Interviews: New Found Glory

Late last year, New Found Glory released their latest album, Coming Home and I had a chance to speak with guitarist Chad Gilbert about the new album, the last album and his other projects including some brief mentions of both Hazen Street and Shai Hulud.

You can click Read More for the interview.

You have been doing this for quite a while now, is this
your ninth year together?

This is the tenth actually; we started in June of ‘97.

I think I’m counting from Nothing Gold Can Stay. So how does it feel? Obviously you guys have
come a long way.

But regardless if its 100 kids at our show or 10,000 we're still gonna do it. So I think the fact that we never forgot where we come from and we honestly do it because we love it and not because it’s a career and a way to make money, and I think that’s why we do it.

It feels amazing. It feels amazing to still be able to
release records and tour and have people care and come see you. So many bands
in their careers have ups and downs, and they’re really big and then no one
comes see them again. I feel like I'm happy where New Found Glory is. It’s kind
of been this place where every record we put out people know it’s out there and
they buy it, and we have our fans and we make new fans every record. And we
constantly build our fans so it’s really kind of fun to have that fan base
where we continue to just put out records and have people come see us play
live.

Some of the first songs you released had a slower tempo,
and some of the long-time fans got worried. Any reason you chose those to
release first?

We kind of only wanted to release songs that show the change
and growth in music and that also show the classic NFG melodies. The songs that
have been released are more mid-paced, but still have the classic NFG vocal
melodies. What I can definitely say to anyone who thinks this album is a slower
record is- it isn't. If anyone out there’s favorite record was Catalyst, if we released "I Don't Wanna Know" first, you
would think it was a slow record, but Catalyst was our heaviest record. You just have to hear the
new album, because the thing is our new CD is more like an album than just like
a CD full of songs.

Every song really makes sense with each other. Especially
the order you listen to the CD, the CD has a really great track order. When you’re listening to it, it will
take you from an upbeat song and just kind of goes everywhere, shows all of
NFG's writing abilities. Honestly, this record is more like Sticks and
Stones and our S/T album. If your favorite
records are the S/T album and Sticks and Stones, then this record is going to be your favorite. It’s
more going back to those. It’s almost like melodically a step back to those
albums and musically a step forward. I feel Catalyst had more of a negative connotation and the S/T had
more of this energy to it, and vocally it was kind of more up beat. And that’s
how this new record is- way more vocally and all that kind of stuff. It’s more
upbeat and not as dark.

A year ago you gave an interview you promised that you
weren't going to mature. Do you think you’ve been able to keep that promise?

Well let me clarify that- I think there’s a difference
between maturing. Maturing to me is when you go see a band and they disown
everything they've ever done and act this certain way. NFG has always done
things that are natural and are real. Because we are fans of music, we still
listen to current bands, we're not those kinds of people who go back to our
roots and the roots of music and say "we need to be creative and look at like
this amazing song writing rock band".

It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with a natural progression and I think of a
band that matures as you go see them live they don't play any of their old
stuff, they only play new stuff and they act completely different. That's not
our band. On our headline tour with Cartel and The Early November and Hit the
Lights, that tour is pretty much a lot of Sticks and Stones and S/T songs, a couple Catalyst and four new songs. You know, we're not coming out
there completely changing.

I think that’s
what I mean by you don't have to worry about us maturing, If it means maturing
in a sense of disowning everything we've ever done, we would never disown our
records just because we write songs that maybe use the piano now, or just
because we wanted try something a teeny bit different, just because we want to
try a new guitar. If you listen to the new record when you get it, I think you
are going to be really psyched and pleasantly surprised to see that is its just
like classic NFG, it's just the production may sound a little different then
our older records, that's the only difference. We just do natural things. Whatever we write we write. It’s
not a conscious effort to grow out of anything we've ever done it’s not like
that; we embrace anything we've ever done and love everything we've ever done.

It's always kind of annoying to see a band disown their
earliest material, particularly because some of the oldest fans discovered them
that way.

We're fans of music. We're not trying to be big rock saviors
of music- heck no, we just wrote a new record and what came out came out.

Now, one thing, and I don't want to bring up any painful
stuff, but you obviously went through a lot in the last two years, family and
personal stuff. I mean Catalyst
was pretty dark, and you've mentioned that lyrically this new record isn't so
dark.

I went through my dad passing away two years ago October
2nd, and this record is kind of a more positive record because when you have
something so devastating happen to you and you can get through it, you try to
find the best. Because there's so many things that people don't even realize
you have to go through, when someone passes away in your family its kind of
like you have to accept it immediately and then fix it all- not fix it all, but
kind of take charge of the situation, whether it be organizing a funeral, it’s
like the most insane thing, you have to completely forget who you’re organizing
the funeral for and then organize it.

It’s just the most insane thing. I think when you kind of
get to a place when you’re like "man this is the worst I’ve ever felt" there’s
only one place to go and that’s like happy. And what happened was the way my
father died; he wanted to die that way. My dad had cancer and almost died like
seven or eight years ago, well actually nine, it would be nine now, he was
supposed to die and he actually lived seven years longer then he was supposed
to. He beat cancer. So when he died, he died of a heart attack and he didn't
feel anything. And that's what
this song "When I Die" is about. It’s looking at the situation like we're all
going to die eventually and at least you got to die the way you wanted. And at least now when I die, there's
someone there to see me through it. That’s kind of like what "When I Die" is
about. I think that’s why its a positive record because really I was sad
because, like, I can't hang out with my dad anymore and he was my best friend
and you know, for the past however many years I was on tour instead of hanging
out with him, which is kind of like something that goes through your mind, but
at the same time I feel like my dad got everything he wanted so it was kind of
like hard to be angry at that.

Because you can die any way and you can die at any time and
so I was kind of was grateful of how my dad went as opposed to being angry and
bitter about it.

Sorry to bring that up.

No, it’s fine, that’s why you write songs. If I didn't want
anyone to know I wouldn't have wrote about it if I didn't want to talk about
it. When you write songs you kind of know that if you write about it people are
going to bring it up, so to me I just feel like the story of what happened with
my dad, people can kind of relate to it and also people who are having some
mixed issues about losing a family member can definitely use this song as somewhere
to go to, so I don't mind talking about it.

What do you think of your former band getting back
together?

Shai Hulud? Well Matt Fox is the original member and I think
of Shai Hulud this way- Shai Hulud is no longer the original Shai Hulud. Shai
Hulud is the band that can have any singer, can get back together at anytime as
long as Matt's in the band. They’ve had so many different member changes that
as long as Matt's in the band then it’s Shai Hulud. I mean those songs that I
sing on and the old releases are still special to people and people still want
to hear those song and see them live and if Matt's there playing them and Shai
Hulud is like, I think Shai Hulud can write a new album and it be the best Shai
Hulud album, and when they play live they play old songs and its kind of like
their covering the old songs. I
think Matt is a good musician and guitar player and has a lot to offer, so as
long as he's writing music whether it be Shai Hulud or whatever, that's cool with me.

Now back to NFG.
Obviously you guys have been on a major label for a while now but I
don't think anyone would accuse you guys of changing anything between the time
when you were on Drive Thru and you signed to MCA. It wasn't really a formal
thing, right? That just kind of happened gradually?

Yeah, that’s a cool thing about our whole band and how we're
still able to be the same band do and the same things as we've always done.
We've always been in charge of our careers and are to this day whether it be
the album packaging or whatever, we run everything, we do everything. Now we're
not paying for it, which is like, a good thing. Now instead of us paying for
it, we organize it and come up with the ideas and then the label sets it all
up, which is awesome.

We went on tour ourselves we paid for our first EP and Nothing
Gold Can Stay. We paid for those recordings
ourselves, we saved up money by working at the movie theater or our local jobs
or whatever we did and we went on tour and just booked our own shows. Because I
was in Shai Hulud, I would call up these promoters who I
met through Shai Hulud and be like "hey this is my new band, can you get us on
the show you have" and they'd be like "sure". So we kind of set up our own
tours and got our own fan base by touring. Then Drive-Thru came to the table
and said "Hey we like what you’re doing". It was almost like "we want to take
what you’re doing and bring it to California". At that time we'd only been
through the east coast and built this whole thing.

So Drive-Thru signed us and we
just kept touring and touring. And then Drive-Thru had a deal with MCA, and
while we were touring MCA came to see us play and saw all these kids singing
along and were like "What the heck? Who is this band? They have their crap
together. Kids are singing along, they’re selling records, they have good
songs, what is this band?" So we became friends with MCA and then they picked
us up.

When MCA folded and we got moved to Geffen and it’s just the
same thing. Even our new album we co-produced, we write our songs a hundred
million trillion percent. You know we're one hundred percent involved in
everything from our songs to everything. We co-produced our album because our
label loves what we do so much. They loved our new album; our songs worked so
much they were like "we don't want to give this to other people to take charge
of this cause they’re going to mess up what you guys did". So that’s when Tom
Panunzio was like "I want to help you guys put it together" as
opposed to doing things different, you know?

So it's a really cool thing to be
able to be a band on a major label and to still make all the decisions. The
creative decisions of course. Now marketing? I couldn't tell you how to market
a CD or all that label stuff, that’s what labels are for. But as far as
creating and everything you see as NFG has always been the same. Because of our
fans being so loyal too, the label never ever tried to question us or to try to
change anything about our band. Because you hear horror stories all the time,
I’ve heard horror stories about labels and bands and I can't even imagine that.

It’s interesting that you have outlasted so many of the
bands who came up around the same time. I remember seeing you playing with
Midtown; you had a tour with Blink-182 pretty early on, and of those bands none
of them have actually survived.
How and why do you guys stay together?

I think the reason why NFG is still a band is- well there
are a couple reasons. I think the main reason is because we love what we do and
there’s not one band argument, there’s not one thing in this world that can
make us want to do anything else besides play music. There’s not one band fight
or situation that could make us be like "yeah you’re right. I don't want to
tour and play guitar anymore because you know, I don't like you anymore". That
could never ever happen to us. We love what we do so much and we've never
forgotten where we come from. We were kids that wanted to play music in a
garage that went from the garage to the local bar to the local club to touring
across the country to doing whatever we're doing now, its all in one span. It’s
like we're still on that same path that we started from when we were playing in
a garage and that is just we want to play our music and go on tour, its as
simple as that and if we can be successful while we're doing it then so be it.

But regardless if its 100 kids at our show or 10,000 we're still gonna do it.
So I think the fact that we never forgot where we come from and we honestly do
it because we love it and not because it’s a career and a way to make money,
and I think that’s why we do it.
And also to be honest, that’s the main reason, no problem is too big to
jeopardize what we love to do. And
another thing is that I think our band has never worried about what people say
from every album because we have NFG fans that are like "S/T is my favorite
album, I hate this new record". But you know, then there are people who are
like "this is my favorite and S/T I hate". We have all these people who like
different things and different aspects of NFG and then there’s people who have
never even liked NFG and try to say whatever they say, but the truth of the
matter is that we don’t care; I mean we care what our fans think 100 million
percent because we love our fans. But as far as people who hate on us- we’ve
never cared about what’s trendy. I think that’s the big deal about why we're
still around we don't care about what is popular.

Our new album, if people say
its different or whatever they want to say its like if we wanted to be a bigger
band we would wear all black and have eyeliner be dark and scream in parts of
our songs, you know like every other band there is. And that’s totally cool if
that’s what those bands want to do but that is what’s popular now, you know and
we are not concerned about what’s popular now. We are concerned about writing
songs from our heart and being NFG, not the main stream and what cool is now,
you know?

We're fans of music. We're not trying to be big rock saviors of music-

And being a band for nine years I've seen music change. When
we first started it was a different kind of popular music and two years later
there’s another kind of popular music and then two years later there’s another
popular music and we've never tried to fit in and be a part of the trend. It
was more like, we are NFG and we'll always be NFG whoever comes and goes
whoever comes and stays its cool, but we will always write music that is NFG.
You know, we were a punk band but we weren’t NOFX, we were a punk band but we
weren’t Anti-Flag, we were a punk band and we weren’t Blink-182, I mean we are
a punk band, whatever you want to call us is what I’m trying to say. We don’t
fit into one thing, we kind of have our place, and that’s why I think we’ll
always be a band, because we’re not driven by a trend.

Now you obviously participated with that Hazen Street project,
do you think that was a good way to get out some of your harder song writing
ideas?

Actually not really, cause the songs aren’t really hard,
that album isn’t really a heavy album, I would say it was more of an album of
the Madball guys and H2O guys and Cho-Mag being able to step out of their
element, Me, I loved it cause I just love writing songs, and the songs are
still kind of on the poppier-side, still kind of catchy poppy stuff, so for me
it wasn’t even so much stepping out of my element as it was just a cool time,
it was cool to play music and hear other people sing, it was different. It was
just kind of a cool little neat thing and it was cool to get to play with one
of my favorite bands, like Madball has always been one of my favorite bands, H20-
Toby the singer is one of my best friends. So it’s kind of cool to be in a band
with my best friend, and these guys that I grew close with who play in Madball
and Dave Kennedy is now in Angels and Airwaves. So it was just a really cool
project to be a part of, cause why wouldn’t you want to write music with these
bands?

So here is my last question: Any theories on why Jordan
can sign so high? He’s been signing at that pitch forever, most guys lose their
voice after a couple of years, and that guy maintains that pitch

I don’t know man; I think he’s no longer Jordan singing like
Jordan, he’s Jordan impersonating Jordan. Naw, I'm just kidding, no I don’t
know, it baffles my mind, and you know what’s weird he sounds high but
sometimes he’s not even hitting high notes and he still sounds like he signing
high, it’s a really weird thing. Besides Ian kicking him in the balls
repeatedly before every take, I would say I don’t know.