The Get Up Kids have been an integral part of the soundtrack of of many our lives. Their music scored our teenage years with their songs of love and growing up touching us in the soul, while their big riffs and high energy punk sound had our toes tapping, and our fists in the air. Now, many like me in their mid-30s, can appreciate the evolution of the band as their new record, Problems, touches upon the real life issues and events that we go through everyday…yet there’s still that undeniable, timeless Get Up Kids sound that can still move those ties and raise those fists.
Recently I caught up with Matt Pryor, lead singer of The Get Up Kids, as the band gets ready for their show at House of Independents in Asbury Park, NJ on Saturday. We talked about the new record, their classic (and one of my favorite) albums Four Minute Mile, and the band’s love for Asbury Park.
When I was only 16 years old working at a movie theater box office listening to some punk rock tunes, my buddy gave me my very first Get Up Kids CD. The CD was Four Minute Mile, and it touched on young love and growing up. Roughly 20 years later you guys released your newest record, Problems. That record focuses on topics of loss and uncertainty. Can you talk about how the subject matter evolved over the years as well as the writing process?
I like to think that we’ve gotten better at it. The more you work on your craft, the more you’re better at it. But overall it’s really similar. It’s just more of the actual subject matter that’s evolving. We write songs the same sort of way, but it would be kind of foolish for forty year old men to be writing songs from the perspective of an 18 year old. I mean, that would just be weird. So we try to write with this same sort of sense of self and sense of urgency. Just from the perspective of grown ups, I guess.
The new tunes are fantastic, yet they definitely have that iconic The Get Up Kids sound we all know and love. How do you maintain that balance?
I think that there’s a certain kind of Voltron when you can get the five of us together. I don’t really know how to describe it. You can hear it in all the other (side) projects – instances of The Get Up Kids, but it doesn’t sound like the Get Up Kids proper, until the five of us get together and we all put our stank on any particular song. I don’t have any idea what the secret sauce is, other than that we just keep making the stew and keep putting in the work.
Talking about some of the new tunes, “Satellite” is a standout single for sure. I absolutely love the music video as well. Can you tell us about the track and the concept behind the video?
Well, I didn’t make the video so I can only talk about what the concept of the song is. I guess the video is sort of a visual interpretation of it. The song is about being lonely and feeling isolated. It’s feeling like there’s no one who really understands where you’re coming from. It’s interesting cause there’s really no resolution in the song, but there is in the video when the guy goes into space or whatever. (Laughs) But it really is a song about feeling lonely.
The Get Up Kids have influenced so many bands over the years, I have to ask who are your influences?
We’re all into a lot of a different kinds of stuff, but the stuff we all kind of agree on would be Fugazi, Super Chunk, JawBreaker – that kind of stuff we came up with. A lot of the guys are really into 90s era kind of like Brit- Pop. For me lately it’s a lot of 80s kinda stuff like Squeeze and stuff like that. Blur is a really big influence I would say. And then James is really into metal.
We’re stoke for you guys to be coming through the legendary music town of Asbury Park on July 27th at the House of Independents. But you guys have played all over the world. What’s your favorite place to play?
You know one of my favorite places to play, a place that we would hang out at a lot, but we never got to play – but I got to play at, was Asbury Lanes. We played The Convention Center for Surf & Skate and The Stone Pony, but we would go to the lanes because we would always have friends there. Jerseys always been good to us.
So I was sort of bummed when The Lanes went away, but that was always a good time. I’ve always liked Asbury Park. It was really weird going there like 15 years ago and there was nothing, and now it’s like a boomtown.
Being from Kansas City, are you guys big Chiefs fans and/or big BBQ guys?
I’m not a big sports fan. But Jim (guitar) and sometimes Rob (bass) are more the sports guys. We call him Jim,”Mr. Kansas City” because he’s always reppin’ Chiefs and Royals stuff. And since Kansas City BBQ is the best BBQ in the world, there’s not a whole lot other to say than that.
If you weren’t on this path as the full time lead singer for The Get Up Kids, what would you be doing today?
I would probably doing something with food, whether it was on the agriculture side of things or on the restaurant side of things. I don’t know. It was kind of the second love
I’ve found later in life that I’ve really taken to . I grow a lot of my own food and I cook a lot.
Being that Asbury is home to a ton of local bands, what advice would you give to any local up and comers and/or bands trying to reinvent themselves?
I think that the two legs to stand are: (1) Being true to yourself and authentic. (2) Also, having hustle. Don’t expect people to hand you things. If you come at the world
and thinking no one is ever going to give you anything and you have to get it for yourself, whether it’s true or not, it will definitely serve you better than being pissed you didn’t get something.
When you talk about people reinventing themselves, just make sure you’re doing it because it’s really where your hearts at, and not because it’s what’s popular right now. You know what I mean? Because people can smell that like a fart in the car. They’re just trying too hard. Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.
