As Disney release their new pop punk covers album, we chat with members of New Found Glory, Simple Plan, We The Kings and Magnolia Park about putting a new spin on some of the most well-known animated movie songs of all time.
Hakuna Matata –a wonderful phrase that, quite famously, means no worries for the rest of your days. It’s a sentiment that is applicable not just to the wide-ranging and ever-popular themes of the Disney songbook but also to the bouncy, relentlessly catchy choruses found in all of your favourite pop punk anthems. So, when Mickey Mouse and co. decided to draft in some of the biggest names in the scene for their new covers compilation, ‘A Whole New Sound’, it seemed like a perfect pairing of worlds for both fans and artists alike.
“Naturally, I grew up listening to Disney songs and I still love them”, We The Kings’ Travis Clark remembers. “So the fact that Disney asked us to do this record, which is punk rock meets Disney songs, it’s the epitome of my childhood. It’s the perfect intersection of what I always thought it could be.”
“We all grew up in Florida, so it’s just part of our history, obviously, everyone loves Disney”, Chad Gilbert from New Found Glory explains. “You’d go to Disney a couple of times a year. I feel like I almost know the theme park music even more than the songs from the movies. It’s funny, now, being a part of it.”
“Believe it or not, my earliest memory was going to watch ‘A Goofy Movie’” Magnolia Park’s Joshua Roberts laughs, his band having delivered one of the early singles, a take on that movie’s ‘I2I’, originally performed by the fictional singer Powerline. “We were looking through the list and we finally found that one and as soon as we saw it, there was no need to look at that list any longer. I can do that style, but add my flair to it, in a sense, to make it fit a little bit better. The team really helped out a lot with keeping the confidence up on this giant task of following Tevin Campbell (original voice of Powerline), who’s an amazing singer and helped shape ‘90s R’n’B.”
For all the artists involved, this was perhaps the biggest challenge of all – how do you take a song that is so fully embedded into the minds of every listener and still find a way to make it your own?
“We talked about the approach to the song first” says Magnolia Park’s Tristan Torres. “Should we do it heavy, or should we do it more pop punk? The pop punk just felt right. The key to it was really that Josh is such an amazing singer, so we’re able to make it flow so well. Tevin Campbell’s actual vocals on the song are so complex and there’s so many layers so it really depended on Josh carrying that moment and then the instrumental having a great aesthetic and vibe.”
“It’s a little bit of a Simple Plan thing that if we’re going to do something, we’re going to go big or go home” Chuck Comeau says as he reflects on their cover of ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’ from The Lion King. “If we play this song, no matter where we play in the world, everybody will know it. Even if they didn’t hear our version, they will have heard the original from Sir Elton John. It felt like an ambitious song to tackle, but we love that. It has the most memorable and timeless melody. It was a slower song too so it really felt like we could make it sound really different and add a new spin to it. You want to do something that’s going to be radically different because if you don’t, what’s the point?”
“I like the challenge when we approach these covers” says Chad, with New Found Glory’s movie-themed series ‘From The Screen To Your Stereo’ having already laid the groundwork for their approach to tackling songs plucked from a well-known soundtrack. “How do we introduce people that have never heard punk rock and don’t understand the scene to this thing? Well, who is the most rebellious character? It’s Ariel.” With that in mind, NFG saw the opportunity to bring a very different flavour to the iconic strains of ‘Part Of Your World’ from ‘The Little Mermaid’. “We dove into our history and our music, combined it with the lyrics and made it a real song. It’s not supposed to be a gag. It’s just a New Found Glory song. It’s our song.”
The band also took some direct inspiration from LØLØ who herself appears on ‘A Whole New Sound’, covering ‘Frozen’ megahit ‘Let It Go’. Her previously released version of NFG’s ‘Vicious Love’ helped the band find the correct path for their Disney cover.
“Her version of ‘Vicious Love’ sounds like a completely different song and it sounds completely legitimate” Chad enthuses. “It sounds awesome but it changes the feeling. She made it really sad sounding. In our version the music is fun and funky, but the lyrics are really sad. So she made the music match the lyrics. That made me appreciate our song in a completely different way.”
“You have to give it this fresh approach,” Travis reflects. “It’s got to have the true sound of your band. It’s got to sound like We the kings. It’s got to sound like a melody that I would write even though I didn’t. It’s got to sound like lyrics that I would write even though I didn’t. So it’s interesting, there’s a balance that we had to stay true to in order to make the song better.”
We The Kings’ version of the Alan Menken-penned heroic ballad ‘Go The Distance’ from ‘Hercules’ took several attempts to master, with Travis experimenting with a number of different approaches initially.
“We ended up doing about three versions of it. One was a ballad. I think that was coming from my own childhood and feeling sad that nobody believed in me. I wanted to do this so badly and I had so many obstacles in my way. It sounded beautiful but when I sent it, I was like, ‘you know what? They hired, We The Kings and this sounds like a Travis Clark solo project’. Then I sent a second version that was a punk rock version. We are a pop rock band. I love punk music. I just don’t know if that sounds true to us, specifically. Then I sent this this third version that had elements of both. That was the recipe for putting this song together, and I’m obviously biased, but I really am so proud of myself and of the rest of guys. I feel like it’s one of those songs where we will now add it to our set list and probably play it forever.”
The album’s full tracklisting mixes veterans like Yellowcard, Boys Like Girls and Bowling For Soup alongside some of the scene’s newer voices, with Magnolia Park seeing the opportunity to introduce themselves to a new, wider audience for the very first time.
“The response we’ve gotten on the cover has been insane,” says Tristan. “We usually have a lot of kids show up to our show, dragging their parents along. We’re such a diverse, genre-bending band so it’s cool that we have fans that like the pop stuff and fans that like the heavy stuff. But with the Disney cover, it is a huge crossover for us. It’s a nostalgic song but at the same time, some people are just discovering the song based off the cover.”
“We always try to have people hear our music from across different ages” says Chuck, citing their now annual shows at EPCOT in Orlando as a great example of that cross-generational appeal. “You always want to be part of people’s lives and a part of their memories and the bond that they have with their kids or their best friends or their parents. If you, as a band, can find a way to be part of people’s lives like that, you’re going to be part of them forever. Music is like that.”
“But I would say that beyond reaching these younger kids, there’s also the fact that we could reconnect with some fans that were there before and maybe forgot about the band a little bit” he adds. “They still love Disney and they’re still rocking out. You’re seeing all these people reconnecting with the band, and we’re realising that there’s such a big crossover between our fan base and people that love Disney.”
“I’ve always considered ourselves a gateway band,” Chad reflects. “People discover New Found Glory and they look at our T shirts, at the bands we love, at the people we talk about. They see the other people we want to bring out on tour. They learn about those bands. They follow those bands. Their lives are changed. This genre made you feel like you belong. Being able to do that through the voice of this ‘The Little Mermaid’ song in 2024 is really cool. You can see in some of our tour videos, you see these little kids showing up with punk shirts. All these kids that feel like they don’t belong. They’re kids that feel like they don’t have a place, and then they go to a show. It’s nice to be able to officially use this song as a way to really bring in new people.”
“It was a no brainer when Disney asked if we wanted to be a part of it”, Travis confirms. “I literally could not say yes faster, because I seeing the list of songs that we could choose from, I was like, ‘Alright, which one of these songs would my kids freak out about if I did it?’ Every time I would be recording it, they would run upstairs, and ask to watch ‘Hercules’. That is exactly what’s going to happen all around the world. Parents are going to be able to listen to their favourite bands playing their kid’s favourite songs. I think it’s going to establish a whole new group of fans that might not have ever heard any We The Kings songs. I genuinely feel honoured to do it.”
It is almost guaranteed that you will hear many of these covers at shows in the near future, with Magnolia Park confirming they will be adding ‘I2I’ into their setlist rotation in time for their upcoming UK run with Bowling For Soup. But Simple Plan’s recent live cover at the D23 expo event has already grabbed some serious fan attention thanks to one very special guest performing with the band via video screen – none other than Mickey Mouse himself.
“That was so cool”, Chuck enthuses. “Whoever did the animation really knew what they’re doing with the guitars and the chords and everything. You could tell it was a musician that worked on that. We had this little script where we’re talking to Mickey Mouse; it felt a bit surreal to be able to do it. But I hope we can keep doing that on tour and bring the song along and show it to all the people that couldn’t be there all over the world.”
‘A Whole New Sound’ is out now.