Even Yellowcard don't know why they're bigger now than ever

Not even Yellowcard know why they're bigger than ever now.

The four musicians behind "Ocean Avenue" — one of pop-punk's most enduring songs — broke up in 2016. Now, seven years later, they've just wrapped a comeback tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their most beloved album, Ocean Avenue, as well as the release of a new EP, Childhood Eyes. During their trek through the country, the group played to the biggest crowds they've ever had — something that still floors them as they gear up for their set at the Las Vegas music festival When We Were Young later this month.

"I truly never believed I'd be doing anything with Yellowcard again," lead singer and guitarist Ryan Key tells EW. "We had all moved on, and Yellowcard was a closed book in our past, so to be having all these wild opportunities, it's a special time to be in the band. This is, without question, the best chapter of the book so far."

It all began (again) when former band members Key, Sean Mackin, Ryan Mendez, and Josh Portman got an invitation out of the blue to play Riot Fest in Chicago in September 2022. "That phone call came in and changed our lives forever," Key says, explaining that the offer included the fattest paycheck they'd ever been promised. "You don't want to talk about money, right? But that's what got us on the phone," he admits. "Some of us in the band hadn't spoken in six years at that point — no communication whatsoever."

Thanks to their booking agent's insistence — they had "worked too hard for too long" — and because the money was just too good to turn down — they agreed to the gig.

"If this is what it was like all along, we never would've broken up in the first place,'" Key says. "But maybe we would have. I know what I was like when I was 24 — not taking care of myself, just off the rails. I don't even know if I would be here if we had been as successful as we were this summer every year of our career."

For Key, sleeping all day, staying up all... niiiiiight was just the tip of the iceberg in the band's earlier years. "Having this happen now when I'm in this more mindful, mature place in my life is the best thing that could have happened for me," he says. "Riot Fest was such a big success for us — the energy around it was so positive and exciting that we got into planning the tour really quickly after that."

It wasn't just the fans' response to their festival set that inspired them to reunite — it was also the discovery that they worked better now than before. "I don't think there's ever been a time where we all spent so much time together," Key says, reflecting on the group's Ocean Avenue 20th-anniversary tour, which kicked off in July and wrapped in August. "There wasn't a sense of individuality or needing to be away from it if you weren't on stage, which was very much the case [during] what we thought was the end of the band in the late 2010s."

So why is Yellowcard experiencing their greatest popularity ever, 20 years after becoming a household name? "I wish I had an answer," Key says. "I really don't. We are so baffled by the size and scope of what we're doing." He remembers in 2015 that they were struggling to fill a 900-capacity room in Detroit. During their 2023 summer tour they played for almost 7,000 in the city.

"People can give you all the different explanations: Fans are older and they're bringing their kids to the show, they have more disposable income, the pop-punk emo scene is having this resurgence, it was the 20th anniversary of Ocean Avenue," Key says. "But that just doesn't translate to seven times the amount of people... When 'Ocean Avenue' was on the radio every five minutes in 2004, we weren't playing 6,000- to 7,000-seat amphitheaters, much less selling them out. It's surreal."

Key thinks the band owes at least some of its recent success to their mindset shift — they're finally at peace knowing they'll likely never have another "Ocean Avenue."

"We've spent the majority of our career — subconsciously for the most part, but it's impossible to deny — chasing 'Ocean Avenue' after 'Ocean Avenue,'" Key says. "You reach that mountaintop and then you start to come back down the other side, and you're always going to be trying to climb back up. This time, the sense of that, subconscious or otherwise, is completely absent. We are all just enjoying, sitting back, and watching it happen as opposed to being hyper-focused on, 'What if it slips away again?'"

And if it does? Key says they're not worried, and actually more open-minded and optimistic about their future than ever — new album or not, When We Were Young and beyond. "Playing 'Ocean Avenue' at that festival, as the sun's going down in Las Vegas, it's going to be monumental," he says with a smile, adding that they'd love to continue touring.

"I'm excited to see what's next, because I just have no idea," Key says. "Every phone call we get is more shocking and exciting than the last one, so I think the next few years are going to be really incredible."

Yellowcard will perform at the When We Were Young festival on Oct. 21 and Oct. 22.

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