On the bus with Yellowcard

Soccer penalty? Nope, Yellowcard takes its name from another term for party foul. (AP Photo/Sang H. Park)

By CHELSEA J. CARTER
Associated Press (ASAP)

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) _ The bus is dark. And loud. Really loud.

A music video is blaring off a huge flat-screen television on the tour bus, which is parked out front of a small, dank venue with inadequate plumbing.

This is a musical homecoming, of sorts, for the band on the bus. It was here at Chain Reaction that Yellowcard -- then a pop-punk band -- started to make musical inroads with their fans.

And it is here where Yellowcard plays the last of its warm up shows for its new album, ''Lights and Sounds''

But take a look around the bus and it's evident this is not the same band that put out the multi-platinum ''Ocean Avenue.''

First, the faces are a bit different. Gone is founding member and lead guitarist Ben Harper, who left the band last year to pursue projects with an indie label. On the bus in his place, the newest addition, is Ryan Mendez.

And the rest of the band is, well, a little more sophisticated. Slacks instead of torn up jeans. A leather jacket in place of just a T-shirt.

Then there's a change in the music. ''Ocean Avenue'' was fun, light, adolescent angst. (Sample lyric: Walk on the beach in our barefeet/We were both 18 and it felt so right/Sleeping all day/Staying up all night.)

''Lights and Sounds'' is darker, harder, more rock than pop. The songs deal with everything from lead singer Ryan Key's dangerous dance with alcohol to the war in Iraq -- weighty issues for a band that not long ago was the image of pop-punk lite.

''We want to be a rock band, and we never knew we were going to have to develop an identity,'' Key, 26, told asap. ''Not that we knew we were that kind of band'' with the pop-punk label.

With the new album and the new look, the band appears by many accounts to be a better, more mature version of itself -- musically, at least.

''I think we have made our first step in defining ourselves,'' Key said.

Well, maybe they have made another step. Their first real musical steps came in 1997 in Jacksonville, Fla., at a performing arts high school with violinist Sean Mackin, Harper and drummer Longineu Parsons.

Key, who was not an original band member, dropped out of college after about a year and moved to California but returned a short time later. Harper saw one of Key's band practices in 1998 and asked to jam with the band, which was looking for a new singer at the time. They were later joined by bassist Pete Mosely.

With a handful of songs in hand, Yellowcard headed to California's San Fernando Valley in early 2001, releasing several albums on independent labels. Yellowcard signed to Capitol Records a short time later and released ''Ocean Avenue'' in 2003.

By 2005, though, a rift developed between Harper and the rest of Yellowcard. By last fall, Harper was out.

Meanwhile, Key and Mosely temporarily relocated from the sunny skies of Los Angeles to New York City to write ''Lights and Sounds.''

''New York is a dark city. It's where I was ... and where I think we needed to be to write this,'' he said.

It's an experience that appears to have aged Key and the band. But they are still in a band, right? Asked the three things Key and the band have to have on the tour bus, he clicks off answers:

''Cold beer.''

''Good movies.''

Silence.

''I don't know.''

''We don't do anything else but drink beer and watch movies,'' he says.

Silence.

Oh yeah, he says.

''Deodorant.''

Yep, they are still a rock band.

asap reporter Chelsea J. Carter has her own entourage