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Taking a bow: Violin fuels sound
of punk-pop band Yellowcard
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Fans normally know what to expect from the Vans Warped Tour, the
premier punk-rock summer road show: Skateboards, tattoos, power
chords.
But last year, when Yellowcard appeared, they buttressed the old
guitar-bass-drum setup with something new: a classically trained
violinist.
“Kids had no idea what I was doing up there,” says Sean
Mackin, the group’s answer to Isaac Stern. “But by the
end of the show, they said, ‘You rock!!’”
More and more people apparently think so. Yellowcard’s first
major-label CD, Ocean Avenue, has broken into the upper fourth of
Billboard’s Top 200 Album list. Driven by the single
“Walk Away,” which features a strident violin riff, the
CD has sold nearly 500,000 copies.
The result puts this five-man band in league with the narrow list
of hit rock bands to boast a violinist, including Seatrain,
Jefferson Starship, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and the Dave Matthews
Band.
Mackin says he took up the instrument, at age 6, for the
time-honored reason: “My mom made me.”
The musician grew up with band front man Ryan Key in Jacksonville,
Fla. The group’s earliest incarnation formed in high school,
though they didn’t coalesce until Key and Mackin dropped out
of Florida State University and moved to L.A.
Local punk-pop bands influenced them first. But soon the group
began to take more influences from earnest emo groups. On an
independent compilation record, they even covered a song by mewling
singer-songwriter Michelle Branch.
While Ocean Avenue retains the punch of punk-pop, it has none of
the sarcastic humor. Instead, it boasts sincere songs about old
friends, 9-11 and their childhood hometown. The cut “Life of
a Salesman” was written for Key’s dad – a rare
expression of parental respect in the angry world of Vans
Warped.
“We all come from good families,” Mackin explains.
Despite the group’s heart-on-its-sleeve approach,
they’re not above the rare flash of irony. As a nod to the
kitsch end of violin-rock, the group is considering covering
Kansas’ famously awful smash “Dust in the
Wind.”
“I don’t know if we’ll actually do it,”
Mackin says. “But if we do, I think it will be more along the
lines of a jest.”
Jim Farber
New York Daily News