On one hand, New Found Glory aren’t really learning anything while on tour with Green Day.
“We know all the songs in their set,” guitarist Steve Klein said. “There aren’t many bands where I know every single song from every single CD.”
But on the other hand, touring with three guys who are both your mentors and your favorite musicians does have its upside.
“Green Day are a band that all of us look up to for what they’ve done and what they stand for,” drummer Cyrus Bolooki said. “They are like the pioneers of our kind of music.”
New Found Glory have been on the road with Green Day for less than two weeks, and so far, things couldn’t be better. At first, the bandmembers admitted, they were nervous at the notion of touring with the 16-year veterans, but Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt quickly proved as affable in person as they were when they used to play small clubs in NFG’s home state of Florida.
“It’s definitely like a dream come true for us,” Klein said. “It’s something we’ve always wanted to do, and now that we’re on tour with them, it’s really cool to hang out. They’re really nice guys, and they make it a lot of fun to be on tour. Plus, their show is amazing.”
As “I Don’t Wanna Know,” the third single from Catalyst, is expected to surface on the radio next week, New Found Glory are preparing to stay on the road after the Green Day tour wraps up November 24 in San Francisco. Following a brief stint home for Thanksgiving, the band has a few radio-sponsored holiday shows on its itinerary and will eventually head overseas for a series of shows. Although the group expects to return to U.S. venues beginning in March, the specifics are still being sorted out.
“It’s all up in the air right now,” Bolooki explained. “We don’t want to rush anything. We want to give ourselves time to maybe play more than one night in each city or to go places where we haven’t gone yet.”
If a headlining tour is indeed in New Found Glory’s future, the band would have, in baseball terminology, “hit for the cycle” by playing outdoor festival shows, arenas and then clubs. And according to Klein, the best is yet to come.
“We [started off] on the Warped Tour, now we’re doing Green Day, and then when we do our headlining tour, it’s going to be fun because we can go back and play the clubs,” Klein said. “That’s where I think New Found Glory play their best shows.”
