This article is about the band. For other uses, see
Yellow card.
Yellowcard is an alternative rock/pop punk
band from Jacksonville, Florida. Their music features a unique contribution to the
genre with the use of a violin.
History
Early years
The band released their first album, Midget Tossing, in 1997. While Sean Mackin
was featured on some of the songs, he was not a full-fledged member yet, as he still objected to many of the band's messages.
Where We Stand, their second album, featured the same lineup as Midget Tossing,
and Mackin was featured on more songs. Soon Ben Dobson lost interest in the band and left. He was replaced by Ryan Key (vocals & rhythm guitar), a local of Jacksonville who was playing in a band called
Craig's Brother. In early 2000, the band recorded the "Still Standing EP". Soon
after Still Standing EP was released, Todd Clarry left the band. Ryan then filled both Clarry's and Dobson's duties, guitar and
vocals respectively. After sending the new EP to friend Steve Lubarsky at Lobster Records, the band signed their first recording
contract in June 2000 and by November had headed west to Camarillo, CA to begin working on their next full length.
The group released their third album, One for the Kids (Lobster Records), in 2001 and followed up with The Underdog
EP (Fueled by Ramen Records) in 2002. Both of these were well-received by
fans. However, soon after "The Underdog EP" was released, Warren Cooke left the band due to personal reasons. The band then asked
an old friend, Pete Mosely from Inspection 12, to play bass for them. Somewhere between
the time the EP was released and Warren Cooke left, the band filmed an un-released music video for the song "Powder". The video
was later put on the enhanced version of the band's next album, Ocean Avenue, and it can also be seen on video streaming sites
such as YouTube.
Ocean Avenue
Pete Mosely under the stage lights (April 2006).
Shortly after releasing The Underdog EP, Yellowcard signed with Capitol Records,
which was looking for bands of the pop punk genre gaining popularity. Yellowcard's real public reception came after releasing
Ocean Avenue on Capitol in 2003. Fans loved the album's sincere lyrics and unique
musical style. During the recording of Ocean Avenue, Mosely left, citing personal problems. The band began the search again for a
new bass player and found Alex Lewis, whose sister, Alieke Wijnveldt, contributed vocals to the Ocean Avenue track, View From
Heaven. The band released the first single from the album, which was Way Away. The
song did well on MTV2 and rock radio, peaking at #25 on the modern rock charts. The song created enough buzz for the band's
mainstream explosion that was about to occur. In the middle of the band's tour in support of Ocean Avenue, Pete Mosely returned
from his semi-retirement and asked if he could rejoin. Because Mosely had been an integral part of the writing for Ocean Avenue
and had been friends with most of the band's members since high school, Lewis was asked to leave, and Mosely was reinstated as
the bass player.
In late 2003, the band released what would become their breakthrough single, Ocean
Avenue. The song premiered on MTV's TRL program, and quickly shot up the
charts to #1. Radio eventually picked up on the single, and the song made it to #37 on the Billboard Hot 100. Suddenly,
Yellowcard was everywhere from the covers of Alternative Press, to be headliners of
the 2004 Warped Tour, to on stage at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards, performing Ocean
Avenue and taking home the MTV2 Award as well. They were also featured on an episode of MTV's Real World/Road Rules
Challenge, performing "Way Away" while cast members trashed a mock hotel room in true rock star fashion. The album's 2nd track,
"Breathing", also appeared in EA's Burnout 3: Takedown and Flatout 2. Following Ocean Avenue's success, the band released the single Only One, a rock ballad which also did fairly well on TRL and radio. Eventually, the Ocean
Avenue album sold over 2 million copies in the US alone.
As Ocean Avenue's popularity began to die down, the band spent some time contributing songs to various soundtracks. The first, Gifts And Curses, appeared in the hit film Spider-Man 2. Another, a cover of Lagwagon's Violins, was
featured on the Rock Against Bush Vol. 2 compilation album. At the
2005 MTV Movie Awards, Yellowcard performed a cover of the song Don't You
Forget About Me during a special tribute to the movie The Breakfast Club.
Lights and Sounds
Yellowcard performing in 2004.
For a large part of 2005, Yellowcard worked on their next album, titled Lights and
Sounds. The album was released on January 24 2006.
Pete and Ryan moved to New York City in January 2005 and started writing the album while
the rest of the band recuperated in California from 18 straight months of
touring. The album is something of a concept album, with many songs based on the band's negative feelings towards Los Angeles.
For the album, Yellowcard chose to fade their unique violin style in the background and settle for more of a rock feel. Before
the release of Lights and Sounds, Ryan Key said that this ambitious album would probably alienate a large portion of their fan
base, and that he was 100 percent OK with that. Twenty songs were recorded for the album, fourteen of which are on the CD, plus a
B-side available on import versions, CD singles and at the iTunes Music Store, called "Three Flights Down". The title track, "Lights and Sounds", was the first single released a week before the album. It peaked at #4 on the
Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks. It is featured on Burnout Revenge. In it's first week
of release the album sold just over 90,000 copies, but it only went on to receive gold status. In May 2006, the second and final
single of the album, "Rough Landing, Holly", was released. It wasn't as well
received by fans as the first single and quickly dropped on the charts after its first week of release.
Shortly after recording Lights and Sounds, lead guitarist and founding member Ben Harper left the band to focus on his record
label Takeover Records. He was replaced by Ryan Mendez from Staring Back.
Up until the announcement of this, Ben's record label was about to record Staring Back's next album. Since Yellowcard, Ben Harper
joined the band Amber Pacific, but he soon dropped out. Harper is now in the band Hey
Mike! and runs Takeover Records.
Paper Walls
On October 16, 2006, the band announced over their official
website that they were back in the studio recording a new album. Guitarist Ryan Mendez posted on the official Yellowcard message
board on October 21, 2006 that 3 songs were currently completed
and states "I really think fans of both older and newer Yellowcard are going to be very happy." Pre-production began in October
2006 and tracking began on January 2007.
From January to March 2007, studio footage labeled "Yellowcard Sessions" regarding the band's progress on making the
album was posted on the band's MySpace, with a new video added every Thursday. In total 10 videos have been posted, with
additional footage released on the deluxe CD/DVD edition of Paper Walls. Additionally, in
January 2007, some sample demo songs were released on the band's MySpace, though they were only rough recordings from
pre-production and not the final recorded versions. The first demo is a 30 second preview of the iTunes bonus track, Bombers, and
the second was a clip of an unmixed version of Light Up the Sky.
The first Yellowcard show since October of 2006 took place on March 29th 2007, at the Troubadour in Hollywood, California. At
the show lead singer Ryan Key announced to a sold out crowd that the new album will be titled "Paper Walls". He said he will
"probably get in trouble for this," but went on to announce the title anyway. Key also announced the album title during a concert
at the University of New Haven claiming he would get in trouble for doing so as well. During the Troubadour show, Yellowcard
played two songs from their new album ("Fighting " and "The Takedown"). Yellowcard
played an acoustic set the next night at the Troubadour and premiered two new songs, "Shadows and Regrets" and "Light Up the Sky".
In the teaser of an interview with Jason Tate of absolutepunk.net[1] released on June 17 (one month before the release of the album), Key described the album as
"...very much a record of hope and finding yourself again. It’s after you’ve come through all of that – going to the height of
it – and picking yourself back up again. And by “hitting rock bottom” I don’t mean in record sales or fame or any of that shit. I
mean personally – emotionally...Paper Walls is the story, the feeling, of what it’s like to be out of those holes, looking back,
no regrets, but smarter and having grown through them."
The whole interview was eventually released on July 17, the release date of the album.
Paper Walls was released in the U.S. on July 17 (July 16 on iTunes) in an additional CD/DVD format, much in the same vein as
Lights and Sounds was the previous year. The DVD contains exclusive behind-the-scenes
footage of the band, an extensive photo gallery and two additional live bonus tracks.[2] On July 9th Yellowcard released Paper Walls on their Myspace music player to give
fans a taste of what was to come on the new album. Yellowcard announced on May 15 on their MySpace blog that the first single
would be Light Up the Sky. This song was released to iTunes and radio on June 5th. Soon
after its release, Paper Walls became the second most popular album on iTunes and the most popular album in the Alternative
section. Yellowcard was voted to do AOL Sessions Under Cover. It was released on July 20, and it featured two songs from Paper
Walls. The album debuted at #13 on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling about 40,000 copies in its first week, which is less than half
of the first week sales of their previous album, Lights and Sounds. Yellowcard has been promoting their new album nonstop since
its release and have already started touring for Paper Walls. They have been touring, supporting Blue October. After they finish
that tour, they will go and promote their second single internationally in Japan. Their second single to the album has not been
announced yet, but is expected to be released towards the end of 2007. The single will come with a video recorded when they
finish the Blue October tour, but before they go to Japan.
While touring for Paper Walls, Peter Mosely has announced in a MySpace blog message that he will be leaving Yellowcard to
pursue other endeavors. Here's the post:
"Hello everyone,
We wanted to let you know that I have chosen to leave Yellowcard and pursue other endeavors. It has been an honor creating
music together and I want to wish them the very best in everything they put their hands to. its been a blessing to have been able
to travel the world and perform music. I would like to thank everyone who has supported us through all these years and will
continue to support yellowcard.
Thanks,
Peter"
Members
Current
Former
- Ben Dobson (1997 - 2000) : vocals
- Todd Clarry (1997 - 2001) : guitar, vocals
- Warren Cooke (1997 - 2002) : bass
- Alex Lewis (2003 - 2004) : bass, backing vocals
- Ben Harper (1997 - 2005)(most recently of Amber
Pacific) : lead guitar
- Peter Mosely (2002 - 2007) : bass, vocals
Discography
-
Albums and EPs
Singles
References
External links
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