Denver local
site has recently interviewed Sean Mackin. It was a very interesting chat, so read it below.
By Brian Campbell
OK, sell over two million copies of your debut record, check. Overcome dismal and disappointing record sales with your follow up, check. Bounce back and release a mature, smart sounding record, check. Be adored by millions and millions of fans worldwide, check. Granted that doesn't sound like a normal checklist for a band, but that's the checklist that Yellowcard followed. Their debut Ocean Avenue completely owned the industry then their fans seemed forget about their follow up Lights and Sounds, even though they sold half a million copies of it. Paper Walls is their latest and most mature record to date and the new(er) sound definitely perked my ears, so I need to get some questions answered. I caught up with violinist/backing vocalist Sean Macklin in order to put my mind at ease with all my pressing questions.Something I really wanted to start out and ask about Paper Walls, is that it sounds a lot more mature. Did the songwriting change at all from your last record (Lights and Sounds) to Paper Walls?No, actually we kind of followed the same program we had on Lights and Sounds and Ocean Avenue. I think maybe the maturation that you hear was within the band. We feel like Paper Walls is our finest Yellowcard sound to offer and we really feel more comfortable in our skin. I think that every record it sort of like a little dot on the timeline. It is really easy for an artist to watch their career from there, so kind of what we offer from Paper Walls sonically is we took sort of that energy, that melody and the things that we were good at from Ocean Avenue and we coupled them with sort of the sonic evolution and that sharpened rock edge we had with Lights and Sounds and we sort of pasted it together & what you have is the best Yellowcard sound to date.
Would it then be safe to say that the maturation of the sound can be attributed to Yellowcard’s evolution as musicians, and not anything with the songwriting?No I think that you are right, it is more as musicians and people too. We have always worn our heart on our sleeve and told our stories as life happened to us. It is more Yellowcard at 26, 27 then 21, or, 23, 24.
Would it be safe to say that Paper Walls would be bringing Yellowcard as a band in a new direction musically?I think that it would be safe to say that with each record we stretch the Yellowcard boundaries and of course we don’t really want to do everything exactly the same. We want to have something different to offer our audience with each record, but I think also Paper Walls, one of the underlying themes is that we really wanted to have fun. We just wanted to write a Yellowcard record that was fun. We didn’t have any pressure to follow up two million record sales on our debut record, and you know, no one was sitting there saying, ‘you guys only sold 500,000 copies of your last record.’ It was just a time for us to be ourselves and really appreciate the opportunity we have and that is to be able to write and album and release on a major label, then be able to tour and support that for the next year or two.
It is smart that you said that because for all of the fans that, with Lights and Sounds, wanted you to write another Ocean Avenue. It was smart that you evolved the process without doing much in the same, just like you said.Well, thank you. Looking back with Lights And Sounds, it was a little different, a little bit of a departure for us. There is a couple schools of thought, like you release the same album or something similar and fans burn out on it and no one remembers you anyway or you do something a little bit different and it shows you have evolution and its something that years down the line that fans of the band, you know, something like Pinkerton was for Weezer or Dookie was for Green Day , it is something that fans can rediscover at their own but it shows the band something totally different that they can do; that they want to do, that they enjoy doing, which is changing things up a little bit and showing evolution and showing growth.
When I first listened to Paper Walls, with how the sound has evolved and how the sound has matured, I really didn’t think it sounded like a Yellowcard record. It sounded smart, it didn’t sound naive, and it didn’t sound as young as Ocean Avenue was, or as young as Underdog was. Just like you said, in today’s music industry, like in the genre you guys play, it really is good to see a band maturing with their third record and not sounding like everyone else does, because there are 514,000 other bands that all sounds the same. That is what I like about Yellowcard, and that’s what really keeps me as a fan. For me it is exciting to see where Yellowcard goes after Paper Walls because you really hit the mail on the head with the sound on Paper Walls.
Wow, thank you very much, that was really kind of you.
What was the process in picking Light Up the Sky as the first single?It is basically a lot of people shelling out opinions, and then it is majority rules, including the record label, management, and our in our case our booking agent. She is the hero in the Yellowcard corner; she has been there since day one. The idea was, we could have gone with a song called Fighting, which is what we say around here, the MySpace single, something that has the Yellowcard fans, sort of the younger generation in mind where it has that sound and everything to offer. We kind of have thrown a single out there that sounds like Fighting and we could have gone with a big ballady-type song but that really isn’t our style. We wanted to go with more of a mid-tempo rock song, something like everyone but a little different single for Yellowcard. We wanted some sort of growth, some sort of change; we didn’t really want to throw the same sort of thing out there and see if it bounces back or sticks to the wall. Light up the Sky was getting really great response and then NBC came out of nowhere and said ‘hey we have this TV show Heroes.’ Everything is just kind of lining up and in the Yellowcard world, some of it is hard work and some of it is luck, but we will take it wherever we can get it.
How are you personally involved in the songwriting? I know you lend your vocals to a lot of songs, but are you involved in the lyric writing at all?No I’m actually a very horrible lyric writer. Every time I write something and think, oh this is deep; it is like the roses are red. Ryan gets the lyrics and sings the songs; he tells a really beautiful story. He’s an actor, that is his first talent and he was an English major and was in the BSA program in college and he studied Shakespeare and all these other great story tellers and I don’t really know anybody but Mozart and Beethoven, but they do tell stories all their own, so I kind of focus on the field that I’m in. That’s why we kind of have the greatest team in the world and everyone does their thing and at the end of the day we are Yellowcard.
Do you get the finalized version of the song and then you put the violin to it, or are you actively involved in each piece of the songwriting?We do it collaboratively for certain songs and we have a few different ways but in the end it really is just the Yellowcard way. In certain songs I really don’t hear a violin so I just sit back and let the song just rhythmically take shape and then sort of lend my two cents like an outside point of view or a produce type view and say ‘like hey, you should arrange it this way, or I like this part,’ while the guys are working on the rhythm part. Ill put the violin part on later once I hear the vocals to make sure I’m not getting in the way or find the right picturesque moment for the violin to sort of have its time to shine. In other songs I hear Ryan play and I immediately pick up the violin and stamp it right and say ‘I hear this right now and I really want to have this moment.’ We are a team, we find the right time for everything. Sometimes Ill get stuck and Ryan will go ‘oh I hear this melody, maybe instead of singing it we should play it on the violin,’ or they will go ‘oh I’m playing this on the guitar, check this out.’ We kind of lend a hand to everyone and that is pretty much the Yellowcard way.
How did you go about joining the band with what you do musically?It was completely organic, it wasn’t like a marketing ploy, or like something a local band would want to do to be different. We went to an art school and we had dancers and actors and creative writers; we all went to high school together and we are all musicians and all artistic in our own way. I was friends with one of the founding members, Ben Harper, I was a member of the circle of friends that was Yellowcard, that sort of circle of friends that would drink beer on the weekends and hang out at our parent’s house when they were out of town. We would try and stay out of trouble, then out of that circle of friends, Yellowcard was conceived. Ben and I played acoustic folk guitar/violin stuff on the side and then he was like ‘hey we have this one song,’ then I played a show with them, then recorded that song and actually another song and then after that recording we got such a positive response from the local scene that they were like ‘hey maybe you could play on this song and I started being at band practice writing other songs and playing on other parts of songs.’ Once Ryan joined the band he taught me how to sing and with being a violinist my pitch was pretty solid and it kind of has always evolved. It was just a creative environment like an art school and so what we do today, that’s how my job was inked in Yellowcard.
Do you have a favorite song off of Paper Walls and then do you have a different favorite song to play live at shows?Sure, as you know all of our songs are like my children so I love each song equally. If I had to pick, I like the song Shrink the World. We haven’t played it live yet, and it has been getting really great response but it is not like the standout. I think that song really has everything he have to offer, sort of like a Fighting type of song but a little more in your face. I think right now it is being overlooked a bit because there is some shock value to other songs on the album but I think people will discover it a little bit later on in the record cycle and I think between the melody and the in your face guitar and violin, you know LP just brings so much girth to the table with the drums, it is a really good song, really well put together. Then, a song I really like performing live, I like Light Up the Sky, I think that song has so many different moods and its such a new song for us, it is really awesome to see how the crowd reacts to the songs. We give a lot of attention to our audience and they give a lot back, so to see what the audience goes through during the song is really exciting for me.
It’s crazy to me that you said Light up the Sky because for some reason, in the back of my mind, I had pegged Breathing. I don’t know why, maybe it is because it’s my favorite Yellowcard song. It was just a guess.Believe and Breathing off of Ocean Avenue are definitely my two favorite songs to play. Believe is really hard but it has such a meaningful message that it always moves me as well as I see things happen in the audience and the reaction is always amazing, but Breathing is just that straight forward, like man what song do you want to start out with, lets start out with this one because it is such freakin’ crowd pleaser.
Now that everyone is full acclimated to Paper Walls, what kind of fall tour can we expect?Right now we are focused with bringing the same piledrive to the face that we brought in the previous years. We are just kind of mixing up the song list and repertoire, playing a lot of songs maybe we haven’t played before and play some new songs, and just really give everyone something to take with them. That’s really the most important thing. We are going to be in really good company, we are playing with Sum 41 then with Blue October, and it just gives us the opportunity to get out there and say hi to everyone and remind everyone why we like doing this. I think you will be able to see that energy on stage and it will basically infect the entire venue when we come to town.
Are you guys headlining, or is Sum 41 headlining?It’s written as co-headlining, but I think we have sort of bowed to them and given them the last spot. They sold a few more record than us and it is just really cool to play with a band that we haven’t played with yet and they have always been working hard and have always been working hard, and so to join forces and really come out and hang out with the crowd is really cool. They are going to be closing the shows.
Did you get a chance to pick the openers or did Sum 41 pick then? Did you get a chance to talk to them about that?I don’t really know. That is one of those magical behind the scenes, Sum 41 booking agent, Yellowcard manager/booking agent thing that happens, I really don’t even know who is playing those shows with us. It could be something totally cool, I don’t even know, but that is just how it played out to me.
Was it a conscious decision, after you released Paper Walls, that you didn’t go out and do the whole Warped Tour this year?We did half of it this year, and then had to go out of the country. Everything was good, we have such a great relationship with Kevin Lyman and the Warped Tour and it was just really cool of them to show us a little love and get us out of the gates and get things started with Paper Walls. We went over to Japan and Australia, it just we are having a great and we are really enjoying it.
It looks like that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for talking to me.Thank you for your time, it was a great time talking to you.
Labels: Interviews
