Early years (1995–1997) in 1997 While in high school,
Ryan Pope,
Rob Pope, and
Jim Suptic formed a short-lived band called Kingpin.
Matt Pryor had been writing songs since he was a teenager, and was playing in a band called Secret Decoder Ring. Following the demise of the two bands in 1995, the Get Up Kids were formed. The band originally planned on calling themselves the Suburban Get Up Kids until reasoning that there were fewer band names beginning with the letter 'G' than there are with the letter 'S', and that therefore they were more likely to be noticed in a record store if their name began with a 'G'. They played their first show supporting
Mineral on the same night as their high school prom. At the time the lineup consisted of Pryor on guitar and lead vocals, Suptic on guitar, Rob Pope on bass, and Thomas Becker on drums. However, Becker soon left for college in California, and was replaced by Nathan Shay, who was attending school with Suptic at the
Kansas City Art Institute. Encouraged by interest stirred by the band's first 7-inch, they recorded their first EP,
Woodson. Shortly afterward, Contrast Records released a 7-inch titled "A Newfound Interest in Massachusetts", with
Doghouse Records releasing a CD-EP version which combined both 7-inches.
Four Minute Mile (1997–1998) After signing to Doghouse, the band drove to Chicago to record their debut full-length album with producer
Bob Weston of
Shellac. The album was recorded in only two days, with the band leaving on Friday after Ryan Pope got out of school and finishing in the early hours of Sunday morning. In September 1997 the band released their debut full-length record
Four Minute Mile. The album sold over 40,000 copies in two years, a major feat for such a small label, which began to bring attention from larger labels. Furthermore, the album single-handedly turned the struggling Vagrant label into one of the top
indie labels in the country, selling over 140,000 copies after its release. Not only did the album make the Get Up Kids the poster children for emo, but it also launched the genre into a public consciousness broader than the scattered local scenes that had previously embraced it. The album gave Vagrant Records the financial backing to grow and sign a string of other bands. At the same time, the addition of keyboards alienated some fans who thought it moved the band away from the contemporary punk scene's
DIY ethic. The Get Up Kids toured nonstop for almost three years in promotion of the record. Their 2000 tour with the Anniversary and
Koufax was sponsored by
Napster. To capitalize on anticipation for the band's next album, Vagrant Records released a rarities compilation
Eudora in 2001. According to Rob Pope, "It was a weird time. We were a bunch of 19, 20, 21-year-old kids...It was this weird formative era where we were challenged by a totally different thing than
Thurston Moore and
Ian Mackaye. "We were all going through our, like bullshit
Beatles phase, and unfortunately we were doing that in public." "I remember we were like, 'we want to make the biggest record ever," recalls Rob Pope. "We had it in our heads at that point that we wanted to be on the radio. Scott Litt had a pretty good success rate with that." Specifically, the reviewer for
Alternative Press wrote "Unfortunately, the visceral energy of their early days is lost in their newfound maturity." While many fans were upset with this sudden change of direction, the album was generally well received by mainstream publications.
Entertainment Weekly was highly positive, writing that "This is the group at their best." In his review of the album,
Rolling Stone writer Barry Walters wrote "
On a Wire quivers with the anxieties that must have arisen as the Get Up Kids left behind what originally made them. Straining vocals, racing tempos and walls of distortion give way to softer singing, spacious guitars and prominent keyboards . . . The Get Up Kids dig deeper into themselves. What they find is often subtle, less visceral but far more tender." The poor public reception of the album had a larger impact on the band's popularity as a whole. The band embarked on a tour to promote the album in the late spring soon after the album was released, only to find that they had far less support from both their fans and their record label. In March 2004, the band released their fourth studio album
Guilt Show, produced by Ed Rose. Sonically, the album combined the more measured, sophisticated sound of
On a Wire with the frenetic style of their earlier work.
Guilt Show—which was titled after a misreading of a flier saying "Quilt show"—was very well received both critically and commercially. The more pop-driven tone of the album reunited the band with many fans who were disenchanted after
On a Wire, while also staying close enough to the evolution of the last album to interest newer fans and critics. However, their return was overshadowed by the booming popularity of other contemporary emo bands such as
Dashboard Confessional, who invited the band to open for them on the 2004
Honda Civic Tour.
Breakup and solo activity (2004–2008) marquee on July 2, 2005, before the band's farewell concert. Over the course of the tour with
Dashboard Confessional, relationships between the band members continued to decline. After the Honda Civic tour ended, the band embarked on their world tour, including stops throughout Europe, Japan and Australia. However, their live performance hit an all-time low, with Pryor sometimes refusing even to sing large portions of songs. Once the tour ended, the band went on an unofficial hiatus, not playing as a group until the next January, when they played a show at the
Granada Theater in
Lawrence, Kansas to celebrate the band's tenth anniversary. The show was recorded and released the following May as the band's first live album,
Live! @ The Granada Theater. On Tuesday, March 8, 2005, the Get Up Kids announced that after ten years, they were disbanding. After the band's split, the Pope brothers took over management of
Black Lodge Studios, the recording studio that the band formed with the recording of
Guilt Show, alongside longtime producing partner Ed Rose. The brothers joined
Koufax for a short stint, before splitting for different projects. Rob was a founding member of
Lawrence,
Kansas group
White Whale, releasing the 2006 album
WWI on
Merge Records to moderate acclaim before becoming a full-time member of
Spoon, while Ryan became the drummer for the Lawrence-based experimental rock band the Roman Numerals. Matt Pryor continued as part of
the New Amsterdams, an acoustic alt-country group he had formed in 2000, expanding its sound and solidifying its previously revolving-door lineup. After his second album,
May Day, Pryor announced that he would be formally disbanding the New Amsterdams in favor of his solo career, concluding the band's tenure with the release of
Outroduction, a B-sides compilation. Jim Suptic went on to form
Blackpool Lights with former members of
Butterglory and the Creature Comforts. The band released their debut album
This Town's Disaster in 2006, consisted largely of songs Suptic wrote for the Get Up Kids but never recorded. The album was released on
Curb Appeal Records, an independent label Suptic founded with former Get Up Kids collaborator and local musician Alex Brahl. The label released albums by
Smoking Popes and the New Amsterdams, but dissolved sometime in 2008. After the breakup of the Get Up Kids, James Dewees began performing with
New Found Glory as their touring keyboardist, having previously played on their 2003 album
Catalyst. As he traveled relentlessly, his ongoing struggles with alcohol and drug abuse worsened. After moving to New York City, he began to attend rehab, a process which would inspire the fifth Reggie and the Full Effect album,
Last Stop: Crappy Town. After another brief tour opening for
Hellogoodbye in 2006, he joined
My Chemical Romance as their full-time touring keyboardist and later becoming a full time member. The reunion was finally confirmed by a post on the official music blog of
The Kansas City Star, confirming rumors that the band would be playing a surprise reunion show at The Record Bar in Kansas City on November 16, 2008. According to the article, the band had made the decision over the summer and had Dewees intentionally leak the information to gauge fan interest. The reunion show was officially announced on Friday, November 14, along with the official confirmation of the album re-release and a 2009 national tour. The tenth anniversary edition of the album includes a code to download bonus demo tracks from the original recording of
Something To Write Home About from the Vagrant Records website, and a DVD containing a band retrospective and other content, including archive footage, and their live performance from March 13, 2009, at
Liberty Hall in Lawrence. The show took place Sunday, November 16, 2008, at the record bar in Kansas City. The band played their album
Something To Write Home About from beginning to end, as well as a six-song encore. In the summer of 2009, they returned to Black Lodge studios to record their first new material in five years, recording twelve tracks intended to be released as three EPs over the course of a year. The band's reunion tour took place in Europe, followed by the US between mid-August and early October with
Youth Group. After this, they went on another US tour, which ran into November 2009, with
Mansions. On April 13, 2010, the band released the first EP
Simple Science on Flyover Records. Despite their reformation, obligations to other projects limited the amount of time the band could spend together. On their 2010 tour,
fun. bassist Nate Harold filled in for
Rob Pope, who was already committed to touring with
Spoon. In 2011 while James Dewees was on a world tour with
My Chemical Romance, New Amsterdams regular Dustin Kinsey filled in on keyboards. After the release of
Simple Science, the band decided to combine the remaining tracks—along with three more newly recorded songs—into a new full-length album,
There Are Rules. They also confirmed that the album would not be released on
Vagrant Records, who had released their previous three albums, but on their own Quality Hill Records. The album was produced by Ed Rose and mixed by
Bob Weston, who produced the band's debut album.
There Are Rules was released on January 25, 2011, and was supported by a co-headlining tour with
Saves the Day.
Second hiatus, Problems (since 2012) After
There Are Rules largely failed to find an audience, the members of the Get Up Kids took another short hiatus working non-music industry jobs, interrupted only by brief weekend tours and one-off shows. While drinking at a bar before their performance at the 2017
When We Were Young festival, the band began to talk about recommitting to the Get Up Kids as a full-time pursuit. On March 29, 2018,
Polyvinyl Records and
Big Scary Monsters announced on their Instagram account that they had signed the band and that new music will be coming soon. The band released a thirteen-minute, four song EP entitled
Kicker on June 8, 2018. This was followed by
Problems on May 10, 2019, the group's first album in eight years. A review of
Problems published by
Exclaim! said "It sounds just as great as some of their older albums, reminding us why this band are still one of the greatest emo/alternative acts to come out of the '90s." In 2024 and 2025 The Get Up Kids toured North America, Europe and the UK to celebrate the 25th anniversary of
Something To Write Home About. == Musical style and influences ==