“A good friend who appreciated skate-punk music gave me a cassette of their demo. It was again once they had been known as A New Found Glory,” Bolooki tells New Times. “I liked the songs, and I went trying to find them. I met them at a home get together. Soon after, their first drummer left, and I joined within the fall of 1997.”
Bolooki grew up in Hollywood, whereas a lot of the band known as Coral Springs house. He remembers the late ’90s in South Florida fondly.
“There was a flourishing punk and hardcore scene,” he says. “We had been lucky to be round so many up-and-coming bands, from Poison the Well to Dashboard Confessional. You may have 5 bands enjoying collectively on a Saturday night time, and every one would sound completely different.”
In a surprisingly brief time, New Found Glory discovered nationwide success. The band signed its first report take care of Eulogy Recordings whereas most members had been youngsters. By 2000, New Found Glory’s self-titled sophomore album and major-label debut launched on MCA gave the band its first look on the Billboard charts and joined the Warped Tour. According to Bolooki, he and the remainder of the band needed to pinch themselves numerous occasions to make sure they had been dwelling the rock-star dream.
“I may title a thousand occasions the place we had been like, that is insane,” he says. “We all the time had large targets to be like Green Day and play for 100,000 folks, however we additionally made certain to have small targets. First, we had been like, let’s put out a launch that we are able to promote at exhibits. Then we’re like, let’s play regional exhibits exterior South Florida. Then we had been like, let’s play out of state. So in highschool and school, we would drive all the best way to the Northeast to play a present after which be again in school on Monday.”
Despite the band’s success, the members of New Found Glory by no means forgot the place they got here from. In 2018, when singer Jordan Pundik’s alma mater Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was within the information for the tragic college taking pictures, the band did what it may to assist placed on a profit present at Pompano Amphitheatre.
“We felt it was a necessity to play,” Bolooki provides. “The second that occurred, we had the concept to do what we may to boost cash for the victims. It was an emotional night time. We had been in a position to elevate six figures for a sufferer fund, and we may give again to the group that nurtured us.”
Things have not gotten a lot lighter on the band’s newest launch, the all-acoustic Make the Most of It. The report was impressed by guitarist Chad Gilbert’s battle with a uncommon type of most cancers. “Chad wished to doc his journey. All the lyrics replicate his battle with the illness,” Bolooki explains. “Usually, as a drummer, I solely deal with the music and do not actually take into consideration the lyrics. This time I learn the lyrics, and I may really feel what he was going via. It’s actually deep but in addition upbeat and hopeful.”
With New Found Glory’s eleventh album additionally being its first unplugged report, the band determined that its present tour, which hits the Miami Beach Bandshell on Thursday, March 23, would function the primary acoustic set of exhibits as effectively.
“This is a really distinctive New Found Glory present. These are renditions of songs performed the best way you’ve got by no means heard them,” Bolooki teases. And since many songs do not name for drums, Bolooki was completely happy to take turns shredding on guitar and enjoying the keyboard.
While the band is optimistic Gilbert might be effectively sufficient to play the homecoming present, it is nonetheless as much as the medical professionals.
“Chad’s nonetheless preventing his battle. He pops out and in of this tour whereas on chemo. It’s a day-by-day factor the place medical doctors must weigh in,” Bolooki explains.
Regardless of whether or not Gilbert is there in particular person or spirit, the night time will function a celebration for a neighborhood band made good. “People all the time yell that once we play down right here [that] we play Fort Lauderdale as an alternative of Miami,” Bolooki says. “This is an evening for Miami to return on out.”
New Found Glory. With Leanna Firestone. 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 786-453-2897; miamibeachbandshell.com. Tickets value $52.45 to $102.72 by way of cube.fm.