Greater than 20 years after their peak, the music of Yellowcard is a pop punk message in a bottle. The notice that washed ashore from a less complicated time describes the picture of a younger, sharply-dressed band stuffed with aspirations, thrashing on their devices — violin included — within the echoey tomb of an underground parking storage within the music video for “Ocean Avenue” because the refrain kicks into overdrive.
“If I might discover you now, issues would get higher, we might depart this city and run perpetually, let your waves crash down on me and take me away,” frontman Ryan Key sang ecstatically on the high of his lungs.
That hit tune, the title observe of 2003’s “Ocean Avenue,” created a tidal wave of success that modified the course of their profession from struggling artists to a world-touring headliner and darlings of MTV’s Whole Request Stay.
“The primary time it occurred, we had been actually younger,” Key stated, gingerly greedy a spoon together with his closely tattooed hand whereas stirring a cup of scorching tea. “We had been fairly actually a storage band one minute, after which we had been taking part in on the MTV Video Music Awards and David Letterman and no matter else the following minute.”
It’s a second that hasn’t escaped his reminiscence 22 years later. Now, he and his bandmates — violinist Sean Mackin, bassist Josh Portman and guitarist Ryan Mendez — are removed from the ocean however not too removed from water as they give the impression of being out at a glowing pool from the window from a set on the Yaamava’ Resort and On line casino in Highland. A pair hours from now, the band will play a splashy pool social gathering gig for 98.7 ALT FM. The set will embody a raft of all of the previous hits, together with “Ocean Avenue” in fact, in addition to their first new songs in virtually a decade.
Earlier than the discharge of the primary singles for the brand new album, “Higher Days,” it would’ve been straightforward to put in writing off their eleventh album as one other launch destined to be overshadowed by their early catalog. Nonetheless, with the correct amount of inner inspiration and outdoors assist from Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, who produced and performed all of the drums on the album, the end result was a batch of latest songs that haven’t merely been washed out to sea. Fairly the alternative, really.
Previous to the album’s launch, the title observe “Higher Days” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Various Airplay chart. This achievement got here after a 22-year wait since their first look on the chart with the “Ocean Avenue” single “Method Away.” Key additionally notes that it’s the primary time followers are utilizing the band’s new music for his or her TikTok movies as a substitute of “Ocean Avenue.”
“That’s loopy,” Key stated. “Everyone seems to be utilizing ‘Higher Days.’ I don’t assume we’re alone in that. I believe for bands in our scene, new music is getting a number of love and a number of consideration once more, and it’s wonderful to see.”
It’s been about three years for the reason that band reemerged to play a reunion set at RiotFest in Chicago, following their 2017 farewell present on the Home of Blues in Anaheim. On the level they had been able to name it quits, the band was struggling to promote sufficient tickets to their exhibits to maintain the dream alive. For Mackin, fatherhood pressured him to additionally contemplate his household’s monetary stability, prompting him to enter the company workforce as a gross sales rep and finally turning into a service director for Toyota. At one level, he was answerable for managing 120 workers. “I simply thought that was going to be what I used to be going to do to handle my household for the following 20 years,” Mackin stated.
After Yellowcard’s hiatus, Key continued taking part in music in a number of initiatives that distanced themselves from the pop punk sound — together with recording solo work beneath his full title William Ryan Key, touring with bassist Portman at his facet. Key additionally produced a post-rock electronic-heavy challenge referred to as Jedha with Mendez, and the pair additionally does a number of TV and movie scoring work. For a very long time, Key and his bandmates mourned the lack of what that they had with Yellowcard. It was an important factor in Key’s life, although he stated he didn’t notice how a lot the band really formed him till it was over.
Throughout their hiatus, band members took day jobs. One member managed 120 Toyota workers earlier than the 2022 Riot Fest reunion reignited their ardour.
(Joe Brady)
“Ungrateful is just not the phrase to make use of about how I felt again then. It’s extra like I didn’t have the instruments to understand it, to really feel gratitude and actually let issues occur and and keep within the second and keep targeted. As a result of I used to be so younger, I used to be so insecure about my place, my position in all of it,” Key stated.
However after a while away, the raucous 2022 Riot Fest reunion present relit the band’s fireplace in a method they hadn’t anticipated. They adopted up with a 2023 EP “Childhood Eyes” that pushed the band to take issues additional with a brand new full album. Together with these plans got here the gorgeous information that Barker would signal on to supply and play drums for them on the challenge. For a band that grew up idolizing Blink 182 and Barker particularly because the band’s red-hot engine behind the package who spent the final 20 years evolving right into a music mogul, it was a surreal expertise.
“We take a look at him like a common. It was by no means misplaced that one of the best drummer of our technology is taking part in drums with us,” Mackin stated. “We all know him as Travis now, however man, this man is simply oozing expertise — he’s doing all these wonderful issues and he doesn’t appear overrun by it, not distracted one bit. Whereas we had been recording, he was proper there with us.”
Key says he was initially intimidated singing in entrance of Barker within the studio and had a couple of moments the place detrimental, self-conscious ideas had been getting the higher of him within the vocal sales space throughout recording. As an alternative of getting aggravated, he says Barker helped ease his anxiousness with a couple of easy phrases.
“Travis got here into the sales space, closed the door, put his hand on my shoulder, and he stated, ‘You’re gonna do that as many instances as it’s good to do it. I’m gonna be right here the entire time.’” Barker was really talking from expertise. He informed Key on the time that he’d simply recorded 87 tough takes of his components on “Lonely Highway,” his hit tune with Jelly Roll and MGK. “That was an actual crossroads for me,” Key stated.
The facet of the album that feels most akin to “Ocean Avenue” was that Barker by no means actually allowed them to overthink something when it got here to songwriting, a ability the band had unwittingly mastered as children again within the “Ocean Avenue” days by writing songs on the fly within the studio with little time to care about how a tune may find yourself earlier than they recorded it.
“There’s one thing about the best way we did this report with Travis, the place we’d stroll in and did it in a method we haven’t finished in 20 plus years with him saying ‘We’re gonna write and report a tune immediately,’” Key stated. “ It was a return to that type of songwriting the place it’s a must to form of get out of your consolation zone and simply throw and go.”
The ultimate product strikes swiftly over 10 songs, the observe listing begins with a flurry of vitality from the bombastic opening drums of “Higher Days” that propel a tune on interior reflection on the previous. It strikes on to the high-energy heartbreak of “Love Letters,” that includes Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. Avril Lavigne lends her hovering vocals to the unrequited love tune “You Broke Me Too.” Songs like “Metropolis of Angels” and “Bed room Posters” observe episodes in Key’s life the place his band’s hiatus took a detrimental toll on his outlook on life but in addition about in search of a method again to rediscovering himself. The album wraps with the acoustic lullaby “Massive Blue Eyes,” which Keys wrote as a tribute to his son.
Although the songs on “Higher Days” steadily wrestle with self-doubt and uncertainty, the response from followers has been surprisingly supportive, Key stated.
“I can’t recall seeing this degree of overwhelming optimistic suggestions. Individuals are simply flipping out over these songs,” the frontman stated. “The recording was such a whirlwind. Once I hearken to it, it’s nonetheless form of like ‘When did I write that tune?’ It occurred so quick, and we made the report so quick, however I’m glad we simply did it.” Regardless of the success, Secret’s hesitant to label the band comeback children, “most likely as a result of we’re formally handed children label,” he stated.
“Perhaps it’s the return of the gents?” Mackin joked.
Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker produced the album, serving to the band recapture the spontaneous vitality that outlined their 2003 breakthrough “Ocean Avenue.”
(Joe Brady)
No matter they name themselves, coming again to the band after so a few years of various experiences has made Yellowcard’s second shot at a profession really feel all of the extra rewarding.
“Since you really feel like you recognize you’re able to one thing aside from being on this band, able to connecting with your loved ones in a method that you simply couldn’t once you had been on the highway on a regular basis,” Mackin stated. “There’s issues that occurred in that break that set us up for fulfillment as human beings, not simply as artistic folks.”
For Key, it’s about taking all the teachings they’ve discovered as a band and making use of them to their future, realizing that the album’s title refers not simply to the previous behind them, however what lies forward.
“This report wanted to be the final word revival, the final word redemption tune for our band,” Key stated. “And thus far it’s, it’s confirmed to be that.”
