INTERVIEW: Yellowcard

By Anna Marketti

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Everyone remembers turning the radio up loud and belting out the words to Ocean Avenue some ten years ago. Making their mark in the pop-punk world since 1997, Yellowcard are still at it, having just released “Lift A Sail”, their 9th full-length, just a few weeks ago. Bringing a new weight to their typically upbeat songs, the band has matured over the past 17 years, as most bands tend to with age. We had the chance to talk with Ryan Mendez as he, as well as the rest of the band, journeys across the U.S. for their fall tour.

Allston Pudding: I know it’s been a few years since you’ve been back together, but you were on hiatus for a while. Did you learn anything from being apart during that time?

Ryan Mendez: Well, it was a kind of mutual decision to go on hiatus. So we weren’t really spending the time sitting around trying to figure out how to get back together. We actually thought that was it for us, but we didn’t want to officially call it quits, so we called a hiatus, and just went our own ways. But once we decided to get back together…it just felt natural.

AP: Did you miss being in a band during the hiatus?

RM: I didn’t really take a break from the music. Ryan [Keys, singer] worked with me to write some music, and we started a little side project. We brought in our friend Sean O’Donnell, and we just made songs, which we mixed and produced ourselves. I actually love the whole act of producing. It’s what I’d be doing if I wasn’t in a band. But yeah, a lot of the songs we made during that time turned into Yellowcard songs.

AP: It’s been a tough year, emotionally, for you guys as a band. Especially for Ryan [Keys], I read he went through some medical problems with his wife. Has any of that influenced the songs on Lift A Sail? This record’s a lot heavier sounding than your previous records.

RM: Definitely for Ryan with the lyrics. For the rest of us, we definitely made some changes. We made the music consciously heavy, we tuned lower. I actually really like heavier music, I’m really into metal. And some of that found its way into this record. As a band as a whole, we’re all actually big fans of Coldplay, and we pulled some influence from the atmospheric synth they use on this album as well. All of Coldplay’s songs sound like they should be played in an arena; they’re like these big, anthemic tunes, and we tried to capture the vibe of that. And the fact that you noticed that means it worked!

AP: It definitely did. Do you miss the old sound at all?

RM: Well, for Lift A Sail, we were trying to make something that sound bigger and more expansive. This sound is newer and more exploratory, but it still has some of the old vibes. It still has the melodic singing, and the violin in it. That’s like our signature, the violin- we’re always going to have that. But you have these bands that have been around for a long time, and they just keep making the same album over and over again, and we didn’t want to be that.

AP: How’s the tour going so far? 

RM: It’s going pretty great! We’re on the road with Memphis May Fire and Emarosa right now. We were actually on a European tour last year, and we played Warped Tour UK, and we spent a lot of time with Memphis May Fire there. They’re good friends of ours. Their sound is a little heavier, more metal- more of what I’m into. And we were just hanging out one night, and their singer and I just said, “Hey, we should tour together!” We were mostly joking, but then we thought about it more, and we realized our bands are more similar than we think, and then it just worked out.

AP: So the last time I saw Yellowcard was on your 2011 tour with All Time Low, at the Congress Theater in Chicago. 

RM: Oh yeah, I remember that show! All Time Low are some of our best friends. Chicago’s always a great place to play.

AP: Glad to hear! And so as you fall into the pop-punk genre, a lot of fans associated with that are screaming teenage girls. How do you feel about that?

RM: (laughs) Yeah. There are some screaming teenage girls. I mean, stereotypes come from somewhere. The way I see it, screaming teenage girls are going to like something, so if that something is our band…well, that’s great! But what I’ve noticed is, since we’ve been around so long [17 years], when we first started out, a lot of our fans were like, 14 o4 15…and now they’re 24, 25, 26. They’re still with us, they’ve grown with us.

AP: Have you noticed a mixing of old and new fans?

RM: Definitely! The new, younger generation that’s coming out to see us, listening to us, they didn’t even listen to Ocean Avenue. That amazes me. Our last single has actually gotten really big, and it’s nice to see that with the newer, young fans, they still care pretty strongly without having been around since the beginning. At our shows, you’ll see fans who are 13 and you’ll see fans who are 30. It’s insane.

AP: Since you’ve been around 17 years, have you noticed any major changes in music- yours or in general?

RM: The internet is a great thing, and it’s the biggest thing in the music industry right now. Our very first record, it sold around half a million copies. But no one actually buys records anymore, thanks to the internet. I actually read the other day that this year, there have been no platinum records.

AP: I read that, too! Does that concern you?

RM: Well…okay, so with country artists, their fans still buy records. But for everyone else, no one is buying music. With streaming services like Pandora and Spotify, the logic has turned into, if you’re going to spend $10 a month on Spotify, then why would you want to buy a record? Music just doesn’t sell anymore. And that’s a huge shift. I think the biggest concern is what to do about it. Ideally, for me, I’m fine with that- as long as you come out to our shows, and just buy our shirt. Support us somehow.

AP: That sounds easy enough. Do you think that would work?

RM: The issue is that there are so many shows happening. Nobody can go to all the shows. A lot of these kids listening to our music- to a LOT of music- are 16 and in high school. They don’t have the money to go to all of these shows.

AP: What’s different with touring now as opposed to touring in the past?

RM: When I joined the band, we were still riding the wave of Ocean Avenue, so things were at a higher level. We had one tour bus for crew, and one for the band. But now, things are at a much more modest level. We haven’t gotten really any radio play, and MTV doesn’t exist anymore really. This tour is a lot more stripped down. We’re lucky to be on a bus.

AP: Are you looking forward to playing in Boston?

RM: We’ve played most of the big venues in Boston before, like the House Of Blues and all that. We played Paradise…Paradise something, I think it’s called, on our first headlining tour.

AP: Paradise Rock Club! That’s one of my favorite venues. Any favorite venues here?

RM: That House Of Blues is the biggest one in the country, I think, and it’s just in such a great area of the city. There’s so much to do in the immediate area, and you get a good feeling there.

AP: If you could tour with any band, dead or alive, who would you pick?

RM: The Foo Fighters. We’re all big fans of them. They’re just a good, solid, straightforward rock and roll band. They’ve been around a long time, too, but they’re still going, and still have a massive following. I’d love to open for them. It’s been a long time since we were supporting a band bigger than us.

AP: Anything else you’d like to let your fans know?

RM: If you stream our record, and you like it, come to our show and sing along! Supporting us that way allows us to keep making music.


Catch Yellowcard at the House Of Blues on 11/4.