New Found Glory

Mon 23rd Feb, 2009 in Features

“We’re stoked on it,” says New Found Glory frontman *Jordan Pundik*of the band’s forthcoming album, Not Without a Fight. “It was a strange process to go through before we recorded it, and during recording, but all that is done and we’re getting amped up for it to come out.”

At the time of the recording of the release, the band were without a label – and didn’t know what the future held, and where New Found Glory would eventually find a new home. “We were talking to a few labels that were interested, but it just didn’t seem like a fit for us. So what we did was demo a bunch of songs. We decided to do that so that at least there’d be something for people to hear when we were talking to these labels, and Brett Gurewitz got a hold of the demos.”

Gurewitz is, of course, the founder of the vitally important and long-standing punk label, Epitaph. A former casualty of the major label system himself – the band for which he played guitar, Bad Religion, were on Atlantic for a short time in the mid-1990s. Renowned as a music business man who still gives a damn about the music, his ears are considered – œgolden’.

“He was one of the first ones to approach us,” Jordan says, noting that Gurewitz approached New Found Glory about their future intentions before they’d even laid down any demos. “It was a thing where we didn’t want to take the first [deal] that was thrown at us. We wanted to wait a little bit. Then he finally heard the music and he was super-stoked on it, and of all the labels we met with, him and his whole campaign ideas for us seemed like the perfect fit for us – to be with people who share the same vision and the same passion that we do.”

Being back on an independent label is, he admits, a different experience to the band’s time doing the major label shuffle. “We started off on indie labels, and we had deals where if a band was doing well then MCA could pick them up – you could get bumped up to a major label and that’s kind of what happened.

“We’ve been a band for 10 years now and we’ve gone through ups and downs with labels. Sometimes it’s really good, and then all of a sudden it changes and people get fired and you have to reintroduce your band again. That’s where I feel we got stuck – every time we put out a new record there was a new president, or a different radio guy, so we never felt like we were – œhome’ anywhere.

“When we signed to Epitaph,” he continues, “it felt like a breath of fresh air for us. There’s been the same people working there for ten years with the same kind of passion, the same vision. For us that’s really important: we want people to have the same mentality as we do, and it’s great having that with a label.”

When they recorded Not Without a Fight, New Found Glory worked with Mark Hoppus from blink-182 in the producer’s chair. With his great notoriety achieved with that act, he’s also getting more and more involved in production, working with groups such as Motion City Soundtrack, The Matches and New Found Glory.

“He’s also been a big supporter of New Found Glory,” Jordan outlines. “Blink took us on a huge tour when Take Off Your Pants and Jacket came out, and Mark has always been a big supporter of us – he used to come see us when we were playing small clubs in San Diego and he’s just a rad dude overall. When he decided that he wanted to do a record with us it was awesome. He basically let us record for free, because we weren’t on a label yet, and fell in love with the demos.”

That, of course, took a lot of the pressure off making the record. “Oh yeah, for sure,” he confirms. “It was also less pressure because we were with someone that we’ve known for so long. He knows the band and he knows how we work.”

New Found Glory is currently doing the national rounds with the Soundwave Festival, having kicked off in Brisbane and Sydney over the weekend.