Faith and fate.

Commercial success and spiritual fulfillment.

Rock ’n’ roll and rock of ages.

In the 20 years since its inception, Switchfoot has sold millions of albums, had several major radio hits, toured the world multiple times, won a Grammy Award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album in 2011 and earned nearly a dozen Gospel Music Association Dove Awards between 1999 and 2015. Then there was the 2013 film documentary, “Fading West,” which focused on the twin passions this hard-rocking San Diego band’s five members have for music and surfing.

12th annual Switchfoot Bro-Am Concert and Surf Contest With: Switchfoot, American Authors, Parachute, Josh Garrels, Brynn Elliott and one artist tba When: Saturday, July 9 (the surf contest is 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.; the concert is from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) Where: Moonlight Beach, 400 B St., Encinitas Admission: Free Online: broam.org/events/ (This website also provides information about Friday’s private Bro-Am benefit party in Carlsbad, for which tickets are $250 for general admission. VIP tickets start at $350 each and include a pre-show reception and a meet-and-greet with Switchfoot.)

Yet, while Switchfoot leader Jon Foreman is understandably proud of his group’s legacy — and of its ambitious new album, “Where the Light Shines Through” — he cites another achievement as far more significant.

And, no, it’s not overcoming the crisis of faith that fuels some of the best songs on “Where the Light Shines Through” — although that is a key issue for Switchfoot’s members, who embrace their Christianity far more overtly on their new album than on any of their previous nine releases.

“The thing I’m most proud of, more than winning a Grammy or any sales figures, is the Bro-Am,” Foreman said, citing the band’s annual surf contest and free concert at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas.

Since being launched a decade ago, the Bro-Am has raised more than $1 million to help homeless and at-risk youth here.

After a slow start, the event has grown steadily. The Bro-Am drew about 15,000 people last year — up from 5,000 in 2010 — to enjoy a day of free music and to watch such surfing legends as Tom Curren and San Diego’s Rob Machado hit the waves.

The 12th annual Bro-Am takes place Saturday, July 9. The band will headline the concert portion of the event and will devote a good share of its performance to songs from “Where the Light Shines Through.”

“The credibility of the event and what it does for the community, that’s what I’m most excited about what the band has accomplished,” said Foreman, Switchfoot’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist. “The other thing is the fact we still really love each other. We really, truly are fans of one another and want the best for each other and for each others’ families.”

Not resting on their laurels

“Where the Light Shines Through” will be released Friday. It is the band’s first release on Vanguard Records, whose roster also includes Jerry Lee Lewis , Bruce Hornsby and Indigo Girls.

The album sounds unmistakably like Switchfoot but goes to some unexpected places, musically speaking. “Looking for America” features a rap by Christian hip-hop star Lecrae, while “Healer of Souls” has a thumping, glam-rock feel and “Holy Water” offers a heady fusion of trip-hop and psychedelia. Then there’s “Float,” which manages to sound radio-friendly despite having a tricky 7/4 time signature.

“This record absolutely pushes the limits a bit,” Foreman said. “I grew up loving hip-hop in the 1990s — De La Soul, Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest. We’ve had albums before where I came close to rapping, but it ends up sounding more like Bob Dylan than rap!”

The 12 songs on Switchfoot’s new album were selected from nearly 90 that the band had to choose from. What was the criteria used to determine the dozen selections that made the final cut?

“The first and foremost criterion was: ‘Would you get into a fight for this song to get it on the record? Would you fight for it?’” Foreman, 39, replied.

“The second was: ‘How well does it tie into to the theme of ‘Where the Light Shines Through.’ The full title is ‘The Wound Where the Light Shines Through.’ So the question was: ‘How well does it connect with that?’”

Recorded at Switchfoot’s Carlsbad studio, the new album took several years to be completed by Foreman and his band mates — his brother, bassist/singer Tim Foreman, drummer Chad Butler and guitarist/keyboardists Jerome Fontamilas and Drew Shirley.

Why so long?

“We were talking about that the other day,” Foreman, a longtime Encinitas resident, said.

“It felt like we took our time in the studio. But, in many ways, this record took us a couple of decades to make. It pulls from things we’ve learned from every other album we’ve made, in a way, and that feels really healthy. So, in some ways, this album took nine albums to make. I feel like there’s lyrics and (thematic) elements we’re talking about on this record you only can talk about through experience.”

‘A dark season’ of struggle

Tim Foreman, who co-wrote all of the songs on the new album with Jon, was recently quoted as saying that making the album “was a huge struggle” and that “it was a dark season for” the band.

What struggle and dark season was he was referring to?

“As a band, there were a couple of things we had been wrestling with as a group. And, then, for me, personally, that’s where I was coming from on a lot of these songs,” Jon Foreman replied.

“And I came to the conclusion that you can kind of run away from the things you fear, run away from the pain — there’s a million ways to run away; you can run away even with songwriting and use metaphors to distance yourself. Or you can dive into your work, or dive into a bottle, or into a relationship, or whatever.

“But a lot of times, there are ways to run away and not face the pain. For me, I felt like I wanted to kind of figure some things out over the course of a year. So I made a commitment to sit on a rock, down by the beach, for half an hour a day, usually in the middle of the night, because it felt appropriate.”

He paused, as if not wanting to reveal too much.

“I’d sit on the rock and look at the Pacific Ocean and wrestle with stuff,” Foreman continued. “So, at the beginning of the process, it felt like this would be really dark album, honest, but pretty brooding, dark and introspective At some point, light began to break through and it was kind of a surprise. And, now it’s kind of part of the illumination of the title track — that the wounded places in us became the very things that are illuminating the rest of our being.”

Could he elaborate on the source of darkness to which he is referring?

“Um, I try and keep the private stuff private,” he said. “The big questions are: ‘Is there a god in the face of suffering? Is there a god in the face of tragedy?’ These kind of questions paint the picture for me and where I was at.”

Aren’t these some of the same questions Switchfoot has addressed on its previous albums?

“Yeah, I think they are,” Foreman said. “But I think it’s one thing to think about it from a distance and another when it happens in your own backyard. For me, this record came from wresting with these things out on the rock on the beach. ...

“(I realized) that maybe theology and truth is what you’re supposed to wrestle with and fight for, and that truth comes alive, not when things are going right, but when they are going wrong.”

Did he undergo a crisis of faith?

“Yeah. I think none of us are too far removed from a crisis of faith,” he said. “Belief and doubt are two sides of the same coin for me. But, yeah, absolutely there was certainly that sort of thing going on. The irony is usually you can see things better in the rear view mirror.”

Presumably, then, it’s not coincidental that the new Switchfoot album features songs that address faith head-on, not only in their lyrics, but in their titles (which include “Holy Water,” “Healer of Souls” and “The Day That I Found God”)?

“I don’t think its coincidental,” Foreman agreed. “I don’t think we’ve ever ever had ‘Souls,’ ‘Holy’ and ‘God’ in our song titles. ... There absolutely is something to not being afraid of the power of what lies between the surface.”

Rising up from Led Zeppelin cover band

Switchfoot has long maintained that the band is “Christian by faith, not by genre.” That Foreman is now more comfortable addressing God by name in the group’s songs reflects his personal and musical evolution.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think, early on, with the first three or so Switchfoot records, I was still in college while we were making them and the song I was writing about reflected that, literally. The first single we did (1997’s ‘Chem 6A’) was about a chemistry class! I’ve always written about things I don’t understand — God, girls, politics. The first few records were close to home, dorm rooms and dating, and things like that.

“Then, for me, I think it was a matter of realizing: ‘The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.’ And the struggle becomes, well, it gets easier sometimes. But I found you pull one thread and many things begin to unravel, So the big questions become very needed. You base decisions (on whether) to run away from big questions, or embrace them, and try to figure out big answers

“So maybe this album marked a little bit of a shift in making words like ‘holy’ and spiritual words feel more available to me.”

That Switchfoot is now 20 years old — and its Bro-Am fundraising event is now in its 12th year — is a source of pride for Foreman and the other members of Switchfoot.

Did they expect either to have such longevity?

”Absolutely not!” Foreman said, laughing with delight.

”When I started out and picked up a guitar, I was in a Led Zeppelin cover band (Joker’s Wild) and hoping to graduate (from UCSD). The graduation) did not happen, but I’m still playing tunes. I think its ironic, because I grew up in a household that was very musical.

“But music was always an enjoyable pastime; it was never viewed as an occupation. It was like: ‘We have a guitar and piano, and you (can learn to play) Mozart, Bach and The Beatles. But you better get your degree, because music won’t pay’.”

He laughed again.

“I still trip out that I can pay for things, and support my family and and buy groceries, with music! I still think that’s preposterous! It’s incredible that we are even more passionate about making music that we ever have been, and excited about making something beautiful together. To keep that magic —and the miracle of what it means to play rock ‘n’ roll for a living — is a gift.”

george.varga@sduniontribune.com