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Ryan Key of Yellowcard · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Three years ago, I started this show caught on the mic.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I made three columns of the two calls that I wanted to have on the show based on my different interest groups.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And today I finally get to knock another one off my list.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's from one of my most favorite fans of all time, Yellow Card.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Ryan Key joins me on the podcast today.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about their new album, Hopeful Science, which is a collaboration album with a group called Annex.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We also talk about the simple pleasures of instrumental music and meditating in this chaotic world in which we live in.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ryan Key from Yellowcard joins me on the show today.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mic.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, ladies and gentlemen, when I started this podcast a little over three years ago, I made a list and I had three columns.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I put down all the athletes I wanted to have on the show.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I put down the musicians I wanted to have on the show, comedians, you kind of get the point.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But in my list of musicians, and being a former musician myself, my next guest was in my top five easily.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: He is in one of my all-time favorite bands.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have wanted to have him on the show for a long time.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Ryan Key from Yellow Card.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: How the heck are you, man?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Very well, dude.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm glad to uh you know get get you one of your top five gets.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just what an honor.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, man, I have been listening to a hopeful sign the past couple of days.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's very re-listenable, isn't it?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get in the weeds about that because I think guys our age, because we're the same age.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of get to this point where we listen to music on a different level, and like it's weird because when we're younger, we're all about the high energy stuff, but when we get older, like recovery is just as important as the actual action.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it was a great listen to unwind to at the end of the night, or if I'm just chilling out at home, and yeah, I I love it.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love it so far.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I've been uh down the rabbit hole of of instrumental music for a long time.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I I haven't music in any form with lyrics has not been really a part of my life for probably a decade more.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean I I I I got really into explosions in the sky um nice in the late in the late 2000s, and that was my sort of gateway drug into what now has become a very broad palette of everything from post-rock to full-blown EDM.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but something about letting my brain um take in the the sounds and form its own thoughts and opinions about what I'm listening to and how it applies to my life versus the lyrics of a song uh applying to you know my own life or trying to make them apply or whatever.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's it's weird, you know, because I think as a songwriter, something that um I'm not a big fan of singing, but I am a big fan of writing.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um my voice has just always been that's a probably an interview for another time, but uh my voice has been a real struggle through the decades to keep afloat.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always it's really hard for me to um, or it used to be a lot harder than it is now, I because I'm not young and dumb and I take better care of myself and I've learned how to protect my voice better.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: But that said, uh writing melody has always been um something that I just love to do, and I feel like is um something that's helped yellow card songs um succeed the way they have is is you know, this sense of melody that I don't even know where I got it from, but it seems like it works some some of the time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that but that all comes from listening to other vocalists growing up and pop songs and you know, pop rock songs and all the music I grew up on.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there was just this shift at some point in my life, and um and I, yeah, I I mean I my dream in life now is to make instrumental music.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I you know, outside of yellow card 20 years from now, I hope I'm scoring films.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like my that's like everything I'm trying to do behind the scenes.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: When you don't see me in yellow card, I'm I'm spending all of my time trying to get uh some some form of a scoring career off the ground.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's um it's a very uphill battle, but I'm I'm not giving up.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think my again, my decade plus of exposure to instrumental music in so many different forms um has really ignited the the sort of the flame to want to do that you know in my own way.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So uh working with Hammock, um it's uh people listen to the the record and and I see a very common thread of comments saying, you know, this is the album I didn't know I needed until I heard it.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is like a dream I didn't know I had until we until it was happening, you know.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I never would have thought, okay, I'm we're I'm gonna make a record with hammock.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's just not that wasn't that wasn't in my three columns of stuff, you know, like yours.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I it's just such an unexpected uh and outside of the box collaboration.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point early in in the production of the record, um when it first came to be, it was going to just be uh, you know, a solo with William Ryan Key and Hammock because there was no yellow card, nor was there ever to be yellow card again.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and a year or so after we were uh working, I was working with Hammock on just a few songs.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: We were gonna do three or four songs and put them out as an EP or something.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yellow Card all of a sudden uh was stepping into this this incredible chapter that was also so unexpected.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went back to to Mark and I said, Hey man, I I don't know if you guys would be down to do this, like really do this, but it yellow card, it's happening, and like I think this could be really cool.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I sent him nine songs.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he said, We're we'll try to get to five, five or six, a little a couple more than we were gonna do with you.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then they just did all nine and sent them to us, like sent the rough mixes.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, Here, we just decided to keep going.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: We did all nine songs.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we ended up getting a full length out of it, which is so huge because we don't have a full length out right now.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really, really cool um release for us in this time, in between tours, and you know, like it's it's just such a cool perfect time for this to come out, I think.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so they they sent me the music and and um you know I went to the guys in the band and I was like, hey, I you know, I've I've been working on this thing for a while, and it's it's gonna be hands-off.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I because it was we the band, all I did was send them a piano and a vocal.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I told them to do whatever they wanted, change the chord progression, uh do the chorus 17 times, whatever.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't care, just may do what you are inspired to do.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, so that was also a really cool moment for me to be able to go to the other three guys in the band and be like, hey, I I have this thing.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And especially cool for Josh, our bassist, who is the reason I got into Hammock.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's my best friend in the world.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he was trying to get me into them for so long, and and it took a while.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why it didn't stick the first couple times I listened to their records, but then obviously they became a huge, huge part of my musical palette.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so to go to Josh and be like, hey dude, you're on your your band is uh gonna it's gonna say Halo card hammock on the album cover.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: His brain was melting.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, it's um all that to say this this record uh is really unique and interesting to me because it fits in with that sentiment of of wanting music to mean something different to me now at this age.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's my own music, so it's it's surreal uh to hear your own music played back to you in this in this new form.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great vantage point because that was something I was gonna ask you about.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yellow card has had a few different hiatuses, like 2008 to 2010, 2017 to 2023.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in the midst of all of this, we've had a global pandemic.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little over a month ago, you became a father.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what a time to be alive.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's one of those things where I'm sure that has probably informed your vantage point about music in different ways as well, because we all have seasons of life where we're not the same person that we were three years ago, let alone five years ago, let alone ten years ago.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've been on a journey for a long time now to sort of try to figure out um you know who who I am now uh and why I was who I was then, kind of if that makes sense, you know?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the best reputation early in our career.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I was I now know in doing the work, you know, that I was constantly just overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, and it really led me to make a lot of really shitty decisions and have a really shitty attitude a lot of the time.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I forgive myself for it now because I I can really break down the reasons, the relationships in my life at that time, the the pressure we were under in ways we never could have imagined.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Think things that you know were out of my control, and I did not have the tools or the knowledge to understand the emotions and and sort of the effect it was having on my mental health.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um and at that time, unfortunately, I don't think I had anyone in my life that was sort of willing to put me on, you know, put my feet back on the ground in in any kind of significant way and say, you need to figure out what's going on with you because everybody wanted the yellow card machine to keep running, you know, and whether it was friends or family or anyone, I mean, I don't blame them.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a good time to be around yellow card, you know.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've done a lot of work on myself to figure out um how to avoid falling into that place ever again.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I still struggle with with really heavy anxiety and and and stress levels all the time, but I I have the tools now to understand when that those feelings are creeping in.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and all this to say, I think it has a huge, has had a huge impact on the music that I am drawn to.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it's why I I love ambient electronica and post-rock and and you know like neoclassical electronic-driven soundtrack and things like that, because it allow it gives me peace.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: It gives my brain peace when I listen to that music.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I l I love the Foo Fighters, I love Green Day, but a new Green Day album is that doesn't make my brain feel peaceful, and that's just not what I need right now in my life, you know?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I've just discovered that by accident that this that this music is uh there is a very clear reason why I'm drawn so drawn to instrumental music, specifically those sort of genres.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like um and and I so yeah, this record is to hear your own music presented in a format that you never would have expected.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um because to me, this is a hammock album.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I gave them some vocals, but the music is 100% hammock from the ground up.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's it's 0% any member of Yellow Card, including myself, it's uh it's just that vocal.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's it's just like listening to a new hammock album, but realizing that it's your songs, it's just surreal, dude.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way to describe it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I can relate to all of that so well.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think my de facto thing that I fell back on was like piano jazz and like old school piano jazz, like Bill Evans trio type stuff.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's the same, it's the same therapeutic effect.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it was like, man, I can only take so much noise.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love all of my hardcore stuff, my metal stuff, everything, my punk stuff, but I have to unplug for me every now and again, and that's what I default to.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: With this collaboration in your pocket and this mindset that you have now, do you have any other collaborations you're looking forward to doing later on down the line?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I do actually.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know when or you know if it will come to fruition, but it's something we've been talking about for a while.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I actually really I had a track that I was that I was gonna work on.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it just my son was on the way and it just didn't didn't pan out.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um one of my well actually my my number one I my number one and number two Spotify rapped artists go kind of battle for first place every year, but they're the same every year.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's it's Christian Loffler, uh, who is a German producer, DJ, whatever you want to, you know, uh, and Oliver Arnolds, who is like an Icelandic neoclassical composer.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Used to be a drummer and a metal band, actually.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um but now he makes wild Icelandic vibe music, you know.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so Christian and I have become buds through uh we just connected over social media, and then my wife and I went to see him in Miami at a small club and we hung out after the show, and we've just realized realized we have a lot, even though our genres are you know a million miles apart, we have a lot in common and a lot we we we love about the same music.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and um so I'm hoping that uh he and I uh are able to connect at some point uh and work on work on a track with him.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've I've been you know, I've got my toes wet in electronic music.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Ryan Mendez, the lead guitarist of Yellow Card and I have a yes, call it a side project.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but we have a thing we like to do and make music under the name Jeddah.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so that's you know, that's been a big part of connecting with other electronic artists and stuff through trying to seek out remixes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we've we've really had gotten to work with some killer, um, killer artists in that space outside of Yellowcard too.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think with Jeddah, there there's a lot of potential for collaboration in a space that I'm really you know curious about and and excited about working in in electronic music.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to press our time past what we're allotted here, but I gotta ask you, as a podcaster myself, and you are a fellow podcaster with Thank the Maker, um, past podcast guest, bass player of Story of the Year, Adam Russell.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: He and I had a great conversation about it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: What have you gained personally and internally from being a podcaster that maybe you couldn't find with music?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's been helpful um for sort of that the work I kind of mentioned, you know, that I've tried to actively be doing on myself.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think having conversation with friends openly every week, um, building those relationships.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Nick from Bayside and I, we knew each other, but we weren't we weren't we weren't close.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's I couldn't imagine my life without him in it, you know.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um same with Mike Forster, he's uh become our fourth host on the show.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um that he and I would have never met or connected without the podcast.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And again, he's become such an important person in my life.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it goes beyond that to the guests we have on the show, you know, just just that sense of wanting to be open and kind um and welcoming to people uh is so uh helpful for for growth as a person.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the podcast is medicine.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like it helps me it helps remind me how to connect in in a positive way with other people.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the mission behind our podcast to inject positive energy into what can be a very toxic space in the Star Wars fandom.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's also really helpful because it's a conscious choice to stay positive.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to make that choice.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure there are some people who genuinely wake up every day and they don't have to make that choice, they just they are just pumped on life and it's all good all the time.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: That I'm sure that exists in the world, but for me, uh a lot of the time I have to remind myself and I have to make a choice to stay positive.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I have to not let the negative side of my personality creep in and take over.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so podcasting has been something that's taught me a lot about making that choice, and um, and it's it's built some relationships that I'll have with me for the rest of my life.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love that same exact effect for myself as well.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I lead people for my day job that I don't talk about on my podcast.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I always ask people, I'm like, so are you listening to learn or are you listening to respond?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is how you become a better person, is when you listen to learn and you learn so much through this venue of podcasting.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is unbelievable.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it really is, man.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we we've had some incredible guests on our show.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, some we would you know call it like legit Star Wars people uh have come on our show everywhere from you know comic book editors to um Ashley Eckstein, who is the voice of Ahsoka Tano in the Clone Wars for eight seasons and and the film.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's you know, a legend, the top-tier all-time Star Wars caliber, you know, uh like highest caliber.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she's become a huge part of my life.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um my wife and I ended up deciding to elope, but for a while we were planning on doing a wedding, a small wedding at Disney World, where we are those people, we are Disney adults, like full blown.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we were gonna do that.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And dude, I you know, I sat next to Ashley on a plane, uh, which is what led to her being on the podcast and us us becoming friends.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: But that's literally it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: We just we just started chatting on a cross-country flight from uh LA to Orlando, and um and uh she was gonna officiate our wedding.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just you know, and that's all through the podcast, it's all through this positive energy that I think is you know surrounding my life and um and the people in my life are giving me that that good energy, you know.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, final question because I know you probably have another marathon of these to go.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I am not done.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is not the end of the night.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think I kind of just said it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean make a choice to stay positive, um, especially in the face of you know, crippling adversity.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's that's when it's most important.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I've had there's been so many points in my life where I didn't take that, I didn't know that advice yet, or I didn't, you know, but either way, if I had it, I wasn't taking it the advice.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was the people around me that did make that choice that helped that inspired me and helped show me how to better my life and um and as you said, hopefully, you know, leave my little place in the world better than I found it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for giving me some time, man.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a pleasure.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I hope maybe we can reconnect in the future and may maybe do a longer one because this has been a great conversation.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Ryan Key, the world's a much better place with you and it, my friend.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, cheers, dude.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: How awesome was that?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: The story of how this episode came together is stranger than fiction itself.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would have to tell it offline.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was basically given 20 minutes and I'm like, hell yeah, I will take it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Ryan Key for doing the show today.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Check out a hopeful sign on your favorite streaming platform.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: The final version of it is pretty dope if you haven't checked it out yet.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Follow yellow card on all social media platforms, but I would guess you probably already are.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're following Caught on the Mic on all social media platforms, and that you visit me at www.cotonthemic.com.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Send me an email, caught on the mic at gmail.com, and make sure you are giving me a top tier rating on your favorite podcasting platform.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.