The Get Up Kids

Thu 22nd Oct, 2009 in Features

After a three-year split, The Get Up Kids are recently re-formed and back in the limelight. The band went its separate ways in 2005, and according to singer, Matthew Pryor, things weren’t exactly amicable.

“When we broke up, we had some tension, and we didn’t really talk very much during the ‘off’ years.” Luckily for their fans, though, there were only three of those years, and the previous tension between the band has faded over time. “We all got together to go see a show and enough time had passed that the tensions were gone, so that’s when we decided, ‘Hey, we may as well give this another whirl.’”

Since re-forming in 2008, the decision to again play together as The Get Up Kids has been a positive experience. “Overall everything has been really positive and we’re having a lot of fun,” Matt agrees.

So what factors led to the split in the first place? “Everything had become kind of a job, and we started taking it way too seriously,” Matt explains. ”[Now] it’s more like how it was when we first started playing, when we didn’t really worry about stuff so much, so now we’re just excited to keep it light and have a good time. I mean it’s really about us enjoying one another’s company again.”

While the band had dissolved, their side-projects took precedence, which helped the band grow as musicians. “I think the more well-rounded you are as a musician, songwriter or player, the better,” Matt says. “You know, variety is the spice of life, as they say.”

The Get Up Kids will of course be gracing Australian shores for the ultimate in Australian rock festivals, Soundwave 2010. The band is looking forward to sharing the stage with some of rock, punk, pop-punk and metal’s elite, but who are they most keen to watch?

“I’m most excited to tour with The Weakerthans, because I’ve toured with those guys in the past and I really, really like their band a lot. Sunny Day Real Estate is always good. I’m excited to see the My Chemical Romance guys a lot because James Dwees, our keyboard player, plays keys with them, so he is going to be double-gigging. It’ll be a good time; it’s a good line-up.”

The recent re-release of Something To Write Home About celebrates the 10th anniversary of The Get Up Kids’ most successful album, and has seen the band touring non-stop around the States. When asked why the band decided to re-release an album rather than write a new one, Matt explains that it was, simply put, an excuse to get out on the road again.

“Well, it’s our most popular record, but really we’re just using that whole re-issue thing as an excuse to get back together and play shows. It is cool the record company want to re-issue, but it’s not really that important to us. It’s more just our catalyst I guess, for us playing again.”

The Get Up Kids’ distaste for the ‘emo’ scene they have been credited in helping create is something the band has previously been quite open about. The topic has since become quite well documented. In an interview with website Drowned in Sound, guitarist Jim Suptic said in reference to the emo music scene, “If this is the world we helped create, then I apologise.”

As soon as Matt is asked if he feels the statements have been taken out of context, he agrees vehemently. “I think it’s been blown out of proportion. We don’t really belong to a – œscene’; we’ve kind of always just done our own thing. We get classified as an emo band and therefore get lumped in with a whole lot of other bands that we don’t even know. Really, there is no other band that is that relevant to us in a scene sense, we are really a kind of self-contained unit. We don’t claim to be part of anything other than The Get Up Kids.”

Rumours that The Get Up Kids will record new music have been surfacing since they reformed. So, is there a new album in the pipeline? “Yes, it is just going to take a while. We’re going to with someone new [record company], although we’re not sure who yet,” Matt says

Can people attending Soundwave expect to hear any of their new material? “I’m always in favour of playing any of our new stuff,” admits Matt. “My favourite song to play is always the most recent one that we’ve written. We might play one new song in our set, and that’s the one I mostly look forward to playing. Keepin’ it fresh.”

The reissue of reissue of Something To Write Home About is out now on Vagrant/Shock. You can catch The Get Up Kids at Soundwave 2010.

Saturday Feb 20 – Brisbane
Sunday Feb 21 – Sydney
Friday Feb 26 – Melbourne
Saturday Feb 27 – Adelaide
Monday March 1 – Perth