Yellowcard: The Gods of Rock Shined Their Light On Us
Following the release of the wonderful new album; Better Days, pop-punk legends YELLOWCARD have entered one of the most unexpected, yet rewarding chapters of their twenty year career. What began as a one off and tentative reunion has evolved into a full scale creative resurgence, complete with a radio hit (yep, they still exist), a blockbuster tour and collaborations with some of the biggest names that pop-punk has to offer. Speaking from the road following a mysterious meeting with Disney shrouded in secrecy, frontman Ryan Key reflects on the band’s unlikely return, the process that led to Better Days and gratitude which is shaping the bands future.
Starting the conversation with a simple “how has 2025 been for you guys?” Key has a huge grin on his face, describing it as “completely surreal”. After their longest ever period between albums since 2016’s self-titled, the band finished the recording of Better Days earlier in the year and once tracking had wrapped, an uneasy calm followed suit. “There was a tension in the air,” Key recalls. “We’d spent a whole year making this record, asking ourselves every day, did we make the record we set out to? We won’t know until release day.”
The answer to that began to unravel months before when the album’s title track was released as a single. The reaction from fans was immediate and energising, however what happened next took YELLOWCARD completely by surprise. Still not looking like he can quite believe, Key recalls that “Better Days went to No. 1 on alternative radio in the US, we’ve never had a number one before and none of us were expecting that”. After years away from doing radio promotions, the expectations amongst the band were low, with some members of the band even doubting the relevance that radio has anymore. The song continued to defy expectations as it steadily climbed the charts, eventually sitting at the top of the charts for a number of weeks, only to be sent down to No. 2 by the new single by SUBLIME. Key muses that “in another universe, we could have had a number one song for two months straight, after believing we were at the end of the road ten years ago, this year has felt incredibly special to us”. The sense of renewal has carried onto their current tour they are undertaking with A DAY TO REMEMBER, performing to packed crowds full of first time listeners. “Each night more hands go up when asked who has ever seen YELLOWCARD before, it feels like the early days again,” Key says with a wry smile. “It’s refreshing to know we have reached a whole new group of people.”
Prior to Better Days, the last full-length album by YELLOWCARD came out in the times of pre-COVID in 2016, accompanied by which was originally meant to be the band’s symbolic and definitive goodbye. After a series of unlikely events, the decision to make new music again arose. In 2021, the band’s booking agent reached out with an offer to make an appearance at Riot Festival in Chicago, presenting a dilemma for the band. “We said we were breaking up,” Key notes “and there’s always the fear of it looking like another reunion gimmick.”
But with the offer and encouragement of their team, led to them trying a single show. The response that followed was overwhelming. With an audience stretching far beyond the stage, signalling a demand to see YELLOWCARD that they themselves were not anticipating. Soon after Key describes “the biggest tour offer of our career” came forward, a tour celebrating the band’s seminal album; Ocean Avenue, a tour that left YELLOWCARD wondering to end on a high note or set their sights on something new. Key definitely explains that “touring nostalgia forever wasn’t an option. If we were going to continue, we needed a new record and it had to feel like an event, not something rushed between tours, but something meaningful. And thankfully, the gods of rock shined their light on us.”
This path to the “event” began when the band decided to bring in outside songwriters. Their longtime friend and collaborator Nick Long was their obvious first choice who had mentioned the band’s plans to a friend of his; the one and only Travis Barker who immediately invited the band to his studio. It was a real pinch me moment for the band, with Key revealing that “we were pretty blown away, we’re talking about Travis Barker from BLINK-182 and the chemistry in the room was instant!” All the cards quickly fell into place as Barker expressed interest, prompting YELLOWCARD a new label partner to support such an ambitious project. A label which was quickly found in Better Noise, offering the largest deal the band had secured in two decades. Working alongside Barker and Long, Key explains that it helped him to “rekindle his connection to our musical roots, after years of producing electric and ambient music, I wasn’t sure whether or not producing rock music would feel natural again. As soon as I got in the room, the floodgates opened and I felt like I was a part of YELLOWCARD again.”
Despite Barker’s unmistakable drumming style and YELLOWCARD’s violin-driven identity, Key reveals that the work with him felt surprisingly seamless. “There was never a moment where we had to force anything,” he explains. “We’d be working on a YELLOWCARD song, and then Travis would walk in and start tracking drums. Suddenly, this song just had Travis Barker on it. It was surreal.” Rather than hype or stroke egos, the experience carried a grounding effect. “It made me zoom out and appreciate how far we’d come in a short time,” Key says. “It was humbling and empowering at the same time.”
Working with Barker led to the additions of further punk and pop-punk icons in the guise of Matt Skiba and Avril Lavigne appearing on the album, which emerged organically through Barker himself. Key recalls when working on the track You Broke Me Too, violinist Sean Mackin commented the song resembled an early 2000s Avril ballad, which prompted Travis to immediately say “want me to ask her?”. A similar scenario unfolded with the excellent Love Letters Lost. The song had been written and demoed alone when Barker suggested bringing in Skiba, who greeted Key with an unexpected compliment in which Key tells us with a smile that he said “I want this song for my band” with him further stating that “the moment was unreal, especially given ALKALINE TRIO’s early influence on YELLOWCARD.”
Reflecting on YELLOWCARD’s evolution from the explosive success of Ocean Avenue to the grounded energy behind Better Days, Key returns to a single theme: gratitude. The early days he explains “were overwhelming. The band went from a garage in Florida to the MTV Awards in just two years. No one in their early twenties has the tools to hand that kind of rise,” he says. Much of the period is a blur, marked by pressure, anxiety and the struggle to process sudden fame. Today the band approaches success differently. “We’re present now,” Key continues, “the tension, the stress is now gone and we’re having more fun than ever and people can feel that when they see us at shows.”
With over a billion Spotify streams and a growing Gen-Z audience, YELLOWCARD’s legacy is reaching listeners far beyond the generation that grew up on Ocean Avenue. Key recounted seeing a ten-year-old boy on the barricade at a recent show. The child didn’t know the older material – but when the band played Better Days, he sang every word. “That image really sticks with me,” Key explains. “A kid discovering our new music the way people discovered Ocean Avenue twenty years ago, that’s special.”
From calling it a day to a reinvigorated career, the journey of YELLOWCARD is one of pop-punk’s more interesting stories and with a new lease of life breathed into the band, it’s thrilling to see. Will we get twenty more years? Here’s hoping!
Better Days is out now via Better Noise Music. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS126 here:
For more information on YELLOWCARD like their official page on Facebook.