Pop-punk band member admits ‘I won’t be able to tour normally ever again’

A pop-punk band has a brand-new album out with “classic riffs,” but things are different this time around.

New Found Glory guitarist-vocalist Chad Gilbert revealed in a new interview that his hand stopped working on Feb. 20, the same day the group was playing an album release party for their 12th LP “Listen Up!” Gilbert threw up before the concert and had his bandmates carry him to a chair, where he performed from on stage in Nashville.

Gilbert told Rolling Stone that he “fell forward on the ground” after the show and started losing control of the left side of his body. He ended up in an emergency room where doctors found three brain tumors; one was the size of walnut and causing him to lose movement.

He underwent surgery and spent a month in the hospital. He told the magazine that he underwent 10 rounds of radiation and hallucinated, at one point trying to order Okinawaki because he thought he was in Japan.

Gilbert, 45, was previously diagnosed with a rare adrenal cancer known as Metastatic Pheochromocytoma in 2021. He had told fans about his journey through chemotherapy and other cancer treatments, but never had trouble moving his body or playing guitar. He’s now on a treatment plan that includes a diabetes-specific drug of which he is the first patient to use for ACC treatment.

“I feel very, very lucky that I could sit here,” Gilbert told Rolling Stone during a Zoom interview. “My hope is to really get my energy and strength back. I don’t want to lay in bed all day. I want to be able to get up and do my thing.”

New Found Glory is scheduled to return to touring in May, including a June 11 concert with Yellowcard and Plain White T’s at the Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage in New York City. Tickets are currently available via Ticketmaster, Vivid Seats and StubHub.

Gilbert told Rolling Stone that he won’t be able to appear at all tour dates.

“I won’t be able to tour normally ever again,” Gilbert admitted to the publication. “But I will be able to play shows that are close by.”

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However, he’s still very much the main writer for NFG songs, even when he was in the hospital. New songs on the “Listen Up!” album like “100%” and “You Got This” are inspired by his own experiences.

“Those tough experiences, as hard as they are, have always been a place for me to inspire our fans,” he told Rolling Stone. “I have my crying moments where like everyone, I have to let it out,” he says. “But I like that we can turn it around into something positive… It’s always been just to inspire and grow a community of people that want to go to our shows and smile and have a good time.”

New Found Glory is a pop-punk/alternative rock band that formed in Florida in 1997. NFG rose to fame in the Warped Tour/“TRL” era of music with early 2000s hits like “My Friends Over You,” “All Downhill From Here” and “Hit or Miss,” and remained popular with songs like 2014’s “Vicious Love” (feat. Paramore’s Hayley Williams) and high-energy covers of movie soundtrack classics like “Kiss Me,” “Iris,” and “King of Wishful Thinking.”

The group, which also features singer Jordan Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka, and drummer Cyrus Bolooki, last played a Syracuse concert at the Empower FCU Amphitheater at Lakeview with The Offspring and Jimmy Eat World in July.