Listen Up! New Found Glory Have A Brand New Album

It was only December last year that New Found Glory returned to our shores as part of The Good Things Festival circuit. After eight long years, the Floridians bounced and bopped around our stages, spreading good times to all including an impromptu show with our own Amy Shark. On the eve of their eleveth album release, Listen Up! drummer Cyrus Bolooko sits down with me and chats about the exciting new NFG world. We start with the bands recent visit to Australia.

‘I absolutely love it. It’s one of the things I was probably the most gutted about coming out of COVID, was how much the international touring suffered and how long it took us to just start doing that. Of course, for New Found Glory specifically, it was like a one-two punch because we had COVID and right as we started to tour again, Chad Gilbert was diagnosed with cancer. That was another wrench thrown into the whole machine and trying to figure out how are we able to do this and continue to do this.’

‘Then after a few years, I think we found out how to do it, even if he can’t be present on stage. Then finally it’s like, okay, so how do we bring this outside of America again? You waited for the return of us back down under, and you guys did not disappoint at Good Things. We heard so many great things, and we knew it was going to be awesome and it really was. Of course, the Amy Shark secret show was just a little cherry on top of all of that. The crowds are always great down there and we’re already trying to plan our next time back. It definitely will not be eight years! Barring any pandemics or anything right?’

The album launches on the February 20 with a show in Chad Gilbert’s now hometown of Nashville at The End venue.

‘We are playing a not a secret show, but it’s a very small show. It’s a two hundred person show in Nashville on Friday to celebrate the record release. And Chad, he was like, ‘Hey!’ – he doesn’t get to often play with us anymore – he’s like, ‘Hey, let’s play a fun set.’ And of course everybody’s like, ‘yeah!’ Without even talking about what the set was going to be. Lo and behold, after we finished writing the set of let’s say 20 songs, we’re playing half them we haven’t played in over a year, if not more. Not to mention a couple songs off the record, we’ve never played live! So, I’ve been putting in my time doing my homework. I can’t really say I’m ready to leave tomorrow, but I have too!’

This album is full of big riffs, melodies and anthems yet there is something different about this record to previously. Is it the autobiographical content during what’s been a heavy time? Is it time the changes when a different riff comes in? Or is it from the new writing process the band did by coming together in one space?

‘It was definitely different this time around than previous records. In the past there was an acoustic record that we put out a few years back, and EP, if you want to call it. Those songs were written together in Nashville. Those were written in the studio together, which was something that we don’t often do. Basically, in years past, let’s say the majority of New Found Glory’s career, after our first couple records, we were on tour so much that’s where majority of, at least the beginnings of songs would take place. It would be sound checks, it would be the back of the bus, and there weren’t really these writing sessions. We would just get together with a whole bunch of random rifts that we had jammed on for a week or two before we’d start recording and we call it pre-production. We would arrange everything then and go into the studio with this time and again.’

‘Now Chad’s been diagnosed and fighting cancer for a few years, of course his physical health is not where it was before he can’t travel as much. So, we carved out about 10, 12 days where it was myself, Ian, and Chad in Nashville in his house sitting upstairs, he has a loft. We would just take riffs that he had started and I would grab a guitar. It was myself on guitar, Chad on guitar and Ian on bass and we would jam these riffs and put them together in whatever way we felt like. That’s where Ian and I came in. That’s okay, this riff is cool. Let’s try this one. Or Chad’s like, I really want to put these two together. The only way to do that is with this chord and we put the songs together that way, which we haven’t really done too much in the past.’

‘Then Jordan wasn’t there. You notice I didn’t mention him? He was actually in Japan at the time, he had this vacation he’d been planning for years. Again, we can’t move Chad’s treatments around and we also really wanted to have a record out by now. Actually, we wanted it last fall and it didn’t work out. So, we had this specific window, but we still got him involved. He gave us a journal of random things he had been writing, and he’s not too forward and forthcoming with that stuff. But we’re like, look, if you’re not going to be there, you got to just be vulnerable and open and do this and a lot of his lyrics ended up into songs like ‘A Love Song’.

‘It did bring us together. There was a sense of urgency and also a sense of professionalism. We know we can do this and we’re going to be able to put these songs together and we’re going to come out with something that we like. We were ready to record that record, which happened, I think it was about maybe three or four weeks after that, after those writing sessions. Now you have a final result!’
Songs like ‘Beer And Bloodstains’, a riotous ode to days of growing up in Florida, is a perfect example of the two riffs being merged by an epic breakdown.

‘That’s exactly what happened. We have the basic song, which is kind of a verse, pre-chorus, chorus, great, great, great stuff. Then Chad’s like, I have this riff and it’s a really hardcore riff, and I’m like, cool, play it for me. He played it and how are we going to make this work? Well, it doesn’t have to be the same timing. It doesn’t have to really be the same notes. We could just find some little thing. It’s going to be weird, but let’s see if it works. And it did. ‘Beer And Bloodstains’. It’s cool because that song specifically is about where we came from as a band and how we did mesh with all of these different types of bands at these local shows we used to play. It’s almost ironic that you have a pop punk band writing a song that’s heavy that it sounds like a hardcore band has written that part.’

There are plenty of autobiographical moments. Beer And Bloodstains have the gang chanting Florida, Medicine has references to Miami and ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ is close to the point in regard to Chad’s battles.

‘We’re not necessarily a band that has always been very specific with our lyrical content. I think in the last few years we have become a little more specific with stuff. The stuff you talk about in ‘Medicine’, we thought it was cool to add it in there and then actually a little Easter egg, I don’t know if anybody will hear it, but you’ll know now in the second verse, Chad talks about Ian’s garage and that was a place that we would hang out at and Ian actually is on the record, you hear him say, ‘what’s up bro?’ On ‘Medicine’, he does mention what it was like growing up in Florida and the journey that where it’s taken him and ‘Beer And Bloodstains’ is the same. We had a whole bunch of our friends on that song screaming the stuff in the background.’

Next up after Listen Up! drops is a tour with Yellowcard in the States and then, who knows? Australia?

‘We also need to do a headlining tour. So, maybe it’s the headlining tour, which might not happen until the end of this year, beginning of next year, but maybe that headlining cycle has us go all around the world. Again, part of that, we need to get back out to these territories, including Australia. Luckily for us, we had Good Things that helped us do that. I think the idea is you can do a Good Things and then you go back on your own and then you go back to Good Things. At least with Soundwave back in the day, you would do Soundwave, the next year you would do your own, then you would go to Soundwave or maybe we get to support somebody. Maybe we have such a good time with Yellow Card. They’re doing great down there right now. Maybe they’re like ‘next year, let’s do it again with you guys!’ Who knows?’

Interview By Iain McCallum

LISTEN UP! – OUT NOW

STREAM – https://purenoiserecs.lnk.to/NFG_music

STORE LINK – https://purenoiserecs.lnk.to/NFG_Stores