New Found Glory

As their single "Hit or Miss" continues its assault at radio, and the band — Klein, singer Jordan Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka, drummer Cyrus Bolooki, and guitarist Chad Gilbert — prepares for its summer dates on the Vans Warped Tour and opening for Blink, Joe D'Angelo chatted with the guys about girls, guitars and their debt to Celine Dion.

MTV: What's Coral Springs [Florida] like?

Jordan Pundik: It's very suburban, very small townish ... everybody knows everybody. Me and him [Klein] met at the local high school and started the band. We were pretty much the band from Coral Springs, and now everybody from Coral Springs knows who we are because we did this benefit show and we raised over $10,000 [for a Down syndrome organization]. [It was] the most money ever raised in Coral Springs history. We got a plaque [from] the mayor and stuff like that.

Steve Klein: We used to be dorks in high school and no one used to know who we are and now everywhere we go, we don't have to pay for anything anymore. Kids know who we are, and they're like, "Cool, I love your band. You affected my life, man. You guys live in my hometown!"

"Hit Or Miss" [RealVideo]

MTV: When did you notice [things change]?

Klein: I think once we started getting play on the radio, people started to pay attention to us more. No one really realized what's [been] going on outside of Florida. Like, that we've been touring and we have the national following now, you know? Everybody in the band has noticed that so many bands are starting up now in our hometown that sound like us. People know where Ian lives now because his address is in the CD. Ian will come home and there will be demos waiting for him. Kids' dads that are in bands come over to our house and invite us over to their shows. When we played that benefit show, so many kids came up to us and said, "We're starting a band and our biggest influence is you guys." It's a good feeling, you know?

MTV: What do you tell the kids?

Klein: Work hard, write really, really good songs. Then, after you have that down, that's when you start to expand, you start to tour. When we first started out [we gave] everything out for free. Give all your shirts out for free, every band that comes to town, give them your demo, because that's the only way you're gonna get your name out. That's how we got our first couple [of] tours, with MxPx. We came to the show, gave them shirts, gave them demos, they called us a couple weeks later [and said], "Hey, you guys wanna open up for us in Florida?"

"My Heart Will Go On" [RealAudio]

MTV: Tell me about your single, "Hit or Miss." Wasn't MTV playing the old video [from the band's 1998 debut LP Nothing Gold Can Stay] by accident instead of the new one?

Klein: It's about after I broke up with my girlfriend, remembering the things that I didn't like about her and trying to [decide] if it was the right thing to do to break up with her.

Chad Gilbert: I'm actually glad they did that [played the old video] because a lot of kids didn't see the old one. We had two different videos played on MTV2 for the same song.

Cyrus Bolooki: Our fans are really touchy on the MTV subject. [They're thinking] that we're going to sell out. But when they got to see our earlier video from our first release, they thought it was pretty cool.

MTV: After Nothing Gold Can Stay, you did an EP of covers [1999's From the Screen to Your Stereo].

Pundik: We were touring off [Nothing Gold Can Stay], and we wanted to put something new out. We really didn't have enough new songs written, so we just said, "Why don't we do a cover song CD?" But we wanted to ... take songs that were from different movies that we all grew up watching.

Klein: We started off by playing the "Titanic" song [Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On"]. So, we'd be like, "This is pretty cool, the kids who don't know who we are can actually come and have fun and sing at a lot of our shows." So all of us picked one song to do. Ian picked the "The Goonies ['R' Good Enough"] by Cyndi Lauper. Cyrus picked "The Glory of Love" [by former Chicago singer Peter Cetera] and Chad picked "The Neverending Story" theme song [by former Kajagoogoo singer Limahl].

MTV: Do you write all the lyrics from personal experiences?

Klein: All our CDs basically have a story [behind them]. Nothing Gold Can Stay is about my ex-girlfriend, who I went out with for two years. This new CD [New Found Glory] is about this new girl that I was going out with for about a year-and-a-half. Basically, "Sucker" is letting the girl from Nothing Gold Can Stay know that none of the songs on this record are about her.

Everything is a true story. I write exactly how I feel. I don't like bands that try to just use different words to explain how they feel. I am just gonna be straight up, and I think that is what our fans like about us. It's easy to relate to, it's easy to listen to.

MTV: How do you deal with the comparisons to Blink-182?

Klein: I think that people would say that record labels right now are [signing] other bands because Blink-182 is huge. That if they write a pop song, a pop-punk song, that they're gonna be huge as well. And that's not the case, because there's so many bands that are coming out that are sounding like Blink that aren't doing well.

If you're going to compare New Found Glory to Blink, I think that's amazing, because Blink-182 and Green Day and these bands are my idols. These are the bands that I listened to growing up. I learned how to play guitar by playing Green Day songs. I think that Green Day and Blink open the door for bands like us. Blink sold 4 million records, and those 4 million people are ... going to hear our song and be like, "Whoa, this is pretty cool!"