New Found Glory Is Still Leveling Up Ahead of Denver Show

It’s official: New Found Glory is a Disney band. That’s not a slight to the easycore legends, but a fact, as the Florida quartet covered “Part of Your World,” originally from 1989’s The Little Mermaid.

Last year’s Mickey Mouse compilation, A Whole New Sound, features renditions from pop-punk peers Yellowcard, Simple Plan and Mayday Parade, among others. A worlds-collide crossover for elder emos and Disney adults.

New Found Glory is also part of the 2025 EPCOT Eat to the Beat concert series on Sunday, October 5, and Monday, October 6. Original vocalist Jordan Pundik explains the plan is to play three thirty-minute sets each day.

“It should be fun,” he says with a laugh, adding that similar groups such as Sum 41 have made such appearances.

When Westword catches up with him, Pundik is in Albuquerque, where he’s enjoying the high-dessert weather before jumping on stage later that evening. Prior to heading to Orlando next month, New Found Glory is currently opening for the Offspring during the SUPERCHARGED: Worldwide, along with Jimmy Eat World.

“But it doesn’t feel like we’re the first band on the tour. We have a lot of people in the amphitheater when we’re playing,” he says, adding that it’s fun to warm up the crowd with a lean setlist of seven songs. “It’s low stress, low responsibility.”
The Denver date — Sunday, September 7, at Ball Arena — is the last show of the run. And after the Disney appearance, New Found Glory is headlining across the UK before wrapping up the year with a few festival slots in Australia.

The group has some new original material to share, too. See, nearly thirty years in, Pundik, bassist Ian Grushka, guitarist Chad Gilbert and drummer Cyrus Bolooki — all original members — are still pumped to write music together. That’s evident on latest single, “100%,” released earlier this year via the band’s latest label Pure Noise Records.

“We put it out as a little, ‘Here’s what’s to come,’” Pundik shares.

That means New Found Glory is going to release its thirteenth studio album sometime next year, and while it’ll have that signature sound fans come to expect and love, there’s a “darker, rock edge to it,” he continues.

“We’ll put out a few songs before then,” Pundik says. “In my opinion, there’s better songs on the record that we’ll be putting out. But the single is a fun reminder of what we are and what we do, and I think the songs that are coming are a little more advanced. There’s a lot of cool, fun, elements I think our fans are going to love.”

New Found Glory needs no introduction at this point. After “Catalyst” caught fire in 2004, the bandmates became alt-rock lifers; they can still whip up a pit. But what keeps the four friends going is continuing to be there for one another, something that hasn’t changed since they all got together as teenagers in high school.

“We know the ins and outs of each other’s personalities, and what we’re going through individually in each other’s lives,” Pundik explains. “We talk about it so that is the main key to staying relevant and evolving, making sure we’re talking about real life things that are happening.”

He quips that some things have changed since those early days in Florida.

“We’re all in our late 30s, early 40s so we can’t just keep singing about our friends,” Pundik says. “But we don’t feel like we’ve been a band for 25-plus years. It always feels new for us.”

But always defiant of the pop-punk tag the press threw on ’em initially, NFG is keen to keeping it fresh and a little familiar.

“We try to not make every record sound the same,” he adds. “We have our thing, we want people to sing along and have the gang vocals. But that’s always the challenge, how do we evolve and get better but also give our fans what they want?”

Tapping into the mouse-eared market is one way.

“We always try to be approachable. We don’t hold ourselves up to this pedestal,” Pundik concludes. “We’re not these jaded old guys. I think people can relate to that.”

New Found Glory, with the Offspring and Jimmy Eat World, 6 p.m. Sunday, September 7, Ball Arena, 1000 Chopper Circle. Tickets are $40-$200.