Chad Gilbert, the founding guitarist of pop-punk veterans New Found Glory, has died at 45. The band announced yesterday (Sept. 20) that Gilbert “passed away peacefully in his sleep,” surrounded by friends and family, with his wife, Lisa Cimorelli, and mother, Jackie, by his side.
Gilbert had revealed six months ago that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer and endured health battles for more than 15 years. In 2010, he had half of his thyroid removed due to the discovery of “suspicious cells,” and had several cancer-related surgeries starting in 2021. In March, Gilbert revealed that he’d underwent brain surgery to remove three tumors.
In a statement credited to his bandmates and Cimorelli, New Found Glory described Gilbert as “a legendary musician,” but noted that his favorite accomplishment was being a husband and father. He is survived by Cimorelli, their daughter Lily, his mother and his brother Brian.
“Chad’s guitar playing, songwriting, humor and relentless drive helped shape New Found Glory for nearly three decades,” the statement continued. “Through more than a dozen albums, endless tours around the world and more accolades than we ever could have imagined, Chad challenged all of us to grow as musicians, performers and human beings.”
Gilbert co-founded New Found Glory as a teenager in South Florida, helping forge the melodic-but-hard-hitting sound that would make the band a defining presence in the pop-punk world. The group’s 2002 album Sticks and Stones, which produced the Billboard Hot 100 hit “My Friends Over You,” became a landmark of the pre-MySpace pop-punk era, while New Found Glory’s blend of melody and hardcore muscle would prove particularly influential on the easycore movement.
Gilbert also sang in hardcore band Shai Hulud and New Found Glory’s hardcore side project International Superheroes of Hardcore, while releasing solo music as What’s Eating Gilbert.
When SPIN spoke with Gilbert and vocalist Jordan Pundik in 2020, New Found Glory was preparing to release its 10th album, Forever + Ever x Infinity. The band had already been together for 23 years, a longevity Gilbert viewed with some disbelief. “You hear about these bands coming out, doing a record or two and having a buzz or a hype, and then that’s it,” he said. “You don’t really hear about them. Somehow every record, every tour and everything we’re able to do is still exciting.”
Gilbert was 39 at the time and had been in New Found Glory since his high-school years. “We got signed when I was a junior in high school — that’s how long we’ve been in this band,” he said. The group’s longevity, he added, had given its members a freedom they didn’t have early in their career. “There’s no pressure to try to accomplish anything or reinvent the world, so we’re able to be exactly who we are because we’ve been appreciated by our fans for so long,” Gilbert said.
That connection to the band’s original community remained central to Gilbert. Asked how New Found Glory had managed to remain together while so many of their peers had broken up or taken hiatuses, he pointed to the relationships among the members — and the South Florida punk and hardcore scene that brought them together. “Not to sound cliche or anything, but we wanted to do this band because of the camaraderie we had growing up in the punk and hardcore scene in South Florida — that was our family and where we felt we belonged,” he said.
Gilbert was in a relationship with Paramore’s Hayley Williams between 2007-2017, during the last year of which they married and then divorced.
In its statement, New Found Glory’s members said Gilbert’s influence would remain inseparable from the band he helped build. “His influence will always be part of New Found Glory and his spirit will be felt on every stage we stand on, with every note we play,” they wrote. “Rest in peace, Chad. We love you forever.”