New Found Glory

Emerging from Coral Springs, Florida, New Found Glory entered the mainstream amid the early-2000s pop-punk surge and soon stood among the genre’s leading acts next to Good Charlotte and Saves the Day. Their third album, Sticks and Stones, reached number four on U.S. charts in 2002 before their 2004 release Catalyst climbed to a Top Three position. Although the broader scene had shifted toward hardcore sounds by decade’s end, NFG kept their brisk momentum alive, claiming U.S. indie chart number ones with Not Without a Fight in 2009, Makes Me Sick in 2017, and Forever + Ever x Infinity in 2020.

The group formed in mid-1997 when vocalist Jordan Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka, drummer Joe Moreno (later replaced by longtime drummer Cyrus Bolooki following the band’s debut release), and guitarists Chad Gilbert (previously vocalist for Shai Hulud) and Steve Klein came together. Fresh out of high school, the members quickly built a devoted following through energetic live performances while touring the East Coast in the late ’90s; along the way they sold out the entire pressing of their 1997 debut EP, It’s All About the Girls, issued by Fiddler Records, which later reissued the EP with new cover art in 2003.

Their first full-length album, Nothing Gold Can Stay, appeared in 1999 on Drive-Thru Records and was reissued the same year after NFG signed with MCA. The 2000 EP From the Screen to Your Stereo presented several cover songs and helped set the stage for the self-titled New Found Glory, the band’s first gold-selling album, released later that year; this release also marked their official use of the name New Found Glory, which removed the indefinite article “A” from the original moniker. A high-profile tour with blink-182, an opening slot on the Warped Tour, and a cameo in the film American Pie 2 broadened their visibility, prompting the group to return to the studio at the close of 2001.

Those sessions produced Sticks and Stones, issued in summer 2002. Driven by the hit single “My Friends over You,” the album earned gold certification and earned the band a headlining slot on the 2002 Warped Tour. After the tour, the members reentered the studio with fresh restlessness; the resulting Catalyst, released in May 2004, infused their sugary punk-pop with new influences drawn from hardcore, thrash, and new wave. Later that year the concert DVD This Disaster: Live in London captured their live strength.

Catalyst reached number three on Billboard’s Top 200 and eventually attained gold status, aided by the success of “All Downhill from Here.” Working with producer Thom Panunzio (Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty), NFG issued their mature fifth album, Coming Home, in September 2006 and immediately embarked on an extensive run of headlining dates across the U.S. and U.K. alongside the Early November and Cartel. The second edition of From the Screen to Your Stereo followed in 2007, offering pop-punk covers of songs such as Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” and Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me.” The band then moved to Epitaph Records and recorded Not Without a Fight with blink-182’s Mark Hoppus; two years later they reunited with producer Neal Avron, who had helmed Sticks and Stones and Catalyst, for their seventh album, Radiosurgery.

Kill It Live, a live album containing three new studio tracks, surfaced in 2013. That same year the group parted ways with guitarist Klein after he faced charges involving lewd acts with underage girls; rather than recruit a replacement, the remaining members continued as a four-piece with Gilbert handling all guitar duties. In 2014 the four-member New Found Glory released Resurrection, which returned them to their punk roots with renewed purpose. The album was reissued in 2015 as Resurrection: Ascension, adding two new studio tracks and a reworked version of “Vicious” featuring Paramore’s Hayley Williams.

NFG marked their twentieth anniversary in 2017 with the ninth album Makes Me Sick and a tour presenting several beloved records in full; the album included the singles “Happy Being Miserable” and “Party on Apocalypse.” A deluxe edition, Makes Me Sick Again, arrived the following year with two additional tracks. In 2019 the band completed the trilogy begun in 2000 with From the Screen to Your Stereo, Vol. 3, which rose into the Top Ten on the U.S. Independent Albums chart and featured their renditions of songs spanning the ’80s through the 2010s, including Frozen’s “Let It Go” and “The Power of Love” from Back to the Future.

New Found Glory delivered their tenth studio album, Forever + Ever x Infinity, in 2020. Produced with Steve Evetts (Lifetime, Saves the Day), the riff-driven collection contained the single “Greatest of All Time.” An expanded edition, Forever + Ever x Infinity... And Beyond!!!, appeared the next year with six bonus tracks. Months later the band released December’s Here, a collection of holiday songs highlighted by the reflective “Somber Christmas.” That December Gilbert received a diagnosis of pheochromocytoma, a rare cancer; after a demanding year of treatment he recovered, and those experiences shaped the band’s next record, Make the Most of It, issued early in 2023 by Revelation. Their first fully acoustic album, it contained seven new songs plus seven live acoustic versions of earlier material captured at the 2022 “NFG Unplugged” concert.