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Though previously known for their punk
sound, the Get Up Kids—Matt Pryor, lead vocals/guitar; Jim Suptic,
vocals/guitar; Rob Pope, bass; Ryan Pope, drums; and James DeWees,
keyboards— surprised everyone last May with the release of On a Wire,
an album full of lush melodies, acoustic guitars, gentle piano, and a
variety of influences.
When Kansas City’s the Get Up Kids played Mississippi Nights January
18, they did so to a very young, very enthusiastic sold-out crowd.
Their set was heavily peppered with songs from their monumental 2002
Vagrant release, On a Wire, and also included healthy servings from
their emo/punk-tinged prior releases, including 1999’s Something to
Write Home About.
Though previously known for their punk
sound, the Get Up Kids—Matt Pryor, lead vocals/guitar; Jim Suptic,
vocals/guitar; Rob Pope, bass; Ryan Pope, drums; and James DeWees,
keyboards— surprised everyone last May with the release of On a Wire,
an album full of lush melodies, acoustic guitars, gentle piano, and a
variety of influences. They were tired of writing four-chord songs, it
seemed; they wanted to see what else they were capable of. For this
album, they hired a producer, the legendary Scott Litt (R.E.M., Indigo
Girls), which further evolved their sound. And all five had a hand in
the songwriting, unlike previous efforts, behind which Pryor was
largely the driving force.
But before you get too comfortable
with TGUK’s new sound—as I, I’ll confess, already have—wait until you
read what keyboardist James DeWees has to say. I spoke with DeWees
backstage after the show.
Are you still in two other bands?
I’m in one other band at the moment. Coalesce broke up two weeks ago,
which I heard about on the Internet. Kansas City’s weird; all the kids
in the [indie] scene play with each other in different bands. It’s
cool, because we all know each other so well, and we’re always at each
other’s shows and stuff.
How’s the climate in KC in terms of music in general? Do the clubs work with the bands at all?
They did when I was a teenager. There were bands like Season to Risk
and Molly McGuire and Shiner when I was a kid in Kansas City, and I
would go down and watch them play in record stores. There was a lot of
support for them then. After like three years of that, it died, and
that’s when Coalesce and Get Up Kids started. There was no scene at
all, no place for us to play. They’ve started to get a lot of shows
now, but it’s taken them years.
You have quite a youthful audience.
Those kids are great. They’re really, really supportive, and they get
into it and have a good time. It was weird at first, knowing that, as
I’ve gotten older, the fans have stayed the same age. It’s kind of like
that line in Dazed and Confused, when Matt Wiggins is like, “The cool
thing about high school chicks is as I get older, they stay the same
age.”
How many months in 2002 were you guys on the road?
We didn’t tour like we used to, but I guess because we space it out, it
still feels like we’re gone a lot. Like ask my wife, and she’ll tell
you that I’m gone all the time. But we used to be gone 280 days a year,
and now it’s maybe six or seven months, but not consecutively. Matt and
his wife had a baby, so we try to keep everything kind of close to
home. He wants to be there for his daughter, which is understandable.
And four of us are married now. It’s all right; it’s not like it’s a
hard job to do.
I read originally that you guys had expected a
year and a half gap between On a Wire and the new album [which would
put the next one out in November]. Are you still on schedule?
Yeah, it’s going to be about a year and a half. We’re recording April,
May, and June, and it’ll probably be out like September, October, or
November. It depends on the label [Vagrant], because they’re doing the
new Dashboard [Confessional], the new Saves the Day, the new Alkaline
[Trio], the new Reggie and the Full Effect album comes out—yeah, that’s
me. That’s actually the first one to come out on the list. I got lucky;
I beat ’em all. So I get all the attention.
Are you on keyboards with them, too?
I sing, play guitar, keyboards, drum, bass for that band. I’m Reggie.
Not live, but when I’m recording, I am. But this is a Get Up Kids
interview; we’ll do Reggie later.
What can you tell us about the new album?
It’s not On a Wire. It’s more back to what we were doing. We just
wanted to do a record that was different, to prove to ourselves that we
weren’t just this “emo” band, in quotes. We’re more than that; we’re
not just like four chords. We’ve been around for so long that “emo” is
this corporate buzzword, and to us it’s like a dis. In Coalesce, we
would use the word “emo” to make fun of those kids. It’s not a bad
thing, but God—Air Supply’s an emo band. Freakin’ Neil Diamond’s like
the king of emo. It’s kind of like alternative after it broke. The
whole point of alternative is that it was what wasn’t the norm.
How did the experience of writing as a band change the band?
That’s a good question; nobody ever asked me anything like that. It
took Something to Write Home About and turned it into On a Wire. They
already had the songs written [for Something to Write Home About]; I
just learned the accessory parts—like, piano would sound cool here,
keyboard would sound cool there.
With On a Wire, it would be
all five of us, sitting in Robby’s basement for like four hours a day,
five days a week. “Use this idea; that idea sucks.” “OK, how about this
one?” “OK, that idea’s cool; we’ll work with that idea.” We worked for
a long time.
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