On the afternoon of September 14, 2002 I got into the Yellowcard rv and
this is what happened. Ryan sings and plays guitar. LP is the drummer. Ben plays guitar. Sean plays the violin and sings.
Josh: If you go to songmeanings.net and look up the words for Rough Draft, someone posted that there is no one who doesn’t like Yellowcard. I think it’s true because I’ve never met anyone who said Yellowcard was bad. And if I play them for them- if I play you for them- they think it’s good. And I am by no means into pop at all.
Ben: Do you like us?
Josh: Yes.
Ryan: We’re all from Florida and we had no idea what was coming up. We were just doing what we had always done in high school. This was before the Drive Thru Records revolution even began. We were never a band trying to get on a record label that was the cool record label to be on. We were outside talking to kids and signing autographs, and there were these kids in band that does good in this area, but they were complaining because they weren’t signed and said they wanted to be on Drive Thru. I was like, “You’re playing shows so you can get signed to a label that’s big right now?” We never were about that at all.
Ben: If songs don’t stoke us out, we don’t do them.
Ryan: We never sit down though and say “If we play this part this way and sing these words, these little girls are going to like it”. It’s just harmony with balls.
Ben: We have fun.
Sean: We like what we do. And we can tell when kids are having a good time. And when they’re having fun, it just makes it more fun for us all. We just have a good time and hope you do too.
Josh: There are break downs though. There’s a good one in Avondale I think a lot of hardcore kids would even like. But on the Underdog EP specifically, I know some of the lyrics seem to definitely have a more hardcore feel to them.
Ryan: Lyrically, the Underdog EP came from a different place than One For the Kids did.
Josh: Did it come from evil?
Ryan: Well, there were a lot of things going on. We hadn’t been required to write anything for so long, we had just been touring. When we got our new record deal, we wanted to put out an EP for Warped tour. Just... moving to California, being hungry, being broke, just doing band things, there was a lot of shit.
Ben: This guy just has so much emotion and drama going on in his mind.
Ryan: I’m a princess.
Ben: He’s not really a princess.
Ryan: No, I am.
Ben: He was an actor in high school. But he just feels what he does and he writes about it. You know how all this reality shit is big these days? Maybe that’s why because our songs are so real. People like them because they can relate to them. He’ll write about himself, but leave it open so everyone can have their own take on it, with their own life. So how cool is that?
Josh: But you’re actually from Florida, and you appear on this compilation called Because We Care, which is a collection of Orange County bands. How did you end up on an Orange County comp?
LP: Our first real California show was Chain Reaction and that place is very influencial.
Sean: We’ve lived in California now too for about a year, and it’s just as much home to us as Florida. Florida is where we grew up.
Ryan: Kids really took to us in California, but especially in Orange County. It kind of started there, and then took over the rest of California.
Sean: They were hyping us up so big, bigger than we could ever be. Bringing booking agents to our shows. Bringing labels to our shows.
Ben: But even in California, we don’t live in Orange County.
Josh: So to keep with the Because We Cre comp., there’s actually a Lobster comp. out there with Rough Draft on it acoustic and then Because We Care has it electric. Did that start as an acoustic song and then turned electric or vice versa? How did that work?
Ryan: I put itdown acoustic two days before I left for tour to try and get this girl I’ve been pining after.
Sean: He recorded it directly to give to her.
Ryan: We knew a guy and he did it for me, then somehow it got to Lobster. They liked it and wanted to put an acoustic track on the comp., so we were like, ok. And now at every show someone asks us to play it. I say that we don’t play it because she’s a bitch and we hate her, but really the chorus is just hard to sing. It sounds bad on all the tape we’ve ever had of it, of us playing it live. The electric version was done when we did demos, shopping for a label, but yes it was originally an acoustic song.
Josh: And you needed unreleased material for both the Lobster comp. and Because We Care, so you kind of took care of both of them with different versions of the same song.
Ryan: Yes. But it wasn’t really for the public.
Sean: Yeah, we weren’t planning on putting it out. But they needed a song.
Josh: But it’s a good song, I’m glad it made it out.
Ryan: There’s rumors that we might be putting it on the full length. You never know what will happen though.
Josh: But then you’ll have to play it.
Ryan: I know, but I’ll end up changing it.
Josh: Just keep the line in there that’s “kill me while I still believe that you were meant for me”.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: And keep in the Saturday night part.
Ryan: I will.
Josh: I guess I’ll stick with the comps, since you’re on every comp that has come out this year. (laughs) You’re also on Punk Goes Pop, one of the only songs on there that’s even worth listening to.
Sean: They didn’t even wanna do that song. Ryan and I wanted to do it.
Ben: I wanted to do the Pink song.
Josh: Does anyone listen to Michelle Branch?
Ryan: Sean and I love that song.
Sean: We bought the record.
Ben: It’s a good song. She writes her own fucking shit.
Sean: We just thought that was the coolest thing.
Ryan: We had to change keys though.
(Ben hits the high notes)
Sean: We actually had no idea what was going on with Fearless, just that they wanted us to do it.
Ryan: Yeah, we kind of threw it together last minute in the studio.
Josh: It’s one of the only songs on the comp. too though where it’s ok to listen to the original. And I’m glad they didn’t give it to a stupid band like Dynamite Boy. Umm... Have you actually ever seen the movie Yellowcard?
Ben: What? There’s a movie?
Josh: Yeah, it’s about a soccer player and his illegitamate child or something.
(everyone laughs)
Ryan: I heard about that.
Josh: So your band is not about the illegitamate son of a soccer player?
Ben: No, but it is about the meaning of a yellowcard in soccer. It was just a warning, and when we were partying in high school, it was this thing I started. If we spilled a beer or broke something, you got a yellowcard. And it was like, “Yellowcard one more time and you’re out of here, buddy!”
Josh: Do you think it’s more beneficial to have a violin, since it kind of sets you apart from every other band out there? I mean, some people may see it and be like “what?”, but I don’t think it’s just out there, I think it all flows together well, like as opposed to if you had an accordian or something.
Sean: That’s the idea. We kept going with it because it was working for a while, even as a third guitar part. It just works.
Ben: And most bands have strings on their record now anyway.
Sean: When we set up in a town we’ve never played before, and we put the violin on, people keep watching. It makes them watch us, and then we start rocking ass with the violin it makes them want to hear our CD.
Ben: Next question. Next song.
Josh: You guys are kind of that band right now that are known as having the violin player who does backflips.
Sean: That’s hot.
the Official Yellowcard site
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