Exclusive Interview: Jordan Pundik and Cyrus Bolooki of New Found Glory Talk 'From The Screen To You

New Found Glory need no introduction, after over twenty years on the scene, the quartet have recently released the third instalment of their From The Screen To Your Stereo series. We caught up with vocalist Jordan Pundik and drummer Cyrus Bolooki at Slam Dunk South to discuss their new release, when UK fans can hope to see them live again and even the bands they’re loving at the moment.

Hi guys, we’re here in not so sunny Hatfield. Are you looking forward to the show today?

Cyrus: It’s going to be awesome. I know that. Yesterday was great as well. This festival is amazing, the line up insane and there are so many people here. It’s so much bigger from when it first started. We always look forward to Slam Dunk.

Jordan: Did we play the first Slam Dunk?

Cyrus: Not the first one but we played like a venue that was long. We played one of the first years of Slam Dunk. It’s like in its fourteenth year now.

How did you find Leeds yesterday which was in a new place with a new vibe?

Cyrus: Now I could be wrong about this but one of our friends stopped me and said technically yesterday was not a new place for us because I think that site was where the Leeds Festival used to be and I believe we might have played the Leeds Festival. We might have played the Leeds Festival way back in the day at that actual site, so it was nice to be back.

You recently released your new album; From The Screen To Your Stereo 3, how have you found the response to it so far?

Cyrus: The response has been really awesome. There are people that have were saying they’re fans of us and my like kids are listening to your band now and it’s awesome and we can bond over that now so it’s really cool.

It’s a really fun and quite different concept to do, how did you come up with the idea?

Jordan: It kind of just started when we first were playing shows locally back home and the Titanic song was a really big song and we were like ‘what can we do to get kids into our shows?’ so they’d at least know some songs. So we decided to cover that song as a joke and it got really popular and from there on we just said we’d do some more covers.

Cyrus: I think it’s fun too because we’ve kind of picked songs from all over the time period as we have some older movies like Rocky and things like that but obviously we have newer ones like Frozen so it’s a nice mix of all that. I think it gives something for everybody and most importantly as Jordan said when we did the Titanic theme and even now with covers we always try to make them our own, it’s like what would we have done if we’d had written that song. Would we have played it this way or slow or faster or whatever, that’s where we kind of get the ideas for this.

Do you have a favourite cover you’ve done so far?

Jordan: Favourite cover? I think I really enjoyed erm

Cyrus: Say Let It Go because you’ve got to sing that high or Eye Of The Tiger

Jordan: I really like how Accidentally In Love turned out. It was a hard song to get right in the studio but I was really happy with the outcome of it.

Cyrus: For me, it’s Eye Of The Tiger, I know it’s much to his dismay as he has to sing very high on it. We were on tour in the US and that’s when we came up with the idea of doing that song on a cover record. We’d never done it before but we’d decided to go ahead and rearrange that song and play it on tour, that was even before we’d recorded it. We spent a whole time playing Eye Of The Tiger before we had even recorded it, it was kind of fun having an entire month playing it to see the reaction. To this day I think that’s my favourite cover of these releases.

You mentioned the word touring, but when can we expect a UK return?

Cyrus: It’s been a while. We do have some stuff in the US planned and we’re actually already contemplating and starting to work on another full length so we’ve got to get that past us first. The UK has a very special place in our hearts, we do very well over here and people have been great to us since the very beginning of our careers so there’s no reason we wouldn’t be back here.

Any chance of a hint at when this could?

Cyrus: I’d say next year because of in between all the US touring we have we’ll most likely get in the studio to do another record I don’t think we’ll have time to come back to the UK. Or whenever you guys ask us to come back!

You’ve been around for over twenty years and seen the scene change completely, but what’s been the most noticeable change for you guys?

Cyrus: I think the number of bands. It’s going to happen with anything that gets popular, there are so many bands and it’s kind of blurred the genres in a sense. You have your Punk In Drublic stage where we grew up listening to a lot of bands like that, but now you look at every stage and see offshoots of what punk-rock was. But it’s also become so mainstream which is good and bad, when it becomes so popular you have so many bands and a lot of them are not good, they’re just bands because you can be a band now. It’s gotten huge, you have a lot of people who enjoy this music or at least have access to it, you can get it a lot easier on Spotify and stuff like that, a good and bad thing.

Are there any bands; up and coming or bigger who you’re loving at the moment?

Cyrus: I think Seaway’s really good. Again a lot of this is from Spotify so I don’t necessarily listen to full albums but you hear singles. With Confidence have some good songs. A lot of the bands we toured with like Roam and Trophy Eyes.

Jordan: I’m really liking the new Angel Du$t record. Known some of those guys for a long time from like older bands they were in.

Cyrus: Basement just put out a new song and that’s awesome. It’s great, it’s really hard to keep up with new music as there are so many bands. There are a lot of little gems in there.

Jordan: There is another band I like listening to, they’re not at the festival but they’re called Teenage Wrist they’re really cool. They have a couple of records out right now but they’re not like old but they’re not like new within the last year kind of thing. The singer had a pop-electronic thing called The Chain Gang Of 1974, they’ve got millions of views on YouTube and stuff then they started this rock band. It’s really cool.

We’ll definitely give them a listen, thanks for the suggestion! This could be a tricky one for you but from your back catalogue what’s your favourite or most relatable lyric?

Cyrus: Well that’s going to be difficult for me because I’m not a lyric guy at all.

Jordan: Erm, what’s relatable? Probably ‘It’s all downhill from here’.

Cyrus: I don’t even know our lyrics, I’ll freely admit it.

Jordan has you covered! Who would you love to have play you in a movie?

Cyrus: I’d say Jeffrey Dean Morgan only because I feel like from The Walking Dead he looks like me or I look like him when I grow a beard.

Jordan: Deryck Whibley from Sum 41 or Morrissey. I’ll take Morrissey, Morrissey could play me in a movie.

What would be your festival anthem since we’re here at Slam Dunk today?

Jordan: I mean we played Let It Go yesterday.

Cyrus: It’s sad to admit but it’s true. I think a lot of people want to sing it and do without even realising that they are.

Jordan: Right before we started a guy gave me a look and gave me a thumbs down and he was probably singing the loudest out of everybody, that’s what usually ends up happening.

Last but not least, what’s on the cards for the rest of the year?

Cyrus: We go home tomorrow then two days later start our US tour. We don’t even really go home we go straight to rehearsals from the festival.

Jordan: More touring, more recording and it doesn’t end.

Cyrus: Asides from this cover album we surprisingly haven’t played many shows in the last eight or nine months and once this cycle starts again we’ll be busy for probably the next twelve to eighteen months and hopefully that includes a UK stop… or two!

New Found Glory are currently out on tour across the United States in support of their new album From The Screen To Your Stereo 3. For all details and ticket, links head here.

Check out our review of Slam Dunk South here.

What’s your favourite track New Found Glory have put their twist on? Tweet us @CelebMix and let us know!

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