PRINTFrom your stereo to the stage
South Florida easy core kings shed major label chains
Courtesy of Bridge Nine Records; photo credit Ryan Russell
Ian Gushka, Steve Klein, Jordan Pundik, Cyrus Bolooki and Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory have been kings of the pop-punk genre for more than a decade. The group’s Easy Core tour hits The Blue Note Oct. 9.
October 2, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
When New Found Glory formed in 1997, the idea of hardcore kids playing in a pop-punk band was unheard of. After ruling the genre for close to a decade, the NFG guys chose to name their current tour after what they consider their sound to be: easy core, a blend of tried-and-true punk rock and pop sensibilities. When the band rolls into The Blue Note Oct. 9 on the Easy Core tour, it will showcase a little bit of their sound through an up-tempo set list.
Although the band is one of the scene’s most successful and longest tenured acts, it doesn’t make the tumultuous record business any easier. Drive-Thru Records picked up the band in 2000, and the group was promoted to major label MCA the next year. NFG’s 2002 release, Sticks and Stones, bore the hit “My Friends Over You,” and the album has sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S. After releasing two more major-label albums, the band split with Universal Music last year to test the free-agent waters.
Vox accosts performers and music fans with a very sharp pencil and forces them, under duress, to answer six questions. This week, Cyrus Bolooki pitches in and speaks his mind.
1. What is your favorite album?
My favorite record is Enema of the State by Blink-182.
2. Which album do you wish would spontaneously combust?
This is hard. There’s so much bad music out there. The one thing I wish I never experienced growing up was the Spice Girls.
3. What’s the best live show you’ve ever seen?
Green Day, and it doesn’t matter what show. Any show on their American Idiot tour when we were there with them.
4. What is your favorite make-out album?
Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity. Love that record.
5. What band is so last year?
Can I say Spice Girls again? Just get them out of here, please. Let them all marry soccer stars. Just don’t do music.
6. Build your dream band.
James Hetfield from Metallica on guitar, but not on vocals because Michael Jackson would sing. Travis (Barker) from Blink on drums. Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers on bass. For lead guitar, I would split it into two shows and do Les Claypool, and if I could bring him back from the dead, Dimebag Darrell in the second show. So pretty hardcore metal with Michael Jackson singing.
Following the split, the group again partnered with Drive-Thru Records for From the Screen to Your Stereo II, its second collection of movie cover songs. And earlier this year, NFG released Tip of the Iceberg, a hardcore-tinged EP, on Bridge Nine Records. Last month, the band found a new permanent home: Epitaph Records, a legendary punk-rock label run by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz.
“We were able to pick exactly where we wanted to go,” says New Found Glory drummer Cyrus Bolooki. “Some people might think it’s weird and see it as a step down, but in Epitaph, we found a label where they know what they’re doing.”
Still, the guys don’t see their time apart from a major label as stressful. Instead, it provided them time to write a new album and start a new tour. “One of the good things about our career in general is that we did things by ourselves even in the beginning,” Bolooki says.
All five members play a role in the songwriting process, and they used the time to reconnect with their roots and take advantage of newfound freedom. They also brought in a close friend, former Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus, to produce their new album, which is set for release in February via Epitaph.
“It was the first time in a while that we’ve had a fresh set of ears,” Bolooki says. “We had basically produced ourselves, and we didn’t have anyone there to really throw in fresh ideas.” Because of the relationship they formed on tour, they asked Hoppus to advise them.
In an ever-changing music scene that often finds bands breaking up after only a few years, the way NFG works together provides the band with staying power. “We’ve always based our career on touring, and we’ve never waited for labels to come in and make us huge,” Bolooki says. “We’re going to do what we need to do to stay relevant. We’re still the same people that we were 11 years ago.”
Remembering where they came from, Bolooki says, is one of the major ways they stay levelheaded. Being able to joke around and have fun keeps them from feeling the pressure many other bands do.
“We don’t force ourselves to make up new kinds of music,” Bolooki says. “New bands worry about what they have to sound like. We’re like, ‘Screw that, sound like yourselves.’ True fans are going to stay around that way.”
