Today is a great day for new music. Along with all the other fantastic releases (Lower Than Atlantis, New Found Glory etc), pop punk favourites Yellowcard return with their ninth album. We went to the incredibly cool Far Rockaway in Shoreditch to have a chat with frontman Ryan Key about how they’ve branched out from their pop punk roots with ‘Lift A Sail’ and what we can expect from them over the next 18 months. It’s all happening!
HOW EXCITED ARE YOU TO RELEASE YOUR NEW ALBUM, ‘LIFT A SAIL’?
I feel like it’s been the longest four months of my life. I don’t remember it ever feeling like this and taking so long, but we’re so excited.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT YOURSELF?
I’ve been describing it as: imagine if all of our favourite 90s bands and Coldplay had a lovechild and made a record. That’s how I’ve been describing it. It’s definitely not a pop punk record. I’m fearing that it’s gonna sound like we have an agenda as we’re covering this in every interview, but it is what it is and I want people to be aware of that when they listen. If you just clear your mind and take it as it is for its own work and its own thing then you can enjoy it a lot more than if you’re expecting a certain sound. We’ve always tried to step outside the box of whatever genre we were placed in but I don’t think we’ve ever done what we just did with this record. So I think it’s gonna be pretty polarising for fans. There’ll be a lot of grey area. You’ll either love it or hate it. But so far, there’s been an extremely overwhelmingly positive reaction from people and I think it’s a big record for us. It’s a really important record for us.
IS THIS ALBUM NUMBER NINE?! DID I COUNT THAT RIGHT?
Kind of, yeah. Yellowcard in its original formation was a band in high school who put out records and sold them at shows and at school and stuff. Those are the first two full-length records. I wasn’t in the band then so for me this is my seventh full-length record, which is still a lot.
I GUESS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN TOGETHER THAT LONG AND MADE THAT MANY RECORDS YOU DON’T WANT TO KEEP MAKING THE SAME RECORD.
Sure. We’ve never wanted to write the same record twice, but I don’t know, I don’t want it to come off as pretentious or like we have an agenda, but I think this is the band we’ve wanted to be for a long time, just kind of more of a rock band with more options sonically and I think this is that for us. It opens the door for future records to grow and expand and explore what we can do.
HOW WAS THE RECORDING PROCESS FOR THIS ALBUM?
It was an adventure, it was awesome. We did it with Neal Avron, our producer, who we’ve been with for over a decade now. He started with us on ‘Ocean Avenue’ and has been with us ever since. So he always puts us to the test and gets the best work out of us, but when I first started talking to him months prior to doing this record, I was saying that I was in a different place with writing and it’s not gonna be what we’re used to, and he was like, “Awesome, love it, let’s do it”. So throughout the recording process, where there are less guitars and stuff, he would’ve wanted it to be even more experimental, because I think as a producer that excites him. But we found a great medium as far as trying a lot of production we hadn’t tried before, like electronic elements and percussion. We’ve always used a lot of strings sections – Sean always writes and records everything – but we made a choice on this record, so while there’s still strings, in a lot of places we’ve replaced that with soundscape synth sounds instead of the strings. So we went all over the place exploring different sounds. A lot of choruses have this crazy depth to them, and it’s because there’s these layers of sounds that you’ve never really heard on our records, and Neal was integral on that. So that was the most exciting part of the record, all the chances we took and Neal helping us go down the rabbit hole, and it was super fun. No rules, and as we say, no fucks given.
PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY HEARD YOUR SINGLE ‘ONE BEDROOM’. IS THAT A GOOD SIGN OF WHAT’S TO COME?
I think that song was chosen as a single by the record company because we didn’t want to get involved in choosing. We kind of made a conscious decision that we wanted it to be something they were confident in and they believed in. Also, if I chose a song, or we chose a song, and it didn’t work, they’d be like, “Well, you told us to pick that one”. This way if it fucks up it’s their fault, it’s on them. No pressure. But I do think in hindsight, them choosing that song, I understand why, with its accessibility and radio play ability. I think it has that electronic beat but then it’s still connecting you to old Yellowcard with the acoustic guitar and the way it is lyrically and melodically. But at the same time it has that huge 90s Filter, Smashing Pumpkins outro as well, so I think it’s a really cool taste of everything on the record.
AFTER THIS YOU’VE GOT A US TOUR WITH MEMPHIS MAY FIRE. I PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE PUT THE TWO OF YOU TOGETHER…
Sure. I know the Memphis guys pretty well, and I think in our respective genres, we’re tired of doing the tour with four bands who are always on tour together. It’s either gonna work or it’s not but we thought it’d be cool to bring something different to the fans.
IT’S NOT COMING TO THE UK, IS IT?
No, but we’re working on what we’re bringing over here.
I HEARD YOU’LL BE OVER HERE IN AROUND MARCH/APRIL…
Sure, we’ll be around then. We’re looking at spring time.
SEAN FROM THE BLACKOUT SAID HE MISSES YOU INTENSELY…
I would be lying if I said we weren’t trying to get them to do this UK tour with us, so we’ll see. My response, Sean, is: ‘Do the tour’.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AFTER THE US TOUR?
We’re finishing up the US tour in November and then we haven’t announced this yet but we’re going on a big trip to a far off land at the beginning of December. We’re pretty much booked until July next year, which is awesome. We’re excited about the record and we can’t wait to play in the UK next year. I mean, hopefully more than once as we always try to come over for festivals. We’re gonna be super active for the next 18 months so we’ll be here. It’s so weird that over 15 years in we still have a lot of fans. It’s nuts.
LAIS MW