Background
Fontamillas was born on June 20, 1967 in Pasay City in the Philippines.
Fontamillas was born on June 20, 1967 in Pasay City in the Philippines.
Since 2003, he has played the keyboards, the guitar and other instruments, as well as sung backing vocals in Switchfoot, with which he has released six studio albums. When he was three years old, his family moved to the United States, where they lived in Chicago and then California. He started taking piano lessons when he was a child.
In 1985, Fontamillas graduated from Monterey Bay Academy in Watsonville, California.
In 1988 Fontamillas, Jyro Xhan, Ray Tongpo and Wilson Peralta released a six-song demo tape, titled Wish Fifteen, on Blue Genius Music as Mortal Wish. Four years later they signed with Intense Records and changed their name to Mortal.
Fontamillas would continue to play with Mortal until 1996 and played in Fold Zandura, also with Jyro, between 1995 and 1999. In 2000, Fontamillas quit his day job and started touring with Switchfoot shortly before the release of their third album, Learning to Breathe.
His first release with Switchfoot was their 2003 break-through album The Beautiful Letdown.
In 2002, Jyro and Fontamillas released a Mortal reunion album, Nu-En-Jin. Fontamillas is also a producer for the following independent acts:
The Echoing Green, Echoing Green (1998)
Starflyer 59, I Predict A Clone (1994)
March, Velvet Blue Music, (1999).
He became an official member of the band in 2003.