00:00We're in such a different headspace than we've ever been before in terms of all these amazing things are happening for us, so just let them happen.
00:07There's no, what's the single going to do?
00:11Are we going to have it go, like, is the radio even going to play it?
00:14Not to say that, I think saying we don't care is not the right way to say it, because it's not like apathy.
00:21It's more just like acceptance of whatever will be, will be, and we're just lucky to be here still making music.
00:29So the pressure was more in the very early days of just making an album.
00:35The concept of if we're going to make a full-length album this time, it has to matter.
00:43This record has to be something that is not just, call it a business card to go out and tour with.
00:50You know, you kind of have to make music to have something to tour on.
00:53But for us, for so many years, it really felt like, and it started to feel like this more towards the end of our career when we thought we were no longer going to be a band, that our new music was sort of just washing them out to see.
01:09And, you know, we would pour all this time and energy into making these full-length albums and really felt like, while our core fan base that has been with us all the way were passionately invested in the music we were making, it wasn't reaching, it wasn't spreading, it wasn't growing anymore.
01:28And so if we're going to make a full-length album, it has to do those things.
01:32We have to grow as a band.
01:33Otherwise, what are we doing here?
01:34You know, and also the fact that we've been playing the biggest shows we've ever played in our career for three years straight now, three summers in a row.
01:41We're playing for just thousands and thousands of people.
01:45We have to sustain that with new music because you can't ride this nostalgia wave on the, you know, it's not the 20th anniversary of Ocean Avenue anymore.
01:53We have to accept that fact, you know, acceptance is what we have to do.
01:57And so this record has to matter.
01:59That's the thing.
02:00And so that's where the pressure really came from.
02:02And we were so lucky to find Travis Barker because it was totally just the rock gods leading us that way.
02:14It was totally organic.
02:15And the way that came to happen was just through a good friend of ours that mentioned to him that he was working with us in terms of song.
02:24We were going to write some songs with our friend Nick Long.
02:28We've never worked with any co-writers before on an album.
02:31So that was a big step for us.
02:33It was kind of something I brought to the band in the early days of this conversation to say, I'm 45 years old.
02:39I make EDM and soundtracks.
02:42Like I don't, going into a full length album as a pop punk songwriter, I think I might be open to having some help for the first time.
02:52But if we're going to do that, I want it to be, we all want it to be with our friends, with people we know, people we trust, people who are band first, you know,
03:00not just LA top line writers.
03:03That was not what we were looking for.
03:04So Nick worked on a lot of songs with Blink on One More Time.
03:08He's worked with MGK and Avril and lots of different projects with Travis.
03:13So when we talked to Nick about working together, originally it was, let's just get some acoustic guitars out and jam and see if we write anything cool.
03:21So he called back and said, I mentioned to Travis, we were going to do a couple of days together.
03:25And he said, bring them to the studio.
03:27I want to work on those sessions.
03:29And we're just like, what, what, what do you mean?
03:33You know, what are you talking about?
03:35Wait, what?
03:35Wait, what?
03:36And I mean, most of our comeback has been reactions like that to every single thing that's happened so far.
03:43But we got in the studio with Travis and this is all kind of a long-winded answer to the pressure question.
03:51He just had a way of dissolving, diffusing, clearing the room of that sense of pressure, sense of tension, of uncertainty.
04:01You know, is this going to work?
04:03He just, you just get in there and jam.
04:06And it's been a long time since we've made a record like in that way where we sit down and write a whole song.
04:13We don't demo it.
04:14We don't live with it.
04:15We don't overthink it.
04:16We just sit in there, whatever the energy is that day, whatever the vibe is, that steers the direction of the music we're making.
04:24And we had not ever made a record with, you know, other people in the room like Nick.
04:30We also worked with a good friend of ours named Andrew Goldstein, who's just an insanely talented songwriter.
04:35So there was this sense of pressure at the beginning, like, oh, what's this going to be like?
04:39What's the, how does this work?
04:41And it was immediately gone because it was, we realized like, oh, this is how we used to write when we were 20 years old.
04:48This is how we wrote music.
04:49We would sit around in an apartment and we would leave that night at two o'clock in the morning and we'd have a whole song done.
04:54And that's basically the song that ended up on Ocean Avenue, you know, on the album.
04:58It was most of those songs were written in a room in a day.
05:02And so after we got in the groove, it was like, well, if it's not the best song in the world, it doesn't end up on the album.
05:09Who cares?
05:09We'll write another one tomorrow.
05:11And so that mentality was just awesome.
05:16It was just awesome because we were so relaxed and we just enjoyed it so much, man.
05:24And it's been a long time since we've made a record in that way.
05:27And I think you can hear it.
05:28I just, I think it just, it sounds like the most core, you know, source material that, that yellow card is to people.
05:40And we just found it again, you know, with a little help from our friends and it's rad.
05:45Well, I wish we could take credit for that, but that's all Travis.
05:47Um, when we were, this is the best collaboration.
05:50Both.
05:51Yeah.
05:51I mean, that's a, yeah, there's, there is a collaboration on literally every song on the album.
05:56And that's Travis Barker playing drums for yellow card, which is unreal.
06:01Um, thanks Travis.
06:02Wait, what?
06:03It's one of those.
06:04Um, but when we were both of those songs, the guest vocals came from us living with the songs and saying, man, this sounds like a early 2000s Avril Lavigne, like monster ballad.
06:18Travis says, well, do you want, you think she should sing on it?
06:21You know, and, and then sends a text to me that says, Merry Christmas.
06:26Uh, and it's a, it's like a board bounce of the song with Avril singing on it, you know, and I sent it to everyone.
06:31And then just, you just don't think that that, that concept or that moment would come to life.
06:35And you look at each other in disbelief.
06:38The Matt Skiba one was more intense for me because, um, I think in the band, Sean and I would be the Alkaline Trio fans.
06:48Oh yeah.
06:48Um, but that was the same, that, that song love letters lost.
06:52I was a demo that I actually wrote at home when we were kind of on a break from being out in California, working on the album.
06:59Um, and that's a cool kind of sidebar to this whole conversation.
07:03I went into the record feeling really kind of unsure of myself and not knowing what, how to really reconnect with the version of yellow card that we wanted to present on this record.
07:15And I came out of it, writing whole songs at home and demoing them and having all the lyrics and melody and everything was just coming out of me, you know?
07:22So I, I had demoed love letters lost from Travis sent me a text message and said, Hey, I've had this bouncing around in my head.
07:29I don't know if it's an album title or another song we're on, but he just said, love letters lost.
07:34That's it.
07:34And I took it, ran with it, wrote a song.
07:37When we finished the song, I don't know if it was you or I, but the concept of this sounds like an Alkaline Trio song.
07:45I mean, the best way.
07:46And, you know, then we're back home again in December, January or whatever.
07:51I'm just sitting at home, probably playing, probably gaming and my phone rings FaceTime.
07:57It's Travis.
07:58I answer and he's sitting with Skiba and, and Skiba's like, Hey dude, um, you know, I, I, we know Matt and have played with Alkaline Trio, you know, throughout the years.
08:07And we, we know them better than we know Blink for sure.
08:11Um, so I hadn't seen Matt in a long time, but he, he said, you know, I was like, Hey dude,
08:14I just want to say, man, I want this song for my band.
08:18I was just, you know, floored, uh, to hear that, um, from him and, and man, he was just so gracious and so kind and what he was, you know, uh, in the way he was talking about the song and how excited he was to be a part of it.
08:32And so literally hung up the phone and went in the vocal booth and tracked his vocals.
08:36And, and they, Travis sent it to me that night, late, late at night.
08:40He was like, all right, we're done.
08:41Here it is.
08:41And for the two of us, I mean, that is just a, a, a really unbelievable.
08:47Uh, it, it, it was a really unbelievable thing to process listening to our music with Matt Skiba singing and Travis Parker playing drums.
08:58And it's just a lot, it's a lot to get your head around to be the full circle dreams do come true kind of thing.
09:04And it's just a lot to get your head around to be the full circle.
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