Punk band New Found Glory emphasizes ‘new’

Kirk Baird

Friday, July 5, 2002 | 8:45 a.m.

What: "Vans Warped Tour."

When: 2 p.m. today.

Where: Sam Boyd Stadium Silver Bowl Park.

Tickets: $37.05.

Information: 895-3900.

Jordan Pundik was 22 before he finally moved out of his home.

Then again, he had been on the road since age 17.

Lead singer of the pop-punk outfit New Found Glory, Pundik is living the American teen dream: form a band, hit the road, make it big and never look back.

"To me, if the band ended tomorrow, I would be happy where I am," he said in a recent interview from a hotel room in Wigwam, Ariz.

New Found Glory has joined approximately 60 other punk bands for the Vans Warped Tour, which comes to the Sam Boyd Stadium Silver Bowl Park at 2 p.m. today. The group will perform on the north stage.

"It doesn't seem like there's competition," Pundik said of touring with so many other bands. "I mean, everyone still hangs out together. It's like summer camp. It's band camp. Everyone watches each other when they play. There's a real camaraderie on the tour."

Lately, though, many eyes have focused on Pundik's band. Formed in 1997 in Coral Springs, Fla., by five high school friends, New Found Glory toured during summers and school breaks.

At first Pundik's parents were not in favor of his playing shows around Florida when he was 17, barely old enough to get into an R-rated movie, let alone gain admittance to most clubs.

"They didn't back it the way they do now," he said. "When you're young and tell your mom, 'Hey, I'm going on tour with my band,' it doesn't seem very real. A lot of people say you've got to go to college ... we put college on hold and just went for it. Now we're here."

"Here" is having the band's second album recently debut at No. 4 on Billboard. To put the album's charting in perspective, the heavily publicized "The Osbourne Family Album" debuted at No. 13 the same week.

"It was just from our fans buying our record. We really didn't have very much radio play and very much MTV play," Pundik said. "It's just from us touring and being on the road so much."

The album's lack of hype and mass exposure, however, made its high debut all the better, he said.

"I was just happy getting our band out of Florida. And then to be No. 4 is just crazy," Pundik said. "I called everybody."

The disc, "Sticks and Stones," is similar in sound to the band's eponymous first effort. The music is heavily melodic with catchy hooks, a second generation Blink-182 or Green Day.

The lyrics deal with the basics: boy meets girl; boy loses girl to best friend; boy pines for lost girl. Although, on "Sticks and Stones" the band is branching out more, including a song dealing with the death of Pundik's grandfather, as well as moving out of their parents' homes and being on their own.

In January the five members of New Found Glory moved from Coral Springs to Southern California. Pundik bought a six-bedroom house in Temecula, a small city in Riverside County.

The singer is now faced with mortgage payments and high electric bills -- a far cry from when he borrowed money from his sister when the band was touring in high school.

"I got the house in April and I've only been in there for maybe three weeks. It's basically my roommate and my girlfriend's house," Pundik said. "Signing all those papers was a bit overwhelming, but once I'm there it's like, 'Yeah, it's mine.' "