In 2008, New Found Glory released an EP called Tip of the Iceberg that featured three original songs on the A side where they tried to do “back to their roots” thing, playing more aggressive and nominally “hardcore” pop-punk music, and three covers by Lifetime, Shelter, and Gorilla Biscuits* on the B side to prove their scene cred. This release followed their uber-soft album Coming Home that saw them at their most mainstream-oriented pop-rock, and I think the EP was them trying to right the ship. Basing this on nothing other than my own experience and view of punk/emo/rock at the time, Coming Home seemed like a big swing to try to fix themselves in the radio rock circuit and see if they could get a song on a WB show. That didn’t work, so they decided to return to pop-punk, their bread and butter, and attached themselves to the pop-punk/hardcore (or popcore, or easycore) thing that was just starting to really take off with Set Your Goals, Four Year Strong, and A Day to Remember. I was heavy into that scene of music at the time (ADTR not so much) and this EP is actually what turned me into a fan of the band. I was obsessed with Lifetime at the time and New Found Glory covering them was interesting to me.
*I hadn’t listened to GB in ages and recently revisited Start Today. I was shocked at how much I still really fucked with it.
What stood out to most people about Tip of the Iceberg though was that it was accompanied by another EP called Takin’ it Ova! by the fictional band the International Superheroes of Hardcore, which was New Found Glory under pseudonyms with guitarist Chad Gilbert singing. The EP was all joke songs about being super heroes in a world bound to the rules and scene politics of hardcore music and it was pretty funny. There was lots of references to both the history of hardcore music and world of comic books and it was light-hearted enough that it was easy to laugh. It was obvious that New Found Glory was keenly aware of their status as a wimpy pop-punk band and that made the joke a lot better. It also helped that the Comeback Kid/Ten Yard Fight/Youth Crew Revival style of the songs was played surprisingly capably.
After a decade of the band being the easiest punch line about how much pop-punk sucked, I think that Takin’ it Ova! did a lot to win the band a bit of respect. It was less fun to make fun of them when they were in on the joke. At some shows, New Found Glory would do short sets as the ISHC in silly costumes and everyone seemed to enjoy it. They even got bookings on a few of the marquee pop-punk festivals of the time, like the Bamboozle, and released another EP, the Harry Potter-themed HPxHC, that also pretty funny.
In an interview that must have been 2009 or 10, Gilbert, who was the member that spearheaded the whole thing, was asked about the future of the ISHC and if there were plans to do another record and responded that he was planning to do a “serious” ISHC record. The ISHC making “serious” hardcore music sounded like the dumbest thing ever and made it clear that maybe he wasn’t as in on the joke as everyone else. This immediately spelled the death of the ISHC, as an earnest hardcore record from them seemed like the most embarrassing thing in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment