” It was just kind of shit luck that everything went to hell while we were in Australia,” explains a fairly pensive The Get Up Kids vocalist, Matt Pryor. He insists that his band’s widely-mourned hiatus (which lasted from 2004 to 2008) is no longer associated with their time in our country, at least not in the minds of the band’s members. “It was going to happen somewhere, eventually.”
It’s been a few years now though since US indie heroes The Get Up Kids first returned to the scene. Their first reunion show was late 2008, but it wasn’t until their 2010 invitation to play an (increasingly coveted) spot at Soundwave Festival that a real and substantial effort was made to focus on the band again. In retrospect though, there was relatively little fuss made about their return, especially given the ferocity with which things had come to a grinding halt half a decade before then. It all just seemed a bit too tentative to get excited about. “Festivals are weird,” says Pryor. “On the on hand, they’re really easy because you can just show up and play. But on the other hand, you don’t get to have that really intimate one-on-one experience like you do in a club.”
With baited breath we waited for confirmation that everything had gone swimmingly, and the shows themselves were showcases of what we had been missing. Needless to say, on the eve of their triumphant return, headlining a tour just for us, you can rest assured there’s much more to come from the Kansas City locals, who are just as excited about a proper reunion with Australian fans as we are.”It’s the furthest away from home that we ever get, but it’s just a relaxed and positive environment,” Pryor says. “Nobody gets this excited to go to, like, Florida.”
That’s not to say that the boys have been taking it easy. Since getting back together, The Get Up Kids have twice visited the studio – first for 2010’s Simple Science EP, and again for this year’s much-anticipated There Are Rules – albeit amidst a much less hectic on the road schedule. On top of that, the band’s long-awaited first long player since returning from hiatus, There Are Rules was released on their own Quality Hill Records, allowing Pryor and co. much more control over the process as a whole – even if he’s not quite prepared to suggest it was the best idea in the world.
“It’s good,” he says flatly. “It’s not really a better or worse experience – more like apples and oranges. You have to be more involved in detail-oriented decisions. You can’t just say, ‘Make it happen!’ – you have to make it happen.”
But we can be confident all of that will fade into the background come the start of the tour on Friday; the frontman is clearly excited, and seems hell bent on the band continuing to make things work for the sake of their fans. “We’ve been playing together for so long that we feed much better off each other when we’re in a relaxed space,” explains Pryor. “I mean, we can [tour Europe playing a show every night], but everyone’s crabbier when we do.
“We’ve just kind of fine-tuned what works for us – both creatively and professionally,” he continues. “We’re just going to try to keep things as light and as fun as possible.”
The Get Up Kids play Billboard The Venue on Sunday August 7. There Are Rules is out now through Quality Hill Records
