Yellowcard frontman Ryan Key guides us through the inspiration behind the band’s latest album ‘Better Days’, out October 10 via Better Noise Music.

Better Days

“‘Better Days’ is a song about someone in your life who refuses to accept responsibility for their own mistakes. You know their own shortcomings, and while you don’t want to fall prey to that negativity and let that negative energy into your life, you also want to wish them well. You want to hope for the best for their future and hope that someday they find peace.”

Take What You Want

“‘Take What You Want’ is a song for anyone who finds themselves in a situation where you’re just giving so much of yourself, maybe too much, and you’re receiving nothing in return. I found a way in a lot of songs to offer a way out, a solution, turn it positive in the end. And this song is not that. This is for someone who is just going through it, you know, it’s about recognizing that you’re in that cycle and that you can’t get out of it.”

Love Letters Lost (ft. Matt Skiba)

“In Yellowcard, I think the two biggest Alkaline Trio fans would be Sean (Mackin, violinist) and myself. We spent hours in the van driving around the country listening to Alkaline Trio. When Travis Barker, who produced and played drums on the record, heard us talking about that, he kind of just said, ‘Do you want me to see if Matt will sing on the song?’ And we all just laughed out loud and said, ‘Well, yes, of course we would. We would be beyond stoked if he was a part of it’. So personally, this is one of my favorite songs on the record.”

honestly i

“‘honestly, i’ is a song about family, about the future, but then also honing in on the moment that my son was born, and how every single part of me was changed in an instant. But what was cool about writing the lyrics to this song was I found myself also writing this for my wife too, because this song is really about our family unit and my own journey through overcoming that fear and anxiety.”

You Broke Me Too (ft. Avril Lavigne)

“We knew we wanted to have a big monster ballad on this record, similar to a song like ‘Only One’, 20 plus years ago on ‘Ocean Avenue’, and ‘You Broke Me Too’ became that song. But never did we imagine that we would land a guest vocal feature from Avril Lavigne, who’s on this song. And I think it’s just another moment on this record that’s so special. It’s just a really, really cool and unique moment for Yellowcard.”

City Of Angels

“We have a song from a record called ‘Lights And Sounds’ that came out in 2006 called ‘City Of Devils’ about, mostly, the negative impact that experience had on me at that time in my life, in 2006. But I did find a way to explore the good things about the city of Los Angeles and what it’s brought to my life, where I am now, where we are as a band. And I really, really love how ‘City of Angels’ turned out.”

Bedroom Posters

“I think this is such a special song for our band. ‘Bedroom posters’, for me, is a song, lyrically, where I wanted to go back into the past. I wanted to think about leaving my family behind, the consequences of that, but I wanted to write it from my point of view now, not necessarily try to sound like I was writing a song when I was 20 years old.”

Skin Scraped

“It’s about forgiveness. It’s about allowing each of us to be ourselves, and giving each other the space to create, and just being open with each other and honest with each other. And I think that’s really what we are building the foundation of the future of Yellowcard on. So this is a really important song, lyrically for me.”

Barely Alive

“‘Barely Alive’ is the first song we wrote together for the album. It’s the first song we demoed with Travis Barker. It’s the song that lit the spark for this whole thing to be possible. This isn’t the song that talks about fixing it. This isn’t the song that figures out where we go next. This is the song that lives in that moment and tries to sort out why this is happening, why we needed to step away from the band.”

Big Blue Eyes

“The last song on the record. It’s an acoustic song. I think it was important for us to get an acoustic song, and this is a special one. Lyrically, I wrote this song for my son and all the ways that I’ve changed since he came into my life and came into the world. That moment where he was minutes old, and just holding my finger with his little hand, and he’s full of joy. He has shown me how possible it is to change.”

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