New Found Glory

About New Found Glory

New Found Glory formed in Coral Springs, Florida in 1997, right when pop punk was starting to shift from California skate parks to suburban basements everywhere else. The lineup solidified around vocalist Jordan Pouliotis (who goes by Jordan Pundik), guitarists Chad Gilbert and Steve Klein, bassist Ian Grushka, and drummer Cyrus Bolooki. They were young, they were loud, and they had that specific South Florida energy that made them stand out from the Warped Tour crowd.

Their self-titled major label debut in 2000 is what broke them through. It came out on Drive-Thru Records initially before getting picked up by MCA, and suddenly songs like Hit or Miss were on MTV2 and actual radio stations. The album had this thing where the hooks were sticky enough for mainstream appeal but the delivery was still frantic and desperate enough to feel authentic. They weren't trying to be blink-182, even if some people made that comparison. Their thing was more earnest, more tied to hardcore's intensity than skate culture's irreverence.

Sticks and Stones in 2002 is probably their defining record. My Friends Over You became the song everyone knew, even people who didn't particularly care about pop punk. Head on Collision and Understatement worked just as well. The album hit number four on the Billboard 200, which is wild for a band that sounded like they could have been playing VFW halls a few years earlier. They figured out how to write choruses that stuck in your head for days without sanding off what made them interesting in the first place.

Catalyst in 2004 kept the momentum going with All the Same and Failure's Not Flattering, though you could hear them starting to expand a bit. Coming Home in 2006 pushed further into rock radio territory with It's Not Your Fault and Boulders. Some longtime fans got weird about it, but that's what happens when a pop punk band makes it past album three.

They've been remarkably consistent since then, which is either admirable or stubborn depending on how you look at it. Not Without a Fight, Radiosurgery, Resurrection—they kept putting out records that sounded like New Found Glory records. Chad Gilbert produced a lot of other bands during this period, including Yellowcard and H2O. Steve Klein left the band in 2013 under messy circumstances.

These days they're still touring constantly and putting out albums. Forever + Ever x Infinity came out in 2023, which is their eleventh studio record if you're counting. They do anniversary tours for Sticks and Stones semi-regularly because that's what legacy pop punk bands do now. But they're not coasting exactly—they're just a band that found their sound 25 years ago and decided that sound still works fine.

Shows are loud singalongs where everyone knows the words. Crowd's genuinely there for it, not just going through the motions. They play the hits without irony and the energy never really dips. People lose their minds in the best way possible.

Known for My Friends Over You, Head on Collision, Dressed to Kill, All the Same, This Disaster

See New Found Glory Live