Get Up Kids: Guilt trip

Mellow no more, the Get Up Kids get up with new album

By Mike Prevatt

Who knew an interview with Get Up Kids drummer Ryan Pope would be so difficult. The first attempt was marred by journalist illness. The second came through in the last moments of deadline, though delayed a half-hour by the ever-busy Pope, calling in from Denver. During the third, he asks his interrogator to hold no less than four times. One of those breaks involved Pope hacking and voices in the background giggling, while another involved a confused Pope stuck in a dark hallway. It sounds like some pre-show celebration is taking place.

And celebrate the band should. The Get Up Kids, from Kansas City, Kan., are playing out with Dashboard Confessional and Thrice on what is essentially the first-ever emo arena/amphitheater tour. More importantly, they have released the fourth and best studio album of their seven-year career, Guilt Show, a concertedly un-emo longplayer that pops so much it obscures its drama, and maintains a sugar-rush tempo that doesn't easily reveal the band's musical and lyrical maturity. Which is a good thing, after the mixed reaction to the band's grown-up-too-fast 2002 album, On a Wire. This time, the Get Ups purposely emphasized a more spirited sound.

"We just wanted to make more of an upbeat, lively kind of album," says Pope. "It was how we were feeling at the time, and it was a fun record to make. We were able to just go in, be casual, [with] everything right at our fingertips."

In hindsight, On a Wire could be the indie equivalent to Face to Face's reflective 1999 album, Ignorance Is Bliss, which was lauded by everyone but its fans and all but ignored once the band was promoting its next album. The Get Up Kids' problem with On a Wire was how hard the moody material was to play live, which would most influence the mood reversal on Guilt Show.

"We went into [recording Guilt] with the writing, and a lot of it had to do with touring," says Pope. "When we were on the On the Wire tour, the songs didn't come across that well live. Maybe they came across well live...but we missed being a rock band. We'd turn it up when we'd play it, but it would be a mellow show."

So, along with longtime producer Ed Rose, the band set out to record a peppier effort, which involved buying its own studio in Kansas, listening to Billy Joel and Clash records in the studio, and planting microphones in singer/guitarist Matt Pryor's living room to capture worthwhile experiments. Most obvious in the band's evolution is keyboardist James Dewees, evidenced particularly in the long climaxes of the album's closers, "Is There a Way Out" and "Conversation."

"He's a bad-ass," says Pope. "It was lot of picking parts and 'Yeah, that works' and having him play over the song--like, playing five different parts, sitting him down with the tune for three hours and playing all different kinds of arrangements, as far as strings and organ parts [go]."

Guilt Show might be most noteworthy in how rejuvenated the band sounds after growing pains both personally and musically. For all the marital breakdowns and lyrical politicking and compositional ambition, the Get Up Kids have managed to aurally live up to their namesake.

"We're getting older, we're growing up," says Pope. "Matt has a family, [guitarist] Jim [Suptic] is married. James just got divorced, [bassist] Rob [Pope] just got divorced. But I wouldn't say we're complete old-timers."