BY AVERY GOODSTINE for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 7/17/2026
Get ready to batten down the hatches as Yachtley Crew comes to the Event Center at Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma on Saturday, August 15. Tickets are on sale now, and you can get up to 20 percent off if you purchase them at the Emerald Queen Casino gift shop.
Yachtley Crew’s Seas the Night 2026 tour is celebrating the release of its album of the same name. The album is made up of eleven tracks: ten covers and one original song called “Pain of Losing You.”
The seven-piece yacht rock band hails from Southern California and had its breakout year in 2017. It sold out several local venues before becoming an icon in the nationwide yacht rock craze. It has even been recognized by the legendary Jimmy Buffett, who signed the band to his Mailboat label before it signed with Earache/Universal Records.
Known for its classic nautical attire, Yachtley Crew includes drummer Rob Jones (Sailor Hawkins), bassist Chaz Ruiz (Baba Buoy), guitarist Thomas Gardner Jr. (Tommy Buoy), backing vocalist Curt Clendenin (Stoney Shores), saxophonist and flutist Paul Pate (Pauly Shores), keyboardist Matt Grossman (Matthew McDonald), and new lead vocalist Ian Ward (Captain Ian).
Ward joins the Crew, also known as the Titans of Soft Rock, with a diverse résumé that spans theater, television, and international performances. He’s been on Broadway and starred in productions including Rock of Ages, Rent, American Idiot, Footloose, and Jesus Christ Superstar alongside Cynthia Erivo and Adam Lambert. Ward has also worked with Cyndi Lauper and Pat Benatar in Working Girl and Invincible. In 2025, he auditioned for American Idol and received a “golden ticket” to compete in Hollywood.
The Crew’s first EP, Seas the Day, was released in 2023 and features fan-favorite yacht rock hits such as “Lido Shuffle” by Boz Scaggs, “How Long” by Ace, “Steal Away” by Robbie Dupree, “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees, and “Ride Like the Wind” by Christopher Cross.
The band’s first original song, “Sex on the Beach,” is also featured and has a music video with a guest appearance by Access Hollywood and iHeartRadio host Mario Lopez. The video was directed by Myles Erfurth, who has also worked with Dead Sara, Ice Nine Kills, and Twiztid.
Originally popular in the 1970s and 1980s, yacht rock is commonly associated with highly polished and laid-back soft rock. With the resurgence in yacht rock’s popularity, many modern-day yacht rock bands bring new life to the top hits of the 1970s and 1980s.
According to an article on berklee.edu, yacht rock typically embodies themes of “calm escapism,” high production quality, rich harmonies, and sentimental lyrics.
Originally known as “West Coast sound” or “adult-oriented rock,” the term “yacht rock” was coined in 2005 by an L.A.-based comedy group after it created a web series called Yacht Rock that featured parody portrayals of well-known musicians in the genre.
“Sailing” by Christopher Cross is arguably one of the most common yacht rock songs. The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” and “Just the Two of Us” by Grover Washington Jr., featuring Bill Withers, are also genre classics.
Seas the Night, the Crew’s latest album, includes covers of “Hold the Line,” “Magic,” “I’m Still Standing,” and others. It also includes the band’s second original song, “Pain of Losing You,” which was written specifically for the band by Diane Warren.
Warren has racked up a list of songwriting awards, including an Academy Honorary Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and three consecutive Billboard Music Awards. One of her best-known songs is “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” written for Aerosmith in the 1990s.
“We heard through our manager, Andy Gould, that Diane was a fan of Yachtley Crew and is a fan of the yacht rock genre,” Yachtley Crew said in a press release. “When we heard the song ‘Pain of Losing You,’ we knew that we had to record it. Honestly, it’s a dream come true to get to record a song written by someone as iconic as Diane Warren, and our producer Chris Lord-Alge knew exactly what to do to get it to sound like the Crew.”
Seas the Night was produced by Lord-Alge, who has previously worked with Stevie Nicks, Steven Tyler, Keith Urban, Bruce Springsteen, and Green Day, and mastered by Ted Jensen, who has worked with the Eagles, Norah Jones, Evanescence, Alice in Chains, and James Taylor, at Lord-Alge’s studios in Los Angeles. Lord-Alge was also involved with Yachtley Crew’s 2023 Seas the Day EP.
“Almost immediately after signing with Earache Records, we went into the studio with our incredible producer, Chris Lord-Alge, to bring some of our favorite songs to life and to ensure they contain the same energy and fun that we play them with onstage,” Yachtley Crew said in the press release. “We spent the better part of 2024 in the studio whenever we weren’t touring, perfecting every note. The result is something we are not only so excited to share, but so proud of as well.”
The Crew also appeared in HBO’s Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary and on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. It performed on KLAS and KTLA’s Las Vegas New Year’s show in 2023 and has performed internationally and on various radio shows.
Fresh off its sold-out Australian tour, the Crew embarked on the second leg of its Seas the Night 2026 tour earlier this year. After stopping at Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma in August, it will head to California and Wisconsin.
This article paid for by the Emerald Queen Casino
