New Found Glory tour ready for a ‘Fight’ this spring

Hot off a new deal with Epitaph Records, pop-punk trailblazers New Found Glory (NFG) have announced a new album and North American tour for the spring. The 37-date trek will open with a March 25 concert at The Marquee in Tempe, AZ, and circle back through the state for a closing show on May 10 at the Rialto Theatre in Tuscon, AZ.

The tour circuit will stop for shows on April 1 at Showbox at The Market in Seattle, WA, on April 8 at Warehouse Live in Houston, TX, on April 25 at the House of Blues in Chicago, IL, and on May 6 at The Pageant in St. Louis, MO. Only one show in Canada has been announced so far: an April 28 gig at Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto, ON.

NFG will be promoting the March 10 release of the band’s seventh studio album, “Not Without a Fight.” The disc was produced by musician Mark Hoppus at the studio he co-owns with former Blink 182 bandmate Travis Barker.

Since NFG hadn’t signed to a label since departing Geffen Records at the end of their contract in 2006, the band didn’t have the capital to pay Hoppus for his efforts up front. But as an old friend of the band’s, that wasn’t a problem for Hoppus, according to a statement from NFG’s guitarist Chad Gilbert. However, the recording process did make the band realize that they would eventually need to shop around for a label.

“Picking a new label was a scary thing for New Found Glory,” explained Gilbert in a statement on the band’s Web site. “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. 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.”

NFG found what they were looking for at Epitaph, but the deal also helped add an established name to the label’s line-up of niche acts and more recent breakthroughs. In a September 2008 statement announcing the new deal, the label’s owner and founder Brett Gurewitz stated, “Everybody here is over the moon about working with the greatest pop-punk band in history.”

While Gilbert humbly shrugged off the distinction as the “greated pop-punk band in history,” he noted that the band has been able to return to its roots with the new record deal: “New Found Glory is back to where we want it to be: we tour, we play music and it’s from the heart.”

New Found Glory itinerary:
(Dates are subject to change.)