Head to the AP Store to seize vinyl of Yellowcard’s Ocean Avenue (twentieth Anniversary Version).
“The physique was chilly for Yellowcard,” Ryan Key tells Different Press. The spark that will ultimately convey the band again to life got here in late 2021, when Yellowcard’s longtime reserving agent, Corrie Christopher Martin, who has labored with the band since 2001, reached out with the chance to play Riot Fest in 2022.
“I prefer to be fairly clear after I discuss in regards to the band in interviews… We might be mendacity if we did not say it was a bit of bit in regards to the cash,” Key admits. Among the many causes Yellowcard disbanded in 2017 have been that it was turning into troublesome to promote tickets and for the group to generate sufficient earnings for its members. “This was an enormous monetary alternative for every of us to play this present — full disclosure: larger than something we would ever obtained earlier than to do a present,” he says.
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They determined to go for it, and that Riot Fest efficiency turned out to be an encouraging reunion for Yellowcard’s members. “For these of us that hadn’t communicated in a few years after the top of the band, there actually was a coming collectively and a reconciling, and there was a sense of camaraderie and brotherhood and friendship once more within the room,” Key explains.
It succeeded in reviving Yellowcard, they usually wished to maintain going. Stay Nation provided them a summer season tour, which they’re at present on. “It’s like an out-of-body expertise each evening,” Key says. “We’re enjoying larger reveals than we performed on the peak of Ocean Avenue in 2004 by quite a bit, in some cities. It is unbelievable.”
And, to finish their comeback, Yellowcard launched an EP, Childhood Eyes, in July, marking their first launch since 2016’s self-titled report.
When did you begin interested by making new music?
Proper after Riot Fest. It was not within the plans. There was quite a lot of rebuilding to do in so many various methods, whether or not it’s actually rebuilding the racks that comprise our gear to play reveals or rebuilding {our relationships} with one another to maneuver ahead. We had quite a lot of therapeutic to do.
After we did Riot Fest, I feel there was a lot pleasure and euphoria coming off of that present that all of us agreed it could be actually enjoyable to make some music. So we dipped our toes within the water and began with an EP. We actually loved the method. It felt so good to get again within the room collectively and make Yellowcard music at its root supply. These songs, I feel, are precisely what a Yellowcard fan needs to listen to from Yellowcard. We hadn’t written Yellowcard music that seemed like Yellowcard music in a very long time, so it was a very enjoyable problem to attempt to create one thing that we have been invested in and knew that followers can be extraordinarily enthusiastic about.
I feel shifting ahead, if we do extra music, we’re fairly considering sticking with the EP mannequin. We have no plans to make any extra music simply but. I’d say the door could be very open for us to maintain making extra music down the street.
What was the method of constructing the EP like?
Josh [Portman, bass], Ryan [Mendez, guitar], and I traveled to Austin, Texas. That is the place Sean [Mackin, violin] lives together with his household. On the time, Sean was nonetheless working his post-Yellowcard life job, and we would have liked to go to him so he may get dwelling to the youngsters each evening. We rented a bit of Airbnb in Austin, and Sean would come over after work, and we’d pour some whiskeys and get out the guitars… It was wild. It was like, early days, as we have been writing and recording Ocean Avenue, after we all moved to California from Florida for the primary time, and we have been renting a home the place three of us have been sleeping in the identical room, and we’d simply jam till we had songs we beloved. It was actually harking back to these occasions, which I feel was tremendous cool.
All of us introduced completely different concepts and riffs and issues in. Most of it did simply seem from the bottom up based mostly on one or two riffs that somebody introduced into the room. “Childhood Eyes,” the one, I had by no means picked up a guitar to attempt to put the phrases to music, however — very uncommon prevalence for me, [but] it has occurred a couple of occasions in my life — I wakened in the course of the evening, and I had that melody in my head with the lyric, a minimum of via “I discovered, I discovered my childhood eyes.” So I simply began typing it up on my cellphone.
On the finish of the method of pre-production, I used to be like, “Hey, I’ve this concept…” I hummed the melody that I had as an thought in my head. And, severely, quarter-hour later, we had the entire tune. I used to be ending the lyrics that evening and in mattress, and it got here actually quick.
It felt like there was quite a lot of retrospection and reflection on the historical past of Yellowcard within the lyrics on the EP. Was it useful to have the area of 5 songs to course of that?
I feel having 5 songs means that you can be so concise with what you are doing. So we determined we wished a quick, actually Warped Tour-feeling, out of doors pageant/concert-type tune. We wished a traditional, high-energy rock “Manner Away,” “Respiration”-type tune, “Preventing,” these varieties of songs that you’ve got heard from us prior to now. We wished a mid-tempo tune that had a bit of bit extra of that pop-rock aspect to it, which might be “Childhood Eyes.” We wished a ballad, which ended up being “Trustworthy from the Leap,” after which we had the acoustic tune. It’s so well-rounded so far as the several types of songs that you’ve heard from Yellowcard all through the many years — there’s one in all every on the EP.
How did “Trustworthy from the Leap” come collectively? That one, to me, seemed like a really Raise A Sail-esque tune.
I feel it is like a Paper Partitions/Raise A Sail hybrid. After we determined to make new music once more, all of us have been monitoring a couple of concepts and demos on our personal at dwelling. I had the verse riff for that tune. The explanation that one feels so Raise A Sail is as a result of the time signature within the verse is simply wacky. I do not assume I even realized that after I was enjoying and writing it. I simply thought, “This can be a sick riff.” So I feel that offers you a bit of little bit of that later Yellowcard really feel.
The refrain of that tune really comes from a tune of my very own known as “Brighton” that was on my [solo] EP Every little thing Besides Want. And so they have been in the identical key. Ryan Mendez blended quite a lot of that stuff for me. We love that tune “Brighton” a lot. It was so enjoyable to make. I can not keep in mind the way it took place, however somebody was like, “I feel that refrain would match right here.” I like that as a result of it takes the tune again. The refrain is so straight and in your face, after which the verse is a bit more experimental. I like that tune. It has that “Presents and Curses”-style bridge to it, constructing with the strings and the piano.
