Interview with The Get Up Kids from the Lumberjack Distribution web page.. Interview by: Scott Sheridan, assisted by Kwak.

It seems as if they came out of nowhere. Who would have guessed that a poppy rocking band out of Kansas City would have made such a large splash on the scene. They are only getting bigger and bigger and have just released their new album on Doghouse Records, entitled "Four Minute Mile". Catchy and poppy, this band has the ability to put a smile on your face all day. You should be able to catch them on tour because it seems like a van will be there temporary home for many months to come.

*Name and instrument please

Ryan- I'm Ryan and I play the drums.
Rob- I'm Rob and I play the bass guitar.
Ryan- We're brothers.

*Really?!?!

Ryan- Yeah. He's a year and two days older than me.

*How does that work out being in the band?

Rob- It's kinda hard between the both of us because we play in a band together, live together, and used to work together. It was pretty difficult for awhile.
(Laughter)
Ryan- We've been in bands together for four years.

*It seems like you guys came outta nowhere. When did The Get Up Kids start?

Rob- Originally, we started in October of 1995 with a different drummer. We played around for about 8 or 9 months with him. Our first 7 inch was with him (old drummer) then we kicked him out of the band and he started playing with us in June of 96.
Ryan- The band I was in just broke up right before they kicked him out.
Rob- And we wrote a bunch of new songs and we only play like 1 or 2 songs with the first drummer.

*The discography goes as...

Rob- The first 7 inch, then the four song cdep or two 7 inches.
Ryan- We originally recorded those songs for something different that had nothing to do with Doghouse. We sent those 4 songs to a hundreds of millions of different labels.

*And your new and first full-length is coming out entitled as..

Rob- Four Minute Mile.

*And I heard something about a split with Coalesce

Rob- Yeah. The Coalesce split 7 inch where we cover each others songs.
(Laughter)
Ryan- It's really funny.
Rob- It's hilarious.
Ryan- We also have a split with Braid on the Postcard Stamp Series that will be out on Tree Records.

*Who writes the lyrics in the band?

Rob- Mostly Matt but whatever Jim sings, he writes.
Ryan- We've written a lot of songs together actually.
Rob- Sometimes like on the last song we wrote, Jeff, our roadie, helped write lyrics. Like me, Matt, and Jeff sat around one day and helped write lyrics and then Ryan helped write lyrics and so did Jim because we had to write something about a situation and so we all threw in our bits and pieces.

*Well, the reason why I ask is...., how old are you guys?

Ryan- I'm 18.
Rob- I'm 19. Jim is 19 and Matt is 20. None of us are old enough to buy alcohol yet.
(Laughter)

*My friend Kwak and myself.....

Rob- Quack??!!

*We noticed that some of your songs, not all of them, have to do with getting your heart broken. Like how many times can you get your heart broken...

Rob- When you're only 12 years old.
(Laughter)

*Yeah. At such a young age.

Ryan- We all have a lot of girl problems, besides Matt. All the songs by Matt are completely love songs, like "I miss you. I love you."
(Laughter)
Rob- His girlfriend of five years last August went away to school in Boston.

*Is that "Newfound Interest In Massachusetts"?

Rob- Yeah, exactly. So most of the lyrics are whiny and crybaby. "I miss my girlfriend. Blah, blah, blah."
(Laughter)
Ryan-We have a lot of mean ones too.
(Laughter)
Rob- A lot of the songs are about, "Get away from me". Stuff like that but almost all of our songs are about girls one way or the other. Girls and friendship.

*Speaking of friendship, you guys tour a lot and must get along to some degree. Is touring gonna be a full-time thing?

Rob-Yeah. Full-time.
Ryan- We have like 8 months set for touring.

*An interesting thing I Noticed is, sorta like Avail in a way, it seems like every kinda person, like your super straight-edge person or your really emo person, is into you guys.

Ryan- That's what surprises us because we get these super hardcore or straight edge kids that..
Rob- Have more piercings than should be allowed
Ryan- And They totally love us and we're like a pop band that talks about girls. We think it's weird they even like us.
Rob- it's really cool because we can play with Avail and it's not like, "Who the hell is this band" or "Why are they playing?" It's awesome.
Ryan- Then there's Mineral.
Rob- Yeah and we can play with Mineral. We fit along just great with both of those bands and it's cool that kids that are into indie rock can like us and kids that are really into hardcore can also.
Then we can play The Warp Tour and the kids are like, "Where are you guys from?"

*That's right, you guys played The Warp Tour.

Rob- Yeah, we played the main stage at The Warp Tour in Lawrence, Kansas.

*How was that?

Ryan- Bands were freakin' out over us.
Rob- Like I just had some kid in there at the show, come up and ask me if we just played The WARP Tour and he said that one band........Millencolin?

*Yeah, Millencolin. They are from Sweden.

Rob- yeah. He was like, "They played up here in Detroit and they talked about you guys their whole set".

*That's awesome!

Rob- and I'm like, "Wow!"

*How was that? Like to play in front of all of those people?

Rob- The second we started playing, they opened the gates. The crew that was in there and the other bands watched us at first and by our second to last song, there were tons of people watching us. We had this huge stage to run around on too and it felt....... I don't know, it was weird. It was a lot of fun though. So it's definitely cool that we appeal to a diverse crowd.

*How do you feel about playing oddly matched shows? Because I think you guys are playing with Coalesce? Do you like doing that? Playing with opposite sounding bands.

Rob- Normally, I wouldn't like them. I wouldn't like a band like Coalesce but they are the coolest guys and we hang out all the time. I had never seen them until we played with them in Pennsylvania at a festival and I don't know...that kinda music, I don't really give it a chance because I think it all sounds the same to me. But they totally blew me away. I was like, "wow, these guys are really good". If you listen to their songs, you have to respect them and go, "How do they do that?" Because there are just weird time signatures and its just crazy stuff. Like how do they remember that?
Ryan- We played at CBGB with Spazz and MonsterX and we're like, "What???"
Rob- It was us, Braid, Spazz, and Monster X.

*That's a very strange bill

Ryan- yeah, it was fun.
Rob- Those guys in Monster X came up and said, "You're The Get Up Kids, you guys are so good" and we're like, "Yeah, so are you".
(Laughter)
Rob- I mean, what else are we supposed to say. But it was cool to have them come up and say that they liked us when we come from a completely opposite background or political standpoint because we are not out to....

*Change the world

Rob- We're just here to play music.
Ryan- Having a good time.

*Yeah, I think hardcore has lost that feeling of just having fun. there's like all of these rules now.

Rob- Yeah, exactly.

*Kwak, Any Questions For These Guys?

*Kwak- Have you guys seen the movie, "Swingers"?

Rob and Ryan- Yeah!
Rob- That's The Get Up Kids handbook. That's definitely a good movie. Me, Matt, Jim, and our old roadie all went to the theater and saw it. It so good it almost put us in tears. We came out and went off about it for a week. Ahh, it changed my life.
(Laughter)

*Okay. One last serious question. How far would The Get Up Kids Go? Would you sign to a major label or a large indie label if the right offer came up?

Ryan-For now, we're happy being on a indie label, doing what we are doing. Getting our name out to kids on that level but if we had the choice to have more kids into our music and still keep the indie crowd, we'd do it in two seconds.
Rob-Not just one second.
Ryan- If we had a good enough deal on a major label and they gave us the chance to still play festivals and still be in our scene but still like get on a tour with Weezer or something like that, we'd do it. Like getting on a tour where we can play in front of 3,000 kids and get on the radio, we'd do it in a second.
Rob- Because we know we appeal to very diverse crowd and that many more people could like us. I mean, every band is out there to make people like them. Even the bands that say, "We don't care". Why are they playing shows then? Why play out?
Ryan- I mean sure, everyone is down on major labels. Like, "They'll just fuck you". Which is very true because we have friends that have been in bands that have signed to major labels and have gotten dicked but there are a lot of indie labels that do the same exact thing. That's why like, Jimmy Eat World, they signed to a major label straight off the bat and they didn't get shit. They had zero fans. They had no 7 inches out.
Rob- But at the time, no other label had offered them anything. No indie label had talked to them.
Ryan- So if you have a band that already had a fan base and they sign to a major label, they can do something. But look at Jawbreaker and Jawbox, they both dicked themselves right there.

*They ruined their bands' careers

Ryan- That was stupid. Like if Fugazi signed to a major label, which they never would. But it's the same story. Why would they?
Rob- What's the point of signing to a major label when you're just as big as you are going to be. I think Jawbreaker could have gotten huge with the right kind of push and promotion.

*Last question. How does the band feel about their current state?

Ryan- We're pretty happy that now that Doghouse took over Lumberjack. Our new record, hopefully, ...

*Is Gonna Get Places

Ryan- Yeah, It's gonna get pushed and lots of people will get to hear it.