New Found Glory

New Found Glory vocalist Jordan Pundik may sing “I’m amazed that we’ve made it this far” on the band’s seventh full-length Radiosurgery, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has followed the band’s career trajectory. For the past fourteen years the Coral Springs, Florida, pop-punk act have transcended trends and gimmicks by writing songs from the heart that listeners of all ages can relate to—and the band’s latest album Radiosurgery sees New Found Glory continuing that journey while simultaneously paying homage to the bands who influenced them to pick up instruments as teenagers.

“Our music is constantly evolving and changing and when this band puts out an album we always try to offer something different,” says guitarist Chad Gilbert—who along with Pundik, guitarist Steve Klein, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Cyrus Bolooki make up New Found Glory. “With this disc we wanted to go back to the music that got us into punk and incorporate influences from those albums and also make a record that sounds consistent; whereas in the past some of our albums were a little bit more all-over-the-place musically, this one feels like a complete thought.”

The band’s focused direction was aided by producer Neal Avron, who hadn’t worked with the band since 2004’s Catalyst and honed his chops with artists like Fall Out Boy and Linkin Park in the interim. “Neal started producing us when we were a much smaller band and we learned a lot from him and felt like he always brought our songs to the next level,” Klein says about the decision to reunite with the famed producer after working with Thom Panunzio and Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus respectively on their past two releases. “We’ve both had so many different experiences over the past few years so to be able to come together at this point in our career was really awesome.”

From the Green Day-influenced opener “Radiosurgery” to melodic, upbeat anthems like “Ready, Aim, Fire!” and straight-forward, instantly infectious rockers such as “Summer Fling, Don’t Mean A Thing,” the songs on Radiosurgery sound undeniably like New Found Glory but also contain a timeless punk feel that will invariably appeal to both veteran fans as well as recent converts to the band. “There’s no filler on this record,” Klein explains, “we worked really hard on every song and it’s meant to be listened all the way through.”

Lyrically Radiosurgery is just as cohesive as it is musically, although songs like “Trainwreck”—which memorably features the chorus “falling in love is like a trainwreck / If you make it out alive you still haven’t made it”—embody both the positive and negative aspects of being in a relationship. “[This album] sounds like an angry break-up record on the surface but it’s more about everything you go through when you’re in a relationship,” Gilbert explains. “A lot of these songs were written from the perspective of ‘what’s happening in your mind when everything falls apart and how do you deal with it?’”

That said, even if you haven’t experienced heartbreak in the past you’ll still be able to embrace—and sing-along to—all eleven tracks on Radiosurgery. “I think it’s cool that there’s some mystery with these lyrics because I like people to relate our songs to their own lives rather than us talking about ourselves all the time,” Klein elaborates. “Whatever’s going on in my life isn’t necessarily the same as what’s happening in other people’s lives, so we like to keep the stories ambiguous enough that anyone can take what Jordan is singing about and apply it to their own situation.”

Ultimately after selling millions of records, interacting with countless fans and touring the world with everyone from Green Day to Paramore, New Found Glory feel a responsibility to their audience to bring something new and fresh to the table with every single release. “So many of our fans say they used to be into whatever was popular at the time and then they heard us and got into punk and that means so much to us,” Gilbert explains. “That’s why we never settle for anything less than the best; we want to make a record that our fans will love but that will also impress them.”

“This album is a culmination of all of our albums put together and in a lot of ways we feel like a new band when we’re playing these songs because they’re so energized and they affirm the fact that we’re going to be a band for a long time,” summarizes Klein. “In a lot of ways it feels like we’re just getting started.”