Chad Gilbert, founding guitarist of pop-punk band New Found Glory, dies at 45
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- Guitarist and singer Chad Gilbert, one of the founding members of New Found Glory, has died at age 45.
- He died “peacefully in his sleep ... with his wife and mother by his side,” said the joint statement shared by the pop-punk band and Lisa Cimorelli.
Chad Gilbert, the lead guitarist and one of the founding members of pop-punk band New Found Glory, has died. He was 45.
Gilbert died Sunday morning “peacefully in his sleep,” the band and his wife, Lisa Cimorelli, announced on social media. No cause of death was given, but the musician had been open about his cancer battle for the last five years.
“He left this world surrounded by friends and family and took his final breaths with his wife and mother by his side, just as he wished,” the joint statement posted Sunday to Instagram read. “We are devastated and shocked by how quickly he left us, yet so grateful for how peacefully and smoothly he went. The amount of visitors that crowded the hospital lobby at a moment’s notice is a testament to how beloved and cherished Chad was, and always will be.”
Gilbert had just celebrated his return to the stage in June after emergency surgery earlier this year to remove a brain tumor.
“It felt good to know that there’s still a battle to be going on and that I can recover from this and grow stronger from this,” Gilbert told Rolling Stone in April. “My hope is to really get my energy and strength back. I don’t want to lay in bed all day. I want to be able to get up and do my things.”
Duncan Sheik, who earned a Grammy nomination for his ubiquitous 1990s hit “Barely Breathing” and won a Tony Award for composing the music for “Spring Awakening,” died Thursday.
While he said that he was no longer able to tour normally anymore, his goal then was to be able to perform at New Found Glory’s June show in Nashville.
“I got to play a show in front of my daughter, something I truly never thought I’d get to do again,” Gilbert wrote in an Instagram post following that performance. “It was very emotional getting up on stage with my band again to play.”
Born March 9, 1981, in Coral Springs, Fla., Gilbert helped form New Found Glory in 1997 with lead vocalist Jordan Pundik, guitarist Steve Klein, bassist Ian Grushka and drummer Joe Marino (who was quickly replaced by Cyrus Bolooki). Gilbert was recruited from a local hardcore band, Shai Hulud, which he’d joined as a vocalist in eighth grade.
Initially called A New Found Glory, the band gained a following after releasing a debut EP and touring around the East Coast. They then recorded their debut studio album, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” which was released in 1999.
“We were all just kids in high school, and we just recorded what we thought sounded good and that was it,” Pundik told Grammy.com in 2020 about their first album.
“We paid for the album ourselves and it was awesome,” Gilbert added. “We just figured it out as we went. We had no clue what we were doing, we were just a local band, and we knew like, ‘All right, you have to have a full length.’ We were like, ‘Oh yeah, we had an EP, now I guess we’ve got to make an album.’ So we wrote a bunch of songs and made an album.”
The band has released 10 more albums, including “Listen Up!,” which was released earlier this year. In addition to playing lead guitar, Gilbert wrote songs and sang backup vocals. New Found Glory helped define the second-wave pop-punk sound of the late 1990s and early 2000s that broke into the mainstream.
Describing his bandmate as his “brother” and “best friend,” Pundik hailed Gilbert as “an inspiration to ... so many people.”
“He always had a way of pushing me to be a better singer and frontman,” Pundik wrote in his Instagram tribute on Sunday. “He lived and breathed this band but he also lived and breathed for his family and friends. He will be missed so much.”
Dashboard Confessional lead singer Chris Carrabba, who sang backup on New Found Glory’s debut album, shared how Gilbert was a fierce ally to the band and fought for them to get playing time at shows early on.
“I’ve known and loved Chad and the boys in @newfoundglory for more than 30 years,” Carrabba wrote on Dashboard Confessional’s Instagram on Sunday. “I’ve watched them build a band, a following, a fan base, and a culture. And the whole time it felt like a family. They made me feel like I was part of it. I bet they made you feel that too.”
Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus wrote on Instagram: “Chad was the best friend to every person he met. The most positive and creative force in any room he walked into. Today we lost a good one, and the world won’t be the same.”
New Found Glory and Cimorelli’s joint social media statement acknowledged Gilbert’s musical impact, but said “his favorite accomplishment was being a husband and father,” describing it as his “biggest dream.”
“I got my dream,” Gilbert told People in an interview earlier this year. “I always wanted to play music, and I got that, but my biggest dream was to be married to a beautiful wife that would love me and have a daughter ... That was my dream, so I accomplished my dream.”
He is survived by his wife, daughter Lily, mother Jackie and brother Brian.
