A not-so-serious, deeper look at the not-so-serious or deep video for Hit Or Miss by New Found Glory
Pop-punk polarises. Particularly poppy pop-punk produces pissed punk purists; particularly punky pop-punk perplexes passionate pop patrons.
Right, fuck that. It’s always been a tricky genre, though, because it straddles two worlds that want different things. Done right, it theoretically pleases everyone. Done badly, it leaves everyone scratching their heads and wondering what the point was.
New Found Glory are the genre at its most, well, at its most. There are probably 90 wristbands and hooped socks in this video alone. Let’s dive in, shall we?
0.01
A sad clown. That’s not very upbeat.
0.04
It’s 7:31 or so, and it feels like you don’t see clocks with glow-in-the-dark hands anymore. Or alarm locks in general, in fact. This song came out in 1999, and as such predates all but the crappiest of mobile phones.
0.08
Lots of sleepy dudes. Probably in different rooms though, right?
0.14
No! They’re all bunked up together, slummin’ it, living an all-in-one-room life!
0.18
They slept through the alarm clock, but a feather hitting the carpet woke them all up in a blind panic! These New Found Glory guys play it by their own rules sleep wise!
0.28
The flyer says their gig is at 7, so… it’s 7:31 in the evening? That’s actually amazing. Well done for sleeping that late, dudes.
0.29
This guy, presumably affiliated with the band in some way, is checking his watch angrily, but people are still showing up half an hour after the band wasn’t just meant to be on, they were meant to be on sharp. It’s clearly a scene that doesn’t respect timekeeping.
0.32
This is Ian Grushka, bassist. Grushka dove head-first into the 'comedy party bassist' role for many years, and did an excellent job of it. Lots of wacky hair colours, wacky shirts and general wacky behaviour. He is now a proud father of three sporting various ever-changing and impressive beards.
0.34
Here’s lead singer Jordan Pundik, who looks like Quentin Tarantino. Like, he doesn’t, but at the same time, he absolutely does – you know? He once revealed in an interview that, while touring in Japan, he had been presented with DVDs of Tarantino’s films and signed them to be polite. Pundik also moonlights as a tattoo artist, and has a coffee shop and roastery in San Diego.
0.36
As well as still being in New Found Glory, drummer Cyrus Bolooki is also a real estate broker, selling houses in Florida. He was a guitarist before becoming a drummer, and when he auditioned to join the band, he had never played their songs on actual drums before, having practiced on pillows to avoid annoying his parents. His brother, Andrew 'VOXGOD' Bolooki, is also in the music industry, and worked on that Old Town Road song by Lil Nas X that’s been everywhere this year.
0.47
Guitarist Chad Gilbert was in hardcore band Shai Hulud before New Found Glory, as well as briefly being in punk-rap sueprgroup Hazen Street. He releases solo material under the name What’s Eating Gilbert. He’s also produced albums by H2O, Trapped Under Ice and Lisa Loeb.
0.51
As of a few months ago, Pundik no longer sports these exquisitely-gelled pop-punk spikes – he’s shaved his head now, occasionally a risky move for a man of 40, as there’s no guarantee the hair will grow back. This bit’s a little strange, though, as what is it saying? Is it meant to be self-deprecating, saying he’s vain? Like if the joke is, 'Yes, I am very good-looking, but I’m aware of how good-looking I am so it doesn’t really count' then that’s odd.
1.05
Credit where it’s due, this guy does a very good job as a greasy-ass sleazeball manager.
1.18
This song is known both as Hit Or Miss and Waited Too Long, as this hook is the bit that gets stuck in most people’s heads. Sticking with the idea of things being known by different names, the band was originally known as A New Found Glory, but there were concerns that fans wouldn’t know whether to look under A or N for their records.
1.34
See, phones were ridiculous back then.
1.46
What must have kind of sucked on set is that, when everyone was given their gimmick for the video, some were a lot better than others. 'Right Chad, you’re the ladies’ man, irresistible to this maid who can’t wait to tear your clothes off. Jordan, you’re the face, we’ll do a bunch of mirror stuff, cute posing and stuff. Cyrus, you’re a drummer: no idea, fix a tyre or something? Ian… you are on the larger side, you’re going to have a candy machine fall on your head.'
1.51
This is guitarist and lyricist Steve Klein, who left the band in 2013 for extremely unpleasant reasons that don’t need to be gone into here. The band continue as a four-piece.
1.52
They don’t even have the excuse of being drunk for being late – not all of them, anyway. Chad Gilbert has been straight-edge his whole life, telling Kerrang!, “If I had one drink, I’d have a million”. He used the pseudonym Captain Straightedge in New Found Glory’s ridiculous alter-ego band International Superheroes Of Hardcore, which featured the same lineup but wearing masks and using silly names. Captain Straightedge was joined by Sgt Soy, Mr Mosh, Chugga Chugga and The Incredible Breakdown.
1.58
They’re from Florida, New Found Glory. Pundik, Grushka and Klein initially met while attending Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida – a school which tragically made international headlines in 2018 when it was the site of a mass shooting.
2.02
This is one of the first songs the band wrote that they felt defined what their sound was going to be. In 2008, Gilbert told Kerrang!: "I remember Cyrus coming to me and playing me the guitar riff. We took that riff and it became a really important song. That was the song that really won kids over. We played it so much that it got a reaction from fans everywhere we played, without it even being on the radio."
2.11
There’s a whole other video for this, and a whole other version. It was initially on the band’s 1999 debut Nothing Gold Can Stay, along with a low-budget video directed by Drive-Thru Records co-owner Richard Reines and featuring Corey Feldman.
Then, in 2000, their self-titled major-label debut came out featuring a re-recorded version along with this shiny new video directed by Smith’N’Borin. New Found Glory got very famous very quickly, with Gilbert telling Alternative Press: “We were just a bunch of kids who grew up in the suburbs. We never expected to leave Florida, we were just making a record we could play locally and sell to friends. Then, eventually, it took us so many other places".
2.29
Cyrus Bolooki deserves credit for this section, having grown up listening to bands like Bush and Silverchair and being more up for tempo-shifts.
3.00
New Found Glory have also popped up in some other bands’ videos over the years – Good Charlotte’s Festival Song and Less Than Jake’s My Money Is On The Longshot. They also make a cameo in the fully shit Troma production Tales From The Crapper.
3.21
The weird manager subplot never really went anywhere, did it? Good eyebrow-combing though. Well done everybody.
