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New Found Glory packs a 1-2 punch with new album, tour
Pop-punk champs New Found Glory will return to the club/theater circuit this spring backed by a new label and a new album.
The Sunshine State-based band has an engagement at University of North Florida's Nest Fest Jan. 31 before heading to Australia and Japan in February and March. A March 25 kickoff is set for the spring tour, which rolls out of Tempe, AZ, and hits nearly 40 cities across the US, as well as Toronto, through mid-May. Along the way, the quintet will stop for the May 1-2 Hoodwink and Bamboozle festival gigs in East Rutherford, NJ. North American shows are listed below and those overseas can be found at NFG's MySpace page.
The group, which has been operating independently since parting ways with the Universal Records family in the spring of 2007, signed with famed punk label Epitaph Records last fall. Choosing a new label was a scary thing for the band, according to lead guitarist Chad Gilbert.
"The music industry has been changing so much and more and more bands are being treated and presented like some Wal-Mart pop act with guitars," he explained in a press release. "We have real diehard fans and we wanted to find a home that would represent NFG the right way--a label that knew our music scene. Epitaph is the place to be! They were all longtime, true fans of New Found Glory and they understand us."
New Found Glory's seventh studio album and Epitaph debut, "Not Without A Fight," is due March 10. The set was produced by Blink-182's Mark Hoppus.
"He's an old friend of ours," Gilbert said of Hoppus. "We had no money to make the record so we wanted someone with the confidence to do the album for free and get reimbursed later."
The forthcoming set's lead single, "Listen To Your Friends," is currently available at iTunes and is streaming at NFG's MySpace page.
In between recording contracts, New Found Glory hooked up with Boston hardcore-punk label Bridge Nine Records to release a set that includes two discs: NFG's "Tip of the Iceberg" EP and "Takin' It Ova!," the debut full-length album from the band's alter-ego, International Superheroes of Hardcore. The hardcore group features all the members the NFG, with Jordan Pudnik and Gilbert swapping vocal and guitar duties.
