Getting Down with the Get Up Kids
by Ryan Pangilinan

I can’t lie about this: everyone involved with Totally Crushed Out loves the Get Up Kids.  Despite varied regional upbringing, we all spent our formative rocking out to “Four Minute Mile” and “Something to Write Home About.”  As young adults, we found solace in the darker themes behind “On a Wire” and “Guilt Show.”  Following a three year breakup, the Get Up Kids resurfaced in 2008 and, this last year, release the “Simple Science EP” and “There Are Rules,” the latter of which is the first release on their independent label, Quality Hill.

Along with our sister site, Redefine, guitarists and singers, Jim Suptic and Matt Pryor sat down with TCO to talk about their new record, why they followed “On a Wire” with “Guilt Show,” and life outside the Get Up Kids umbrella.

Totally Crushed Out: Listening to “There Are Rules” it’s a huge departure from what most people would consider your “signature” sound and to me, a long time listener, it seems like it’s just a natural progression for the band to find a sound that is outside the box of the last proper full-length. Does it ever drive you guys crazy whenever someone says, “Oh it doesn’t sound like this old record or that old record?”

Matt Pryor: We’ve always made it a point to never really make the same record twice and I think that we’ve accomplished that.  Our records are always evolving and to do it any other way would be untrue to ourselves.  It doesn’t drive me crazy but it does get a bit old having to defend your creative decisions all the time.

Jim Suptic: To us, every album we have ever made sounds different. When people say our “signature” sound, they are usually talking about “Something To Write Home About”. Probably because it was our most successful album. We wrote some of those songs when we were teenagers. I’m 33 now.  I love that record but seriously, it was over a decade ago.  We wouldn’t even know how to write an album like that again. Especially not lyrically. Things that were important to me then seem quite trivial now.

Obviously along with age, the band finds new things to tackle about topically. What was sort of the lyrical drive (if there was any) behind the new album?

MP: Lyrically it wasn’t so much what it WAS going to be about as much as what it WASN’T going to be about.  There are no love songs on the record.  There isn’t any teenage longing.  I really wanted to challenge myself to write things outside of my comfort zone.

JS: We have always wrote what was around us or influencing us at the time. One of the songs I sing is about a street fight that happened in England. The song “Widow Paris” is about a voodoo priestess. Not so much “tour is hard, I miss you” lyrics.

Will Quality Hill be releasing records by other bands, as you’ve done in the past with Heroes and Villains, or will this be strictly a Get Up Kids label?

JS: I would never say never but as of right now just Get Up Kid stuff.

I’ve always felt that the Get Up Kids is one of the earliest bands whose popularity was steered by the internet in addition to touring heavily. I remember seeing the band in 2000 on a tour sponsored by Napster, though this was also during a time when people still purchased physical media for music. As a band that I would consider early adopters (even if it was inadvertent), how do you feel about the way that kids are using the internet to consume music a little over a decade later?

MP: I think that the internet is as useful or as irritating as you make it out to be.  On the one hand there are more opportunities to communicate with your fans and to grow the band.  On the other hand, everyone has an opinion and the comments section of any given review / article can either really inflate or hurt your self worth.

JS: I really think the new generation believes music should be free. They don’t want to pay for it. No one is going to change that. It is only going to get worse for record sales. So I think you just have to embrace it and become more creative in the way you run a band. I like twitter and facebook because it allows us to interact with our fans. I don’t like the fact that it makes me feel narcissistic, always having to talk about myself.

These days, individual members of the band has commitments elsewhere whether it’s family, business or other bands, but it still seems to work well on some capacity, though slightly limited. Is it weird to walk back into a situation where you were touring for a good chunk of the year to being able to tour when it works for everyone?

MP: I like it better.  It allows us to have other lives, which means we’re not so dependent upon this band and that takes a lot of the pressure off.  It’s a pain in the ass to schedule stuff but we get along better because of it.

JS: It is what it is. It can be a little annoying trying to make it all work but we find a way.

One of the things that people have commented on is the sonic departure between “Something to Write Home About” to “On a Wire,” it’s something that is chronicled in Andy Greenwald’s book “Nothing Feels Good” and is something that comes up in interviews often to this day. Personally, I loved “On a Wire” and I always felt that “Guilt Show” was the Jedi mind trick album. Upon an initial spin, it’s easy to peg it as a pop-punk record along the lines of the “Something to Write Home” but when you really listen to it, it’s seems that, lyrically, it’s a very reactionary album. Was that the intention that you guys had when writing that record or was it more along the lines of making an upbeat pop record that scratches the surface of the uglier parts of life?

MP: I’ve always been interested in upbeat songs with dark subject matter.  I think that’s been pretty present in all of our work.  If Guilt Show was particularly dark it’s because I was in a really negative headspace at the time.  We made Wire kinda quiet because we were sick of being loud all the time.  We made Guilt Show louder than Wire because we missed being a “rock” band.  It works out well now; we can do a primarily rocking live show with moments of quiet, which is nice.

JS: Lyrically “Something To Write Home About” was about love and relationships while trying to be in a young rock band. “Guilt Show” was about divorce and the crumbling of those relationships. Ugly truths are easier to swallow with an upbeat melody behind it.

When the band first got back together, I recall Jim doing an interview where he said something akin to “If this is what emo bands are like, then I’m sorry,” and even on the anniversary tour, you guys echoed those sentiments on stage. Naturally, I wouldn’t expect anyone who grew up getting their records from Crank or Initial’s distro to necessarily like some of the trash that’s out there, but what contemporary bands that you might have a direct influence on do you think stands out from the paint-by-numbers bands that are out there?

MP: I don’t listen to a lot of what people would call modern “emo” so I can’t really comment to the fact.  The one band that gets lumped into that genre that consistently impresses me is Brand New.  I think they are setting the creative bar these days in the genre.

JS: I really don’t know. When bands say we influenced them most of the time I don’t hear it. As far as that quote goes, it was really supposed to be a joke. The internet likes to find something and run with it.

Following this album’s release and its touring cycle, what other plans is on the horizon for the Get Up Kids?

MP: No plans as of yet.  Probably get away from each other for a while and work on other projects once this cycle is finished.  Get lots of sleep.  Ha.

JS: My second child is due in a week. That is going to be my focus. After that, a little more touring. Maybe we will write some more. Who knows?