In the Studio with pop-punks New Found Glory

Band Members: Jordan Pundik, lead vocals; Ian Grushka, bass; Chad Gilbert, lead guitar backing vocals; Cyrus Bolooki, drums.

From their early days strumming their way through South Florida’s underground house shows and small band-in-a-van clubs, New Found Glory crafted a high-velocity style of melodic punk that transcended the DIY circuit and crossed into music’s cultural center. Over decades together, the band has thrived by trusting instinct over expectation — allowing their sound to grow while remaining unmistakably their own, always moving forward without freezing in time.

In recent years, New Found Glory’s creative process shifted into more exposed registers — revisiting familiar material in stripped-down formats and exploring new acoustic arrangements while navigating life-altering adversity, most notably guitarist Chad Gilbert’s health. That period steadily refined the band’s intuitive musical language and reinforced the collaborative camaraderie that has long held them together.

With renewed clarity and a desire to draw upon their current experiences through themes that could resonate “with anyone and everyone,” New Found Glory moved into a new phase of demoing and recording. That return was met with a familiar set of artistic pressures and practical uncertainties: coordinating schedules, writing in fragmented stretches of time, and navigating the emotional weight of intense, personal circumstances. 

Rather than allowing these variables to overwhelm the process, the band narrowed its focus and relied on instinct when writing and recording their 2026 release, Listen Up!. As drummer and studio stalwart Cyrus Bolooki recalls, what could have felt paralyzing instead became clarifying. “It helped us with some decisions—to stick to our gut and not overthink things. When in doubt, we would always just ask ourselves, “What would NFG do?”

The Production:
That internal instinct quickly translated into action. Even before the band had fully mapped out their musical future, it pulled them back to a track recorded almost by happenstance a year earlier. As Bolooki explains, “We wrote ‘100%’ almost a year before the rest of the material while working on a cover. When we went to write and subsequently record the rest of the tracks, we were able to lean into that experience.” The song became a inspirational touchstone—a reference point that helped maintain continuity when creative walls appeared.

As the sessions gathered momentum, aligning schedules became a major challenge—particularly given the band members’ existing commitments alongside Gilbert’s health and cancer diagnosis, which limited travel and availability. Determined to involve everyone, New Found Glory drew on decades of friendship, experimenting instinctively with new approaches.  They occasionally flipped their usual musical roles rather than adhering to a more traditional cut-and-paste recording timeline.

As Bolooki explains, “The writing process for this album was a bit different.” He recalls traveling with bassist Ian Grushka to Gilbert’s home in Nashville, where the three spent a week working out of an upstairs loft filled with instruments. “Each day, we’d start with a rough guitar idea, and just jam. I played guitar during that time until we had a general outline of a song. Only then would I move to the drum set and set down a very rough live demo so we had something to reference.”

Bolooki’s interim guitar approach was shaped in part by how much of Gilbert’s songwriting arrived in fragmented form. “Most of Chad’s ideas came from various voice memos on his phone, recorded at random times with different tunings or timings, and at times without any clear relationship between one another.”  To assemble those pieces, Bolooki focused on building bridges between riffs — changing keys, creating transitions, and, as he puts it, adding “a little extra love” to help complete each song.

Lyrically, the band also had to adapt when vocalist Jordan Pundik was away for part of the process. Committed to keeping him fully involved, New Found Glory embraced musical collaboration and improvisation, subtly reshaping their combined  workflow in a meaningful way. Following a suggestion from Grushka, Gilbert began referencing Pundik’s songwriting journal, filled with random thoughts, lyrical ideas, and melodic notations. “We used the journal to help create lyrics along with melodies for some of the songs,” Bolooki explains, “allowing Jordan to be a part of the process even when he was thousands of miles away.”

That same collaborative spirit carried into the studio, where the band enlisted longtime collaborators who have helped shape their sound over the years. “I think the most important key to our sound, especially on Listen Up!, is the team.” Bolooki says, “Starting with Steve Evetts producing —he really knows how to bring out the best of each of us, and can gently edit things if needed without stripping the character out of the take.”

Neal Avron—whose work helped define the exemplar pop-punk sound —also joined the project as a mixer. “Once we knew Neal was on board, we felt we could do anything we wanted.”  Bolooki adds, “He could deliver a mix that not only sounded like NFG, but could compete with anything else out there.” 

Together, the New Found Glory team gave the band the flexibility to experiment when needed, take extra time where it mattered, and move efficiently through the process without losing artistic momentum. By following their instincts, improvising, and expanding beyond their standard roles, the band solidified the mutual respect and understanding among them, which continues to fuel their creative fire, channeling pressure into forward motion. As Bolooki concludes, “That energy runs through every track. From heavier, fast-paced songs to bouncier, more melodic ones, and lyrics that capture the full spectrum of experience — heaviness and lightness—it’s a complete reflection of everything the band has been through recently. And I think we’ve done a great job at that.”

Photo by ANGELEA