Imagine walking into your high school cafeteria, and being told that you have to sit through a concert while you eat your sloppy joe and rubbery pizza. But instead of your high school choir or marching band walking into your lunchroom to bore you for an hour, it’s a national punk rock band.

That’s just what the SoCal rock quintet Yellowcard have been up to for the last year. “We would just post on our Web site that we will play high schools while on tour—If it can be coordinated, we will play there,” Bassist Alex Lewis told Life In A Bungalo at a recent Warped Tour stop. “We had a really a good response. We were hitting high schools once a week. Sometimes three or four times a week.”

According to Lewis, the hardest part was telling kids that Yellowcard couldn’t play their school because they were already hitting a rival school in the area. “The cool thing was that we played for a lot of kids that wouldn’t have even thought of listening to us. You never knew what kind of school it was. For all we knew, the kid who e-mailed us could have been the only one at the school who knew who we are. Those were the best schools.”

Music and high school were always synonymous to the members of Yellowcard. Every one but Lewis spent time in art-themed high schools in Jacksonville, FL, focusing on either musical instruments or theater. After high school, some of the guys dabbled in college then nixed their studies in exchange for full-time music careers. Yellowcard formed in 1997 and went through a handful of member changes before becoming somewhat stable in 2000, releasing the full-length record “One for The Kids” and “The Underdog” e.p.

Lewis joined the band earlier this year, just as the group’s latest album “Ocean Avenue” was about to break on Capitol Records. The new record features an eclectic mix of emo, punk and hardcore styles blended with a violin that fills lead and rhythm duties on most of the tracks.

What was it like joining a band whose styles range from melodic-pop to full-on rock, all the while employing an instrument that is considered by many to be unpunk?

“I think it’s awesome,” Lewis said. “I’ve known these guys for years and years and definitely wouldn’t have gotten involved if I didn’t respect the band’s different styles and the whole mindset behind it.”

In 2001, the Yellowcard moved to California and began playing shows constantly (180 shows in ’01 and 270 last year). As fans clamored for more information on the band, the group took to their Web site to pump out tons of news. Guitarist Ben Harper replied to every single kid who took the time to e-mail the band.

“The Internet has a lot to do with how far the band has gotten—That’s what broke the band,” Lewis said. “We’ll run into people who don’t know who we are, and mid-set they go, ‘Hey, this is that band who play that song that I downloaded two years ago, but never knew who they were.’”

After six years of being a band, Lewis said that the writing process has become easier, even with a violin as a featured instrument. “I think it’s taken years to hone are writing to where we can write a full album. This is the first album with the violin on every song, and it was used to it’s full potential.”

According to Lewis, the writing becomes even broader with the dynamic range of influences that each member of Yellowcard brings to the table. From jazz to Pearl Jam to death metal to punk, the band covers all the bases, and it clearly helps define their unusual sound.

What is even more unusual is how well the audience at this year’s Warped Tour have taken to Yellowcard. After an entire day of punk and hardcore, it might seem strange to see a band with both a different sound and an alternative instrument grace the same stage as Face To Face and Rancid, but no one seems to mind.

“There has been a great response and a great increase in fans,” Lewis said. “The band hasn’t really toured the East Coast much, and it has been amazing to see people from cities that we never played before pack in [The Warped Tour] by the thousands—It has been awesome.”