Beginning in 2009, Gilbert began writing songs that blended pop-punk with the retro 50's and 60's rock and country music that his parents listened to while he was growing up. Loaded with various pop culture references and bearing a sense of early rock nostalgia, the band name is a reference to Peter Hedges' 1991 novel What's Eating Gilbert Grape. For as busy as he was with New Found Glory, the prolific Gilbert found time to release three EPs in 2010 alone. The five-song Cheap Shots EP arrived in 2012, followed a year later by a split single with the band Octaves. On 2014's Come On Let's Go EP, Gilbert covered songs by Ritchie Valens, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash. What's Eating Gilbert's debut album, That New Sound You're Looking For, finally arrived in 2015 courtesy of Hopeless Records. ~ Timothy Monger