#ryan key

[melanch0lymist]

Patrick Stump in Moustachette

[tomsmusictaste]

Yellowcard // With You Around

[inlovewithaspiderguy]

Moustachette rocks. It’s very funny

[feelingsofaithless]

[pissworm39]

yellowcard is one of the most underrated bands in the pop punk scene and it's so frustrating because they genuinely have so much talent but nobody seems to really recognize it (except for ocean avenue)

[thisaintascenereviews]

Yellowcard - Southern Air (Twelfth Anniversary Retrospective) [Featuring @jakeh2987]

In the summer of 2012, I dove headfirst into the genre of pop-punk. I was familiar with the genre already, having already been a fan of bands like Paramore, Fall Out Boy, and Blink-182, and having heard some stuff from New Found Glory, Man Overboard, and some other random bands, the album that opened the floodgates was 2011’s Under Soil & Dirt by The Story So Far. That album really introduced me to the genre, and I was head over heels for it. I needed something new to listen to, because I was getting bored with metalcore and post-hardcore, but that album opened up a whole new world to me. It came out in 2011, but I think I found it in the summer of 2012, because I remember finding it later.

That summer also happened to have four major pop-punk releases, although they were major to me. All Time Low first dropped Don’t Panic, which was a return to form for the band after going to a major label, but then in the span of two weeks, With The Punches and I Call Fives dropped their debut albums, then Yellowcard dropped Southern Air. I was familiar with them, knowing the title track to 2003’s Ocean Avenue, but that was it. I heard “Always Summer” a few months before the album came out, and I really enjoyed that song, so I made a note to check out the whole thing. Sure enough, Southern Air ended up being one of my favorite albums of the year.

The album turns twelve this year, and I wish I would have done a 10-year retrospective on it a couple of years ago, but better late than never, right? This is an album that means a lot to me, not only for being one of the first pop-punk albums that I got into, but it still holds up all these years later. This record means a lot to me, especially for the sense of nostalgia I get every time I listen to it, but I’m not here to talk about this album alone. I’m bringing along my buddy Jake to talk about this album, as he’s a big Yellowcard fan. I couldn’t imagine talking about it this with anyone else, so to kick things off, what’s your history with Yellowcard, as well as this album?

Firstly, thanks for having me back to do this! I'm always down to talk about Yellowcard; they're the band I credit most with really getting my foot in the door as far as my love of music goes. Ocean Avenue was the very first album I ever bought in the summer of 2006, and I just fell head over heels for it. It was really one of the first times I could call music "mine," so to speak, because up until then, I'd listen to whatever my family was listening to, and that was a lot of 80s hair metal or the boy bands of the 90s and early 2000s. Funnily enough, though, I didn't keep up with Yellowcard, or pop-punk as a whole, until much later in life. My music tastes kind of shifted a bit after I discovered Linkin Park, and eventually I got into a lot of the super big hard rock bands of that era, like Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin. Yellowcard wasn't particularly on my radar for a long time, until one day in 2012. I was in an FYE, just browsing the new releases when I saw there was a new Yellowcard album out that week. I remember thinking "Aw man, I loved Ocean Avenue, I should check this out for kicks!" So, I bought Southern Air that day, and I had no idea that this band was about to change my life again. We'll get into more about what works about this album, both on its own and in terms of Yelllowcard's discography, but man, hearing this thing for the first time hit me like a wave of nostalgia; six years afrer I discovered Ocean Avenue, it was like I was catching up with an old friend, and we picked up right where we left off.

You’re absolutely welcome, man! I’m glad to have you aboard for this, because I know you’re a huge fan of Yellowcard, especially being the band that got you into music. I can completely relate with having music that feels like “yours,” and that’s what Fall Out Boy’s Infinity On High was that album for me (despite listening to a few other albums before then, but that’s the one that stuck). Southern Air came out at the right time for me, because I was just getting into the genre throughout that summer, and after hearing a lot about them, I figured I’d check it out, but I didn’t realize how important that album would end up being, especially all of these years later. It’s always awesome when bands can make you feel like you’re catching up with an old friend, especially after them coming back after so long, whether you haven’t listened to them in so long, or they hadn’t released an album in years. That’s how I felt when Fall Out Boy finally came back last year, but I digress. Before we talk about this album, I think we need some context as to where the band was at the time, because there was a lot going on with them for the last few years before this thing. I listened to this as a stand-alone album, but what was the context surrounding this album and what makes it so important in their discography?

So, after they put out Ocean Avenue, and that album catipulted them into siccess, they put out two more albums, 2006's Lights and Sounds and 2007's Paper Walls. Both of those albums I I feel are very good or even great (Paper Walls in particular I think is actually pretty underrated), but they didn't do as well sales-wise or in terms of fan enthusiasm as Ocean Avenue did, and that, combined with the members wanting to take a break for various life reasons, led to a hiatus in 2008. That would last until 2010, and then they would release their comeback album, When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes. I often think because Southern Air is so beloved and turned out so well, this album gets overlooked, but thinking about it for this piece, it almost feels like a beta test for what would come next. When You're Through Thinking really reignited the love for Yellowcard both for the members themselves and for the fanbase, and they had such a great time making that album, it ended up being a pretty quick turnaround to get to Southern Air in 2012. And boy did it pay off for them; Southern Air ended up debuting in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, their highest charting album since Lights and Sounds in 2006, and the fanbase was universally happy and loving the album. I think outside of Ocean Avenue, many fans would consider Southern Air to be the best thing they've ever done, and honestly, I can't really argue against that. I think you said this when we first started talking about doing this, but it really is a lightning-in-a-bottle type of album. Let's get into why this thing works as well as it does.

Yeah, Southern Air is one of those “lightning in a bottle” kind of albums where everything fits so perfectly into place, and there’s no way that it could ever be replicated. Every moving part came together in such a perfect way to make something that is truly one of a kind, and Southern Air is just one of those albums for me. Even without any context going into this, you can hear a renewed sense of energy and vigor that the band seemingly hadn’t had in so long. There’s so much energy here, minus for what I argue to be the emotional crux of the album (and one of the most heart wrenching and unique pop-punk songs I’ve ever heard, even 12 years later), but you can tell they were having a blast working on this, and aside from When You’re Through Thinking, this truly feels like a return to form, so to speak. This isn’t just one of my favorite albums of 2012, but it’s one of my favorite pop-punk albums, period. A lot of the genre is youthful in tone, and it’s not meant to be so timeless, but I’ve found that this album has only aged better with time, both for its music and its lyricism. It just keeps getting better after every year. If anything, this album retains the youthful spirit of their earlier work, but there’s a sense of maturity and growing up that lingers throughout it. I was a year out of high school when this album came out, and I didn’t have any idea what I was doing with my life, but this album felt so relatable to me, because one of its biggest themes is getting older and feeling lost, and that’s a theme I still relate to all these years later. What do you think, though? What makes this album work so well for you?

You know, I think you really hit the nail on the head when you talked about the youthful energy mixed with this almost world-weary maturity that makes Southern Air work so well and why it's held up as well as it has. The themes of growing up yet feeling uncertain of where life is going or being afraid to take that next step I think is something almost anyone can relate to, especially at our age. So often, there's this pressure to have it all figured out by the time you hit your 30s, and as someone who turns 32 in December, this album really cuts to the heart of that. "Here I Am Alive" is the song that really drives this home for me; it's a song about being unsure of what's ahead, but ultimately being okay with that and being ready to take that on. You alluded to it earlier, but we also gotta talk about the song "Ten," because man, what a gut-punch this one was when I first heard it, and even still now. The song was written about vocalist Ryan Key's then-girlfriend suffering a tragic miscarriage, and when I was listening to the album again for this, I had this thought about this song that I hadn't really thought of before; it's an incredibly emotional song on its own, but within the context of the album, it's a sort of flip on its themes, talking about what could have been and being heartbroken that he'll never get to experience those things with his unborn child.

But even outside of all that, the band as a whole is just in top form here. Southern Air was actually the last album (not counting the acoustic version of Ocean Avenue they would release a year later to celebrate its 10th anniversary) featuring their longtime drummer Longineu Parsons III, and you can tell he's having an absolute blast on this thing. There are so many cool little drum fills he does on this album that always get me hyped when I hear them. The band's secret weapon, violinist Sean Mackin, also has plenty of moments to shine; that solo he has on "Always Summer" really brings that song home. And vocalist Ryan Key had never sounded better than this to that point. I always really liked Key as a vocalist, but here, he's still got that youthful energy in his delivery, but he'd also really improved as a vocalist, and he really sells the emotions in these lyrics, especially on the aforementioned "Ten."

Ryan Key is certainly an integral part on why this album works, and I already mentioned the lyrics a bit, as well as the themes of growing up, getting older, and wondering where you’re going and where your life could be headed, but “Ten” is what I referred to as the emotional crux of the album, especially for what you said about the song flipping those themes about an unborn child and what he would be missing out on by not being born into this world. Miscarriages are a very taboo topic already, and certainly not spoken of in the pop-punk scene, but it brings a lot of the themes of the album together. Key as a vocalist is a big part of why this album works as well as it does, because he’s got such an energetic and invigorating delivery that sucks you into his woes and revelry. His delivery is youthful, but world weary, so it has that nice balance between jaded and naive.

The rest of the band is killer, too, and I think this album works so well for me, personally, because it’s the perfect distillation of their sound, but a modernized and mature version of it, albeit at the time, anyway. I also think they made this album knowing full well they would never be a full-fledged pop-punk band, and it might seem to be a farewell to their old sound, at least until their latest EP from 2023. Even then, that EP certainly does not try to top their classic material, let alone this album. Their last couple albums before their hiatus were some of their more adventurous albums, and they dove into stuff that they hadn’t done before, so this feels like a farewell to their youth, both literally and metaphorically.

Before we close this out, I have one final question to ask, and we can discuss a bit — I know you said was a fan favorite, but where do you rank this among their body of work, let alone would this be a good album to recommend someone new to th band? Personally, this is my favorite Yellowcard album, both for its nostalgia and musicianship. Ocean Avenue is a close second, but I don’t have that nostalgia for it the way I do with this one. I also would say this album is perfect for new fans, because of its immediate sound, and its very mature and adult themes.

It's interesting, because while I think I'll always put Ocean Avenue above anything else because it was *the* album for me, I can't really argue against Southern Air being their magnum opus. It has all the best parts of what makes this band so special, and it's packaged in a modern coat of paint that, like you said, is a pretty good way for someone to get into them. Not to discredit their other work, either, but I do think Suothern Air and Ocean Avenue are at the top, and then it's kind of the rest of their discography. But you know, it's gotta be pretty damn cool to know you've made two classic albums that have stood and will continue to stand the test of time, in two different eras of your career, no less! I will say, though, for this album especially, I think When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes is an important album in that it was a launching pad for what we'd get with Southern Air, and without that initial comeback, we're not sitting here today talking about this album. And for their later mateial, I'm more mixed on Lift A Sail, and their self-titled album is probably not gonna have quite the same impact now that it's not their final release, but they're all very soldi in their own ways and worth a listen. I'm hoping the Childhood Eyes EP ends up being much like When You're Through Thinking, in that it's a great first step for what will come next.

Ocean Avenue is always going to be their biggest album, just for how important it was to the 00s pop-punk scene, but Southern Air has that maturity that Ocean Avenue doesn’t. It doesn’t make that album bad, by any means, but Southern Air hit me at the right time. That’s the best way to go out talking about this album, though — Yellowcard have one hell of a legacy. They dropped two classic albums in a ten-year period, as well as many other albums people love, and how bands can say they have two, let alone one, classic albums under their belt? I’m excited for their future, especially if their future material is anything like Childhood Eyes. That’s a great stepping stone, especially in the way that When You’re Through Thinking was. It’s good they’re back, because the pop-punk scene was missing one of its best bands, even if their later stuff doesn’t quite have the same critical appeal as their earlier stuff. As always, though, it was a real pleasure talking with you about an album we love! There’s never any time I wouldn’t want to talk about this album.

Thank you again for having me! This has been such a great time, revisiting this album in general and thinking about it and talking about it like this. I can't wait to see what we get up to next!

[ifourloveisdead]

Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Yellowcard, and Sum 41 in Alternative Press Magazine, 2010.

[joannaliceevans-fanficblog]

This album holds dear to my emo heart!

[mrwentzrossway]

oh my god i love the scene in moustachette after ryan key insults pete's gf and hez like can i help u with something buster? and pete just stares at him like

wtf did u say to me

[kateisodd]

Believe Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

Text reads "Everything is gonna be alright"

✵DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION✵

[lethalsinner]

Yellowcard - O2 arena Brixton 17/11/2024

Celebrating 20 years of Ocean Avenue tour

[tomsmusictaste]

Yellowcard // Always Summer

[smashorpasspolls]

[decemberthe7th]

I 🎻 am 🎻 the 🎻 love 🎻 you 🎻 need 🎻

[pissworm39]

the haters could NEVER (i am OBSESSED with yellowcard it is BAD)