles Davis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tommy Walker, Phil Keaggy, Michael Jackson, Dave Matthews Band, and the Brand New Heavies while bassist Tim Foreman pays tribute to Stevie Wonder. Chad Butler also cites Dave Grohl as an influence for The Beautiful Letdown. "We've never fit in any of the genre boxes," says Jon Foreman. "I think that diversity is our strength".

With regard to their lyrics, Foreman notes "we try to make music for thinking people", which can be characterized by his allusions to the works of philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard and Augustine of Hippo in the songs "Sooner or Later (Soren's Song)" and "Something More (Augustine's Confession)" respectively. "Meant to Live", the band's runaway hit, was inspired by T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men", while "Stars", the lead single off Nothing Is Sound, briefly "looks at things from the Descartes perspective," according to Foreman.

Switchfoot and Christian music
Switchfoot is often referred to as a Christian rock band; even after having been signed to the mainstream Columbia Records from 2003 to 2007, Atlantic Records from 2008 to 2016, and currently, Vanguard Records, their albums are still distributed to Christian retail outlets through Sparrow Records/EMI CMG, their songs are featured on Christian radio and charts, they play at Christian festivals, and they are presented with Dove Awards. The band has always philosophically disagreed with this label; "We're Christian by faith, not genre," Tim Foreman explained to Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.

Says Jon Foreman, "We've always been very open and honest about where the songs are coming from. For us, these songs are for everyone. Calling us 'Christian rock' tends to be a box that closes some people out and excludes them, and that's not what we're trying to do. Music has always opened my mind—and that's what we want".

"[Signing to Columbia was] a realization of something that we'd wanted to be from the beginning," Foreman explains. "When we were signed to re:think Records [an indie label], the goal was to get the music out to everybody. [But] when Sparrow [a Christian label] bought re:think Records, it was evident that our music wasn't going to be in the hands of everybody. As a Christian, I have a lot to say within the walls of the church. But also, as a Christian, I've got a lot to say just about life in general... So to be able to be on Columbia and on Sparrow felt like the realization of the two sides of what we had to say. It's a dream come true to be able to have songs that are outside of the box."

After the release of The Beautiful Letdown, the band temporarily stopped playing at Christian festivals and doing interviews with Christian organizations, as they found the speculation about their faith to be distracting from the music. Three years later, they went back to headlining at large Christian-based music festivals, and also agreed to be featured on the June 2006 cover of CCM Magazine after declining the opportunity for years. Yet in many ways they used the opportunity to describe their split from the CCM industry. That caused some, such as Spin writer Andrew Beaujon to say "their lyrics often have two different meanings, one meaning for a Christian audience and one meaning for the rest of us. They try to relate to two different groups of people at once." Jon Foreman has compared the Christian undertones of his music to the undertones of C.S. Lewis's books.

Other projects
Switchfoot has been involved in a number of humanitarian causes including with DATA, the ONE Campaign, the Keep A Breast Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Invisible Children, and To Write Love on Her Arms.

In addition to supporting those causes, they founded the Switchfoot Bro-Am Surf Contest, an annual benefit contest and concert to raise money for various organizations serving homeless kids in the band's hometown of San Diego. Before recording Nothing Is Sound, the band made a trip to several South African villages in January 2005, which inspired the album's song "The Shadow Proves the Sunshine". Seeing an orphanage filled with infants who all lost their parents to AIDS, befriending orphans in the streets, and getting involved with a children's choir called the "Kuyasa Kids" moved them to start an organization called lowercase people. The organization originally published a quarterly online magazine for music, arts and social justice. They have also produced a CD by the Kuyasa Kids to help raise money for the children's communities.

In 2008, Switchfoot also got involved in the musical movement to spread awareness about 21st century slavery and human trafficking, performing "Awakening" for the documentary film Call + Response. Jon Foreman has released several solo projects, and is also involved in an acoustic collaboration called Fiction Family with Sean Watkins of the band Nickel Creek.

On Saturday, July 31, 2010, Switchfoot performed live at the 2010 Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree final arena show: "A Shining Light Across America" in Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. Jon and Tim Foreman were both Boy Scouts in their youth, and were honored by the opportunity to perform at the Scouts' 100th anniversary event. The band performed at the Harvest America event on March 6, 2016 at ATT Stadium.

Switchfoot hosts a yearly charity event in their hometown of San Diego known as the "Bro Am". Established in 2005, the event benefits local and national charitable organizations, including the band's own Bro Am foundation. The Bro Am festivities typically include a silent auction the night before the public event, wherein donors bid in a silent auction for charity. The Bro Am event consists of surf contests in the morning and musical performances in the afternoon, culminating in Switchfoot's capstone performance. Since its inception, the Bro Am has raised over $1 million for charitable causes.

In 2017, Switchfoot joined forces with the fellow rock band Lifehouse, to help raise funds for Hurricane Harvey victims through their song "Shine Like Gold".

Members

 * Current members
 * Jon Foreman – lead vocals, lead guitar, keyboards, piano (1996–present) ; rhythm guitar (1996–2001, 2005–2022 in studio; 2005–present live)
 * Tim Foreman – bass, backing vocals, occasional lead vocals and acoustic guitar (1996–present), keyboards (2000–2001)
 * Chad Butler – drums, percussion (1996–present)
 * Jerome Fontamillas – keyboards, piano, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2001–present)

 * Current touring musicians
 * Boaz Roberts – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2021–present)

 * Former members
 * Drew Shirley – lead guitar, backing vocals (2005–2022; touring musician 2004–2005)

Discography

 * The Legend of Chin (1997)
 * New Way to Be Human (1999)
 * Learning to Breathe (2000)
 * The Beautiful Letdown (2003)
 * Nothing Is Sound (2005)
 * Oh! Gravity. (2006)
 * Hello Hurricane (2009)
 * Vice Verses (2011)
 * Fading West (2014)
 * Where the Light Shines Through (2016)
 * Native Tongue (2019)
 * Interrobang (2021)
 * This Is Our Christmas Album (2022)

Awards
Switchfoot won a Grammy Award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album in 2011 with Hello Hurricane. They've also garnered eleven GMA Dove Awards and twelve San Diego Music Awards.

title: Switchfoot


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Scandinavian

A Scandinavian is a resident of Scandinavia or maybe something associated with the region, including:

Culture

 * Scandinavianism, political and cultural movement
 * Scandinavian design, a design movement of the 1950s
 * Scandinavian folklore
 * Scandinavian languages, a common alternative term for North Germanic languages
 * Scandinavian literature, literature in the language of the Nordic Countries
 * Scandinavian mythology

People

 * Scandinavian Americans, in the United States
 * Scandinavians or North Germanic peoples, the most common name for modern North Germanic peoples
 * Scandinavians, any citizen of the countries of Scandinavia
 * Scandinavians, ethnic groups originating in Scandinavia, irrespective of ethnolinguistic affiliation

Places

 * Scandinavian Mountains, a mountain range on the Scandinavian peninsula
 * Scandinavian Peninsula, a geographic region of northern Europe

Ships

 * SS Scandinavian, a ship

Other

 * Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), an aviation corporation
 * Scandinavian Defense, a chess opening
 * Scandinavian Gold Cup, an international sailing competition established in 1919
 * Scandinavian flick, a driving technique
 * Scandinavian (Fabergé egg)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Scandinavian


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Wayne Williams

Wayne Bertram Williams (born May 27, 1958) is an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who is serving life imprisonment for the 1981 killings of two men in Atlanta, Georgia. Although never tried for the additional murders, he is also believed to be responsible for at least 24 of the 30 Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, also known as the Atlanta Child Murders.

Early life and education
Wayne Williams, son of Homer and Faye Williams, was born on May 27, 1958, and raised in the Dixie Hills neighborhood of southwest Atlanta, Georgia. Both of his parents were teachers. Williams graduated from Douglass High School and developed a keen interest in radio and journalism. He constructed his own carrier current radio station and began frequenting stations WIGO and WAOK, where he befriended a number of the announcing crew and began dabbling in becoming a pop music producer and manager.

Atlanta murders
Williams first became a suspect in the Atlanta murders on the morning of May 22, 1981, when a police surveillance team, watching the James Jackson Parkway Bridge spanning the Chattahoochee River (a spot where multiple bodies had been discovered previously), heard a "big loud splash", suggesting that something had been thrown from the bridge into the river below. The first automobile to exit the bridge after the splash, at roughly 2:50 a.m., belonged to Williams. When stopped and questioned, he told police that he was on his way to check on an address in a neighboring town ahead of an audition the following morning with a young singer named Cheryl Johnson. However, both the phone number he gave police and Cheryl Johnson turned out to be fictitious.

Two days later, on May 24, the nude body of 27-year-old Nathaniel Cater, who had been missing for four days and was last seen with Williams, was discovered in the river. The medical examiner ruled he had died of probable asphyxia but never specifically said he had been strangled. Police thought that Williams had killed Cater and that his body was the source of the sound they heard as his car crossed the bridge.

Williams failed three polygraph tests. Hairs and fibers retrieved from the body of another victim, Jimmy Ray Payne, were found to be consistent with those from his home, car, and dog. Co-workers told police they had seen Williams with scratches on his face and arms around the time of the murders which, investigators surmised, could have been inflicted by victims during struggles. Williams held a press conference outside his home to proclaim his innocence, volunteering that he had failed the polygraph tests, which would have been inadmissible in court.

Williams was questioned again by police for 12 hours on June 3 and 4 at FBI headquarters and released without arrest or charge, but remained under surveillance.

Arrest and trial
Williams was arrested on June 21, 1981, for the murders of Cater and Payne. His trial began on January 6, 1982, in Fulton County. During the two-month trial, prosecutors matched to a number of victims 19 sources of fibers from Williams's home and car: his bedspread, bathroom, gloves, clothes, carpets, dog, and an unusual trilobal carpet fiber. Other evidence included witness testimony that placed Williams with several victims while they were alive, and inconsistencies in his accounts of his whereabouts. Williams took the stand in his own defense but alienated the jury by becoming angry and combative. After 12 hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on February 27 of the murders of Cater and Payne. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. After Williams became a suspect, the killings stopped.

In the late 1990s, Williams filed a habeas corpus petition and requested a retrial. Butts County Superior Court judge Hal Craig denied his appeal. Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker said that "although this does not end the appeal process, I am pleased with the results in the habeas case" and that his office will "continue to do everything possible to uphold the conviction." In early 2004, Williams sought a retrial again, with his attorneys arguing that law enforcement officials covered up evidence of involvement by the Ku Klux Klan, and that carpet fibers purportedly linking him to the crimes would not stand up to scientific scrutiny. A federal judge rejected the request for retrial on October 17, 2006.

Aftermath
Williams was never tried for any of the Atlanta Child Murders. However, police attributed 22 other deaths, including those of 18 minors, to Williams.

Williams is serving his sentence at Telfair State Prison. On November 20, 2019, Williams was again denied parole. He will next be eligible for parole in November 2027.

Reopening investigations
Williams has maintained his innocence from the beginning and claimed that Atlanta officials covered up evidence of KKK involvement in the killings to avoid a race war in the city. His lawyers have said the conviction was a "profound miscarriage of justice" that has kept an innocent man incarcerated for the majority of his adult life and allowed the real killers to go free. In contrast, Joseph Drolet, who prosecuted Williams at trial, has stood by Williams's convictions. He has emphasized that, after Williams was arrested, "the murders stopped and there has been nothing since."

Other observers have criticized the thoroughness of the investigation and the validity of its conclusions. The author James Baldwin, in his essay The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985), raised questions about Williams' guilt. Members of his community and several of the victims' parents did not believe that Williams, the son of two professional teachers, could have killed so many.

On May 6, 2005, DeKalb County Police Chief Louis Graham ordered the reopening of the murder cases of four boys killed in that county between February and May 1981, whose deaths had been attributed to Williams. The announcement was welcomed by relatives of some victims, who said they believe the wrong man was blamed for many of the murders.

Graham, who was serving as an assistant police chief in neighboring Fulton County at the time of the murders, said his decision to reopen the cases was driven solely by his belief in Williams's innocence. Former DeKalb County Sheriff and convicted murderer Sidney Dorsey, who was an Atlanta homicide detective at the time, also said he believed Williams was wrongly blamed for the murders. "If they arrested a white guy," he said, "there would have been riots across the U.S.." Dorsey is now serving a life sentence after being convicted of ordering the murder of his election opponent Derwin Brown.

Fulton County authorities have not reopened any of the cases under their jurisdiction.

According to an August 2005 report, Charles T. Sanders, a white supremacist affiliated with the KKK and an early suspect in the murders, once praised the crimes in secretly recorded conversations. Although Sanders did not publicly claim responsibility for any of the deaths, he told an informant for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in a 1981 recording that the killer had "wiped out a thousand future generations of niggers". An anonymous alleged former friend of Sanders told documentarian Payne Lindsey (Atlanta Monster) that Sanders had taken credit for the murders mentioned in a 1986 Spin article, claiming that his brothers were also involved.

Sanders did not directly implicate the KKK or lead his friend to believe that anyone else from the organization was involved. Sanders allegedly mused over how lucky he was that he and Williams had the same carpet and that they both owned a white German shepherd. The anonymous former friend went on to say that, "Once it was pinned on Wayne Williams, they were through. That was their way out." Police dropped the probe into possible Klan involvement when Sanders and two of his brothers passed lie detector tests in which they denied their involvement. The case was once again closed on July 21, 2006.

Former FBI profiler John E. Douglas wrote in his book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit that, in his opinion, "forensic and behavioral evidence points conclusively to Wayne Williams as the killer of eleven young men in Atlanta." He added, however, that he believed there was "no strong evidence linking him to all or even most of the deaths and disappearances of children in that city between 1979 and 1981".

In 2007, the FBI performed DNA tests on two human hairs found on one of the victims. The mitochondrial DNA sequence in the hairs would eliminate 99.5% of people, and 98% of African-Americans, by not matching their DNA; the sequence found matched Williams's DNA.

DNA testing was performed in 2010 on scalp hairs found on the body of 11-year-old victim Patrick Baltazar. While the results were not firmly conclusive, the DNA sequence found appears in only 29 of 1,148 African-American hair samples in the FBI's database, including that of Williams. The Baltazar case was included among 10 additional victims presented to the jury at Williams' trial, although he was never charged in any of those cases.

Dog hairs found on Baltazar's body were tested in 2007 by the genetics laboratory at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, which found a DNA sequence also present in the Williams family's German Shepherd. However, the director of the laboratory, Elizabeth Wictum, said that, while the results were "fairly significant", they were not conclusive. Only mitochondrial DNA was tested; unlike nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA cannot be shown to be unique to an individual dog. The report said the hairs on the bodies contained the same DNA sequence as Williams's dog, a DNA sequence that occurs in about 1 in 100 dogs. The FBI report stated that "Wayne Williams cannot be excluded" as a suspect in the case.

A Department of Justice study, released in April 2015, concluded that numerous hair analyses conducted by FBI examiners during the 1980s and 1990s "may have failed to meet professional standards." Defense attorney Lynn Whatley immediately announced that the report would form the basis for a new appeal, but prosecutors responded that hair evidence played only a minor role in Williams's conviction.

On March 21, 2019, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields announced that officials would re-test evidence from the murders, which will be gathered by the Atlanta Police Department, Fulton County District Attorney's Office, and Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In a news conference, Mayor Bottoms said, "It may be there is nothing left to be tested. But I do think history will judge us by our actions, and we will be able to say we tried."

In 2019, two Atlanta men, Derwin Davis & Isaac Rogers, came out claiming that Williams had attempted to abduct them in 1979 and 1981 respectively.

Media
Williams appears as the main antagonist in several media portrayals of the case. He was first depicted in the 1985 television miniseries The Atlanta Child Murders and was played by Calvin Levels. In 2000, Showtime released a drama film titled Who Killed Atlanta's Children? with Clé Bennett playing Williams. In 2018, Williams and the Atlanta Child Murders were the subject of the true crime podcast Atlanta Monster, hosted by Payne Lindsey and co-produced by Tenderfoot TV and HowStuffWorks. In 2019, Williams was featured in season 2 of the Netflix series Mindhunter alongside others such as Charles Manson and David Berkowitz; Williams's character was portrayed by Christopher Livingston.

title: Wayne Williams


text: User:Ken Arromdee

title: User:Ken Arromdee