New Found Glory Will Play Soundwave Without Drummer Cyrus Bolooki

January 29, 2015

American pop punk act New Found Glory has some mixed news for Aussie fans today. The bad news is they will be without longtime drummer Cyrus Bolooki for their performances at Soundwave 2015 next month. The good news is the reason behind it – Bolooki and his wife are expecting the birth of their first-born child to happen at around the same time as the festival.

New Found Glory has already found their stand-in, with Mike Ambrose from Set Your Goals and What’s Eating Gilbert making the trek Down Under in his stead.

The band announced the news via Facebook this afternoon:

Hey Everyone, we are very excited to be returning to Southeast Asia and Australia in February, as those are some of our favorite places to play in the entire world! We are also excited to announce that our drummer Cyrus and his wife Debbie are expecting the birth of their first-born child at that same time, and due to this, Cyrus will not be able to travel to these shows. However, we will have our good friend and great drummer Mike Ambrose (from Set Your Goals and What’s Eating Gilbert) with us filling in for Cyrus while he’s at home, and Cyrus will return to action for the Sleep When I Die tour in the US in March. Happy New Year from all of us in New Found Glory and we’re excited to see you all this year!

Ambrose will be joining New Found Glory for their sets at all four Soundwave festival stops, as well as their recently announced Sidewaves with Bayside and The Wonder Years.

While the reason for Bolooki’s Soundwave absence is a pretty good one, this news does add to the conspiracy theory surrounding the curse of the Soundwave drummer. Soundwave supergroup Killer Be Killed will, of course, be missing their drummer Dave Elitch this festival season, while he takes up with his other band Antemasque.

In 2013, Anthrax played Soundwave without their drummer Charlie Benante, The Vandals arrived without their drummer, Slayer fired Dave Lombardo prior to their Soundwave tour, Six Feet Under pulled out of the festival after their drummer got injured and of course Blink 182’s Travis Barker’s, now infamous, Soundwave no-show.

At least no-one’s been hurt this time around. See New Found Glory’s Sidewave dates with Bayside and The Wonder Years below.