New Found Glory

It’s been decades since NEW FOUND GLORY’s likeness was chiseled onto pop-punk’s Mount Rushmore, but as the quartet, formed in Coral Springs, Florida, in 1997, approach their landmark 30th anniversary, they still have a lot to say.

“We wanted to make something that really focused on how lucky we are,” guitarist Chad Gilbert explains of LISTEN UP!, NFG’s 11th studio album and first release for Pure Noise Records. “We’ve all gone through serious stuff in our lives, and I think the lyrics on this record are more meaningful and purposeful than ever. It’s a positive outlet that hopefully keeps people going.”

The album’s spirit is indeed a testament to resilience, shaped not only by Gilbert’s ongoing battle with an aggressive metastatic cancer but also the ever-evolving dynamic between him and his bandmates – vocalist Jordan Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Cyrus Bolooki – as they continue to push each other creatively. It’s the same full-hearted sentiment that colored their 2023 acoustic EP, Make The Most Of It, here delivered in three-minute bursts of the band’s trademark pop-punk sound: the shiny melodies that launched them onto TRL in the early 2000s, the ghosts of the tight-knit punk and hardcore scenes they came up in as teenagers.

That kinetic energy informed Listen Up! from its earliest stages of the writing process, with Bolooki and Grushka traveling to Gilbert’s Nashville-area home to flesh out the songs the guitarist had been crafting. Sitting face to face with their instruments, the three fell into a rhythm of workshopping and arranging together, leaning into a riff-first mentality that harkened back to iconic songs like “My Friends Over You” and “All Downhill From Here” in what Bolooki calls a musical return to form.

“The album is nonstop riffs you can sing along to and air guitar with,” Gilbert says. “Back in the day, I’d write riffs and then we’d come up with melodies around them, but later the melodies came first and we’d have the music fit the melody. Now, the two are equally as important.”

“Being able to grab a guitar and jam these riffs with Ian and Chad with a second guitar in play, before I even picked up a drumstick, allowed for more creativity to come out in riffs and leads during the songwriting process,” Bolooki adds. “My musical background is a little more theory-based, and I think that helped bridge the gap between different musical ideas Chad had.”

True to their word, first single “100%” puts New Found Glory’s renewed approach on full display, an instant classic the group road-tested all summer on tour with The Offspring and Jimmy Eat World. Bursting with tightly wound guitar chugs and Pundik’s iconic timbre, the track is as much a love song as it is a renewed commitment from the band to its audience – now a multigenerational affair as era-defining tracks from gold and platinum albums like 2000’s New Found Glory, 2002’s Sticks And Stones and 2004’s Catalyst get the same fervent live response as the fan-favorite collection of covers like “Kiss Me” and “Let It Go.”

“The success of the Catalyst anniversary tour and seeing a whole new wave of young New Found Glory fans filled us with even more energy to make this record fresh and exciting,” Gilbert says. “It feels like there’s still room for us to bring in a new wave of fans to this genre.”
Elsewhere on the album, “Laugh It Off” trembles with the darkly hewn moodiness of Catalyst, “Treat Yourself” gallops with skate-punk fury and “Medicine,” which Pundik likens to Matthew Sweet’s brand of power-pop, provides a lighter musical moment. Make The Most Of It cut “Dream Born Again,” here in full-band form, sparkles with echoes of Sunny Day Real Estate, while the album-closing “Frankenstein’s Monster” reflects on Gilbert’s cancer journey over the last few years – a struggle that could have derailed the band but instead fueled the guitarist to carry his positivity and drive straight into the studio alongside producer Steve Evetts (Saves The Day, Lifetime) and NFG touring guitarist (and Four Year Strong frontman) Dan O’Connor, who joined the band in the studio for the first time.

“I was between cancer treatments making the record,” Gilbert explains. “I was pretty much dying again. I was going into the studio in the morning and sitting there with a 190, 200 blood pressure, going to the hospital, getting scans, going back to the studio, finishing a guitar track and then going home. I had some heart failure issues – all this fluid in my body and lungs – and we had to arrange the schedule so we could finish the album.”

“Despite everything Chad was going through, he would come in just ready to roll, and that set the tone for the record,” Pundik says, noting Gilbert pushed him to share more of the lyrics he’d been writing throughout the process. “Seeing him feeling positive and excited about the songs got us excited about it, and being in the studio every day together made the process really special. Recording is always a stressful thing because you’re trying to make the best album you can, but I think we all went in trying not to take it so seriously and just have fun with it.”

At this stage in their decorated career, New Found Glory’s goals are straightforward: keep inspiring the next generation of artists and continue writing songs that help their audience – and themselves – find strength, courage, and joy. The band has come a long way from their humble South Florida beginnings, as detailed on the Listen Up! standout “Beer And Blood Stains,” a nostalgic riff-factory detailing the band’s early battle scars at local clubs, where danger meant more than catching a stray elbow in the swirl of a circle pit. “Looking back, was it fun or crime?” Pundik muses on the track before elevating the album’s simple-yet-profound mission statement: “It’s good to be alive.”

“Obviously there’s the relationship to music, but we called the album Listen Up! because we’re trying to offer an album to fans that’s a little bit deeper, that asks them to listen to the words and the world around them,” Gilbert says. “I think this is the most honest and universally relatable record we’ve made in years – maybe ever.”

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