The Get Up Kids with Arielle Gordon

Yasi is joined by music writer Arielle Gordon to tell the story of the Get Up Kids, the Kansas City emo band that transformed the genre. They get into the mix of punk energy and big feelings that made the band so influential, the sliding-door moments of what almost was, and the bands that emerged (and dominated) in the third wave of emo that the Get Up Kids helped create. Listen to the Get Up Kids playlist here. Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuest: Arielle Gordon @reallygordonProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot, designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100-degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light: hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  What's with this band, anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, Bandplain? Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. I really like this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. Bandplain!

• 1:44Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is a show where we invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about The Get Up Kids. My guest today, you guys, is esteemed music journalist and, I'll say it, emo expert, Ariel Gordon. Welcome to the program, Ariel. Hello. Big shoes to fill for you.

• 2:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08Yasi Salek?

  Big emo shoes.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  Big emo shoes, clown shoes.

• 2:12Yasi Salek?

  You said it. Big checkered bands for you to fill. That's a way of emo that I'm not familiar with, which is why we brought you here to educate and edify.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  Happy to do so. How are you?

• 2:23Yasi Salek?

  I'm doing great. I love the Get Up Kids. That's the thing about me that you should all know.

• 2:28Speaker 04

  Yes, I was listening to your Jimmy Eat World episode and you were talking about, I believe, I don't want to put words in your mouth, a college lover introducing you.

• 2:37Yasi Salek?

  You know what? Let's just get it out of the way. Let's get it right out of the way. A college lover, that makes me sound so like French. No, absolutely. Here's how I found the Get Up Kids. And then I want to ask you how you found the Get Up Kids. Kansas City, Missouri's finest.

• 2:52Yasi Salek?

  There I was, bright headed and bushy tailed, my first year at UC Santa Barbara, ready to, you know, embrace all that life has to offer. And I'm in my dorm, Tropicana Gardens, may it rest in peace, I don't think it exists anymore. And I'm wearing my Diesel miniskirt and my Diesel slip-on shoes that had a little fur in them. You guys weren't there. I had probably a Puma wristband on.

• 3:18Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 3:18Yasi Salek?

  Again, this was another time. My hair is flat ironed and I'm just like, let's joie de vivre here. And I meet a guy in the dorm pretty early on named Josh. And I said this on the Jimmy Eat World pod and I'll say it again. I would absolutely love to dox him, but I cannot for the life of me remember his last name. To be fair, his name might not even be Josh.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Well, Josh is a pretty rare name.

• 3:39Yasi Salek?

  It's so rare. I tried to Google Josh Tropicana Gardens and Josh Get Up Kids abuser. Just kidding, he's not an abuser. Anyways, so Josh, East Coast. Like, you know, kind of preppy.

• 3:55Yasi Salek?

  We have a little vibe. He invites me into his dorm room.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Also in Tropicana Gardens.

• 3:59Yasi Salek?

  That's right. Simply downstairs and, you know, down the hall. And he puts on Get Up Kids. That's right. Bao Chikawawa, if you will. And I was like, okay, the mood is absolutely set. Also, I was like, this is amazing. Cause I had sort of checked out, maybe, this is like, I had started transitioning at that point. I was like, still really into punk and stuff, but I, I love Jimmy Eat World. I just wasn't really aware of Get Up Kids and.

• 4:31Yasi Salek?

  I was blown away. And then we had a moment, you know, as you do, young 18 year olds. And then at the end, he was like, don't tell anyone, okay?

• 4:41Speaker 04

  About the Get Up Kids?

• 4:42Yasi Salek?

  No, I think he would have been fine for me to tell people about the Get Up Kids, about what had transpired between us.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 4:48Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, well, yeah, I wasn't gonna, why would I tell anyone? And then I have had 13 years of therapy since then, just kidding, but I'm not just kidding. Anyways, Josh can rot in hell, but thankfully, he brought me the Get Up Kids. And I was texting Nam Drop with Rich Egan of Vagrant Records fame to get some, I was doing journalism, if you guys will, like, boots on the ground. And he said he had also heard that story. And he said, fuck Josh. And he probably didn't even really actually like the Get Up Kids. He's probably just using it to ensnare a vulnerable young woman.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  And look at you now. And look at us, like, talking, you know? Well, you think Josh is still talking about the Get Up Kids? Probably.

• 5:34Yasi Salek?

  Josh is probably working in, like, finance, like, destroying, like, emerging nations or something.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, true, true.

• 5:40Yasi Salek?

  How did you come to the Get Up Kids, Ariel?

• 5:44Speaker 04

  So, we were talking that I'm 30, in my 30s, 30.

• 5:48Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you're exactly 30, so you've just entered your 30s.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  And so I actually came into life the same year the Get Up Kids did. And it's been beautiful to watch our stars rise together. And so, yeah, I was 95, so I can't say that I was listening, unfortunately.

• 6:04Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  I was actually listening a lot to Seal, but anyway.

• 6:08Yasi Salek?

  Like Kiss from a Rose?

• 6:08Speaker 04

  That's the song I was born to, allegedly, in the hospital.

• 6:11Yasi Salek?

  That's pretty cool.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Lifted me out of my mind.

• 6:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  But, so, I found them, frankly, if I can be so honest with you, from Fall Out Boy. I believe that Fall Out Boy, either in their Wikipedia page, if that existed at the time, or in an interview, was like, they're like, who are your influences? And it's like, and there's just a list, you know, amazing bands.

• 6:31Yasi Salek?

  And you were like?

• 6:31Speaker 04

  And I was like, got it.

• 6:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  You know?

• 6:34Yasi Salek?

  That's actually so great, because I know that some people will probably be like, oh, we want to hear, you know, from people that were really, like, there. And it's like, that's fine, and I can get into that. But like, I'm actually very interested in what the Get Up Kids wrought, because... They are one of those unique bands that, I don't want to say the Velvet Underground of emo in some ways, but not no, like, a very specific strain of emo comes directly from the womb of the Get Up Kids and, to be frank, exceeded them vastly in terms of commercial success.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  They say everyone who listened to something to write home about put 12 pixelized on their next record, and I said more.

• 7:19Yasi Salek?

  You said actually more.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, no, I think, I was gonna ask you, I was actually going through, like, r/emo as ones want to do, just to be like, what are they talking about in there?

• 7:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And there's a- What are they, in 2026, what's up at r/emo?

• 7:33Speaker 04

  And it's more lively than ever, but I think, like, the post I saw, like, was making me tear up this morning as I was drinking my coffee, was just somebody being like, hey, for anybody who was like a teenager in the 90s, like, what was it like to like, or did you know you were like in the middle of the most special time in music?

• 7:47Yasi Salek?

  It's like how I feel about, like, LA in the 70s, or like, 90s Seattle, they're like, what was the Warped Tour like in 1994? I'll tell you, babe, I was there. We can talk about it.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  So, yeah, I always find it interesting that I was-

• 7:59Yasi Salek?

  Paris in the 20s.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, and so that's my, that's my introduction, and then I like went back and listened after I, you know, like, I wasn't listening at the moment, but then I put away emo for a bit, but then around 2017, when all that We Were, When We Were Young stuff was boiling back to the surface, I was kinda like, let me check these guys out again, see if this particular band holds up, and I would say even better than I remembered.

• 8:22Yasi Salek?

  Fucking slaps. Fall Out Boy, you would have been, man, like, prime age.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say, I missed, um, Take This To Your Grave, that's the one, well, you just said you don't really know much about-

• 8:37Yasi Salek?

  Sugar, I'm Going Down Spinning, that's my, that's my place with Fall Out Boy, and I will learn more when it is time, and it's lovely men, I've interviewed them actually in the past, I just like, it's all kinda past my time, and I just have never really, like, dived deep in there, but Sugar, I'm Going Down Spinning is a god tier banger, and, so-

• 9:00Speaker 04

  That, to me, I feel like I knew as the Antler song, or like that was colloquially.

• 9:05Yasi Salek?

  Donald from The Virgins, you guys, for the heads that know, is Antler boy in the video, directed by the great Matt Linsky, if you're listening, Matt. You did a wonderful job on that. It's a real, it's a real Fellini moment in the emo canon.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  I still think about it, so thank you, every day. So I was like really into them by That Sugar We're Going Down album, which is, um, I-

• 9:32Yasi Salek?

  Couldn't tell you. It was, I was in college, I think. No, I've been in high school.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  It was 2005, from under the cork tree.

• 9:37Yasi Salek?

  Oh my god, I wasn't even, I wasn't even in college anymore.

• 9:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you were the exact audience for From Under The Cork Tree, but yeah, I feel like, then from there, I was on a lot of like live journal forums and people would just talk about the Get Up Kids all the time, and I feel like I was getting, well, we'll get into some of the drama, but some of the interpersonal band dramas of that era.

• 9:55Yasi Salek?

  Oh yeah, because that's exactly when the band fell apart, it was like 2005-ish.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:00Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great. I kinda like this, that we're gonna meet in different places. All right, let's take it from the top with one Matthew Pryor, born March 16th, 1978. He's a Pisces, which is, I think, zero surprise.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:14Yasi Salek?

  That's a Pisces man.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  I was looking it up, I think there's multiple Pisces in the band.

• 10:18Yasi Salek?

  I know that there's an Aries and a Cancer, the Popes.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  That's crazy.

• 10:23Yasi Salek?

  And Jim Subtext's a Libra.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  It's really hard to do research, by the way, on the Pope brothers, because it just comes up with Pope stuff.

• 10:29Yasi Salek?

  They keep saying, oh, like, you mean the Holy Father?

• 10:32Speaker 04

  The Holy Father. And I'm like, that's different, less influential Pope, to me.

• 10:37Yasi Salek?

  You think the Holy Father is less influential than the two Pope brothers?

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:41Yasi Salek?

  Okay. I think that's a fair take to all the Catholic listeners, to the Catholic monk who listens to this podcast.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 10:50Yasi Salek?

  He might disagree with you, and that's okay, it's a, there's a wealth of different opinions in the world. So Matt Pryor, he's born in Kansas City, Missouri, his father's a lawyer, and his parents get divorced when he's fairly young, goes to Catholic school, speaking of the Pope. And gets really into hair metal as a man who is born in 1978 is wanting to do. Because, you know, you're 10, eight, 10 years old and like Molly Crew and Guns N' Roses is fucking popping the fuck off. He said, "I am a young metalhead, a white trash poser because I actually come from money. The one outlier in my record collection is Pump Up the Volume." He's talking in present tense as a child. "Catholic school dress codes won't allow boys to have hair past their collars, so I have sort of a mini mullet.

• 11:34Yasi Salek?

  Business in the front, Christian mingle in the back." This is from Red Letter Day's, Day or Days, his memoir, which is actually quite good. At 12, he's diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  I didn't know that.

• 11:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, there's a real big chunk of it in the book. It's actually, I think, pertinent to the story, but I'll mention it for now. Within a year of that, his mother remarries. He says, "My new stepfather is significantly older than my mother, but this doesn't bother me. That he and I are wholly incompatible will become bothersome, but it isn't an issue we need to address yet." So we have a couple wounds, starting, we have divorce, we have stepfather we don't get along with, and we have early diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, which is pretty gnarly when you're 12 years old and have to like all of a sudden monitor your insulin intake and stuff.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, he didn't have any sugar going down at all.

• 12:29Yasi Salek?

  No sugar was going down spinning, or maybe too much sugar going down spinning. It depends, I think either one can cause a crash.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that's destabilizing no matter what.

• 12:37Yasi Salek?

  Right, I'm not a doctor. So he starts playing guitar at 13, but he also, I think he played drums first. He started going to a support group for teenagers with diabetes. And this is where he meets the girl who will eventually become his wife and also the subject of a great deal of the Get Up Kid songs that we love at the diabetes support group.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  That's fascinating because I was glancing his Wikipedia and it says, I can read it from it now, that he met his wife at high school, at the high school, so I wonder.

• 13:07Yasi Salek?

  I think they got it wrong, babe, because according to his own words in his memoir.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  You're gonna update the Wikipedia.

• 13:11Yasi Salek?

  They were at the support group, which is kind of difficult for me to discern, but I'm pretty sure it was a teens with diabetes support group. So I assume she also had diabetes, or it might have just been a support group for like. Teenagers experiencing difficulties.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Either way, I'm glad that they got the support they needed.

• 13:29Yasi Salek?

  Yes, and, and found love. He also meets another girl there who becomes a close friend and teaches him about cool music. He said, "Above her bed, she's got a subway poster of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, all wearing socks in their penises." Hell, yeah. "And another of the nude twin women from that Jane's Addiction album cover before it got censored. She's the one who first turned me on to punk rock on the local public radio station. So, thank you, other woman, she's not named in the book, I think he gives her a nickname, but I can't remember what it is." Their first date, not him and this girl, but him and future wife, is going to a concert with that other girl to see Red Hot Chili Peppers with Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam opening.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  What the fuck.

• 14:07Yasi Salek?

  "We used to be a proper country." He was wearing a Mother Love Bone shirt because he was like, "I'm a fucking real one. Oh, you guys aren't even up on Mother Love Bone, you don't even know." This girl also gets him into poetry. Important, I think, trajectory. This is the 90s, babe, we're talking coffee shops with giant, like, ugly purple couches. Like, you don't even understand, like, you can't walk into Blank Street today with the minimal aesthetic and the scent of Santal and understand what a vibe we had with these, like, the fonts they would use on these menus, it's like, the curls, it's just, you, you can't ever know.

• 14:45Speaker 04

  Global Cafe.

• 14:46Yasi Salek?

  Global Cafe, yeah. It was really beautiful, it was a really beautiful time, mismatching chairs, it was wonderful. So, we're doing open mic nights. And by way, I mean Matt Prior. I also probably did some open mic nights, but this is not about me. They meet a local adult poet who goes by the name Black and start hanging out with him at his house. This is the 90s and that was normal. He had a signed Replacements poster on his fridge. I just liked that detail, so I wanted to include it. Matt Prior said, "I decided to try writing myself. I start journaling, but I'm fearful of it being read by my mother, so I find myself censoring the words that come out of my brain. Eventually, with my friend's encouragement, I developed the courage to read at one of Black's events. But I decided to perform a song instead.

• 15:28Yasi Salek?

  I'd been playing drums, but you can't really write songs on that instrument, so I switched to guitar. I have a rudimentary understanding of the guitar, but I figured it out enough to craft songs and learn some simple covers. There's no chance in hell that I could begin to understand the tablature featured in the metal-centric guitar rags, but luckily punk rock requires very little musical virtuosity to play. It's one of the genre's superpowers and it's a game changer for me."

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 15:51Yasi Salek?

  He played Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation", if you wanted to know what the cover song was.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  We'll get into it, but there's another great Pixies cover they do.

• 15:58Yasi Salek?

  Incredible Pixies cover.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Really good.

• 16:00Yasi Salek?

  It's Alec Eiffel. Yeah, it's really good.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  I want to see it, yeah.

• 16:02Yasi Salek?

  I really liked this thing that he also said. He said, "Even though I'm terrible and terrified, I'm still encouraged. These adults know that the will to perform is the first step towards actually being a performer. The same way the will to write or compose is the first step to becoming a writer or composer. They see that will in me, even though it scares me to death, and they encourage it." Isn't that beautiful?

• 16:23Speaker 04

  I'm very touched.

• 16:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So then he starts playing in a band with another guy from this maybe diabetes, maybe not support group. It's called Take a Joke.

• 16:34Speaker 04

  Take a Joke has a great cassette. Like one, I mean, I've never listened to it, the name of it.

• 16:40Yasi Salek?

  What is it?

• 16:40Speaker 04

  I think it's "Bicycles for Afghanistan."

• 16:42Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah, "Bicycles for Afghanistan." It's a reference to Kurt Vonnegut's

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Cat's Cradle.

• 16:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's so great. People used to read books, you guys. Take a Joke, the singer, he's a hippie. He's named his car after Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. Hell, yeah. Sometime around there, he sees Fugazi for the first time. Really, maybe Fugazi is the Velvet Underground that launched 1,000 ships. I mean, whatever, we can take it back to many different bands, but

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:10Yasi Salek?

  A lot of bands stem from learning about or seeing Fugazi. 311 is a good example.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  They're both Velvet Underground for different, like, different types, like entirely different.

• 17:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but it is interesting when, I mean, we're not going to chart the entire history of emo. Like, I don't have a whiteboard or anything, but like, if you wanted to go to the whole way of rites of spring, coming off of the original

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Embrace.

• 17:35Yasi Salek?

  Embrace. Coming off of the original DC hardcore scene around Discord, and then we have Fugazi. You know, like, it's all, it's all feeding into a similar well. I'm pretty sure American football had a pretty strong influence from hearing Fugazi as well. Did I do that episode three weeks ago? Should I know? Yeah, but brain damage. Matt said, "It's impossible to overstate the impact that Ian and Guy and Brendan and Joe have had on my life," the members of Who Gonna Be? "Even at this young age, especially at this young age. Their ethos and musical adventurousness becomes the foundation of both my songwriting and my humanity. Fuck Catholic school. I learned how to be a good person from Repeater. I will copy their lyrical cryptology, writing songs with verses obtuse enough that people will never seem to know what they're actually about.

• 18:19Yasi Salek?

  It's like decoding a message in a bottle every time you learn the actual meaning of one of their songs." Which is how I felt when I learned that Dave Matthews Band's song, "Number 41," was about their lawyer.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 18:30Yasi Salek?

  It was devastating. "Sometimes when you sing the words, you don't really hear what they are. Most people don't really care, but I do. I care a lot."

• 18:37Speaker 04

  He cared a lot. He does care a lot. Like, that's one thing you can definitely say about him.

• 18:41Yasi Salek?

  One thing you can say about Matt Prior is he cares quite a bit.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:44Yasi Salek?

  Okay, the next band is called Secular Theme.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Great name.

• 18:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's very like, "I'm in Catholic school." You know, like, and so...

• 18:53Speaker 04

  That's the most rebellious thing you could think of at the time.

• 18:56Yasi Salek?

  It's a noise band, and I was, like, dying laughing at how Matt described it in his book, which is, "It's music for people who don't enjoy melody or song structure," which is exactly how I feel about noise music.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 19:06Yasi Salek?

  It's like, good, if you don't want any of those things.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  But you do enjoy those things.

• 19:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah, I would prefer if music had melody or song structure. Listen, different strokes for different folks, babe. They wear suits and skinny ties, and they have a saxophone player who does not know how to play saxophone.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  Know how to play.

• 19:23Yasi Salek?

  Right, I mean, sure, it's punk. An all-ages warehouse venue opens up in downtown Kansas City. Earl, I didn't ask you, where are you from?

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Long Island.

• 19:31Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so not Kansas. This venue opens up in downtown one of the Kansas cities. Just a fun tidbit about that all-ages venue, besides the fact that it gives a place to see and play, you know, in bands, is that... There's a local performance artist named Scully. And he's like, you guys, my cousin is coming to play. We should all go. And that cousin's name was Beck Hanson.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Wow. What?

• 19:59Yasi Salek?

  Yep. So they got to have a little Beck show. It was right around when Beck was blowing up with Loser. So Matt Prior, at this point, is living in a house that his stepdad, he's moved into this house that his stepdad owns. It has a wine cellar that they don't use, which they let him convert into a rehearsal space.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  This is coming back to the, what did he call himself? Like poser white trash?

• 20:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it comes up a lot, which I thought was interesting, like, which makes a lot of sense, like, coming up in punk, like, the idea that he was like too privileged.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  He was ashamed a bit.

• 20:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, of being like, sort of, although, I mean, a lot of emo music later comes sort of from suburban, maybe not privileged, but sure, just like suburban landscapes, you know?

• 20:45Speaker 04

  So I remember when Joe Biden, remember Joe Biden, by the way? Okay. Hard to describe where to start, but like, um,

• 20:51Yasi Salek?

  Is he related to Hunter Biden?

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Yes. Okay.

• 20:54Yasi Salek?

  Love that guy.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  There actually is his dad. Yeah. Yeah. But he's like, less cool.

• 20:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, everybody really less cool than Hunter Biden.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  And I don't know if he's ever, like, even seen an exotic dancer.

• 21:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 04

  Jinx. But so like, Joe Biden, oh, so when he was running, you know, I remember Pete Wentz posted on Instagram, like, you know, kind of being like, I owe my life to Joe Biden, because Pete Wentz's parents met campaigning for Joe Biden for, I believe, Senate.

• 21:23Yasi Salek?

  That's cute.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  And so just to speak to the level of like connections and wealth of the emos that came after.

• 21:29Yasi Salek?

  Sure, sure.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  I'd say that it only got more and more kind of connected.

• 21:32Yasi Salek?

  It's a diverse group, you know?

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Sure. But yeah, I could see why he would be like, it's interesting, I could see why he made me not tell people at the time that his band formed in a wine cellar.

• 21:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah, totally. In an underused wine cellar in his stepfather's house. He works at the library and an adult video store. I believe this is now sort of after high school. He's playing in bands, something Decoder Ring?

• 21:59Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 22:00Yasi Salek?

  Secret Decoder Ring, yeah. He pretends to be in college.

• 22:05Yasi Salek?

  And uses the money that his father sends him for like classes and living expenses to buy a Ford Econoline van for band stuff. We jammy Conno as you know, if you're a Minuteman person. He says, I do not inform my father of this action. Instead, I create a fake curriculum of classes culminating in a notarized and completely counterfeit report card. The notarized is such a nice touch.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  He went the whole way.

• 22:30Yasi Salek?

  It's a little Lady Doth protest too much because like, wouldn't your dad be like, why is your report card notarized? Is that normal? I never had a notarized report card.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  I never, yeah. I also am wondering what kind of classes he was making up.

• 22:42Yasi Salek?

  I know, I'm so curious.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, like his dad's not going to call the professor, you know what I mean?

• 22:46Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  Clearly.

• 22:48Yasi Salek?

  It worked out.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:49Yasi Salek?

  He meets Jim Subdick, Alibra, and Rob and Ryan Pope and Aries and Cancer, respectively, brothers, when their high school band, which was called Kingpin, plays with like one of his various bands. He said, they're from the suburbs and don't seem bothered by that pedigree. They like abstract, feedback-based noise rock even more than me. They all wear glasses and are much more fashionable than me and my mechanic chic. He was really into wearing like.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Like a boiler suit?

• 23:22Yasi Salek?

  Like workwear, workmanware. It was very like Rocket from the Crypt admiration club, you know, and like the greaser hair.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 23:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that really comes from like the guy from Rocket and the Crypt. Fun fact about Jim Subdick, the first show he ever went to that he paid for with his own money was Helmet, The Jesus Lizard and Therapy.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  Fuck.

• 23:42Yasi Salek?

  I know, it was pretty cool. Jim Subdick, you're a real one. So then in 1995, they get up kids for him. It's time.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  It's time.

• 23:51Yasi Salek?

  It's time. They have a guy called Thomas Becker on bass, and actually Ryan Pope is not in the band yet. Becker leaves for college, so then they have, they need to replace the drummer, and now that's this guy called Nathan Shea who went to art school with Jim Subdick, but this is a bit later. The timeline's a little confusing. So their first practice takes place October 14th, 1995. This is Jim Subdick's 18th birthday. I believe he was still in, they're still in high school, him and the Pope brothers. Well, definitely Ryan, because he's young, but I think they're all still in high school. There's a lot of lore about their first show.

• 24:31Yasi Salek?

  There's several ones that are their first show, but the actual, actual first show is, takes place by accident. It is at a venue called Pat the Head's House. This is the basement of the house of a man called Pat the Head.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 24:48Yasi Salek?

  Just in case you're wrong.

• 24:49Speaker 04

  Like, he's like a music head.

• 24:51Yasi Salek?

  I have no idea, they don't-

• 24:52Speaker 04

  It's confusing too, because Pat the Head-

• 24:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally. And he might have, he might have also had just like a large head. It's not, there's no detail given.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  But it's his basement.

• 25:00Yasi Salek?

  Use your imagination. Yeah, it's his basement. He would have shows there. And that day, Texas is the Reason and Shift were meant to play. But somehow, both their bands had technical issues and they were not able to come. Matt Prior said, "This, I assume, is horseshit. I know I wouldn't be excited to get a tour itinerary with a door deal at Pat the Head's basement." So anyway, those guys don't show up. Their friend Rambo's band is playing already on the bill. It's like the third opener. And their whole band is already just like in attendance at the show. So they're like, "I guess we could play a few songs." So they play a few songs.

• 25:44Yasi Salek?

  Jim Subdick said that he's sure they played Woodson and Shorty, and then they played some covers. And then actually, years later, he talked to Texas is the Reason and they were like, "Yes, we canceled because we did not want to waste the gas to come play in Pat the Head's basement."

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Smart.

• 25:59Yasi Salek?

  That's allowing for the first Get Up Kids show.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  I mean, Texas is the Reason must be kicking themselves, you know?

• 26:04Yasi Salek?

  They could have played, they could have played Pat the Head's Basement. So then they're like, "Fuck yeah, we're a band. We need, we need, what we need is a single and a tour." Also, just a quick sidebar about the Get Up Kids name. Matt said that an old band of his in high school had a song, I don't know, one of those old bands, that the song was about whenever they'd play at this one coffee shop in the suburbs, all these punk kids would only come to that show. So it was like these suburban getup kids that would only come to the suburb shows. So that's what they would call them, suburban getup kids. So the name was meant to be Suburban Getup Kids, but A, it's a bad name. But B, I think-

• 26:46Yasi Salek?

  Matt Prior was like, "All my prior band names were, started with an S and they didn't pan out, and I don't want to do another S name, so we'll just go with Gaddupkins."

• 26:56Speaker 04

  I like that, a bit of like magical thinking.

• 26:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like, let's, let's shift the energy.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:01Yasi Salek?

  All right, let's get into the first seven inch, 1996, Shorty, B-side, "The Breathing Method."

• 27:09Speaker 04

  Like, what's interesting to me about their earlier stuff is, I think they get a lot of hate for, we'll talk about like, the emo subgenres and the classifications they're in, but I think-

• 27:17Yasi Salek?

  You will, and I will listen.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we can, and I have my whiteboard, so it's, it's good, but I just think it is, you can hear more clearly the connection between those sounds of like, when people call second wave Midwest emo-

• 27:29Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  Whatever, the kind of more, you know, experimental is like a broad term, but, you know, more, less just melodic and like, playing more with rhythm and having all these other things going on.

• 27:42Yasi Salek?

  Alternative tunings.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  Alternative tunings.

• 27:44Yasi Salek?

  Sure, a little jazz.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  A little jazz.

• 27:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  I think the earliest stuff kind of speaks more to that, and like, I think then, we'll get into it, but they, they then usher in a kind of, a third wave, if you will, that is much more like, melodically driven and I think sounds, got a lot more criticism later on.

• 28:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they, they really do occupy kind of like, a weird space, because they predate American football, or at least the first American football release.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 28:12Yasi Salek?

  I guess they would have been sort of in a similar timeline as Captain Jazz.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:17Yasi Salek?

  Though, there's no real evidence that they knew of or played with each other, like, I don't know, that, I know that like, Braid and Mineral and some of the other prominent Midwest emo bands, although Mineral is not from the Midwest, but, you know, lumped into that category, were in this like, kind of burgeoning scene with them as they would play shows with them, so. That being said, Shorty is great, and "The Breathing Method" is actually really beautiful, and these are kind of crazy to be your first two songs.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Yes, I agree, that's what I feel when I'm like, if I see early videos of them, or if I hear these earliest songs, it's that they're like musicians, and they're very like, ambitious composers, I would say.

• 29:11Yasi Salek?

  This is still Nathan Shea, by the way, on the first, uh, the first Seven Inch. Uh, he's a sculptor, so Matt Prior calls him the sculptor in the book, and he says, "We record three songs and the sculptor insists that he scream on each one. We are not crazy about this, but he seems adamant, so we let it go. It's not really the sound we're going for, and I have no fucking idea what he's saying in any of these songs." And you can still hear it in the background. Um, so they, they bang out the Seven Inch, um, they pay for it with their own money, there's some studio in Nebraska that charges by the song rather than the hour, great deal. Um, and they mail that Seven Inch out to everyone that they can find on earth. Um, band friends, you know, they, they hit that

• 29:53Yasi Salek?

  maximum rock and roll book, Your Own Fucking Life Bible, which has done a great deal of good in the punk and emo community. And they start getting some interest, and they start signing up some shows for that summer. However, Nathan Shea, the sculptor, is like, "I'm not gonna tour, I have a sculpting internship or something." And so, that's when they draft Ryan Pope up from high school onto drums. Um, according to Matt Prior, the sculptor threw a spectacular tantrum and ceremonially broke a copy of the Seven Inch over his knee. That's awesome. I just thought it was really funny. Impressive. Well, I don't know, how do you, it's so small, how do you? Right. Maybe he had a really skinny, skinny, skinny knee. You have to mean it. Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot, designed to keep you connected, powered by Verizon's 5G network. And, no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month, or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan, and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code "HACK." Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 31:10Speaker 05

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Say hello to smooth, sugar-like sweetness with Truvia Alulose Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monk Fruit Sweetener. This blend delivers balanced sweetness that minimizes aftertaste with zero calories per serving. Designed to fit everyday moments, Truvia Alulose Blend measures cup for cup like sugar, making it effortless to swap into beverages, baking, and even savory dishes. Find Truvia Alulose Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monk Fruit Sweetener online and nationwide at Kroger, Target, and your favorite local grocery retailer.

• 32:10Yasi Salek?

  Okay, now, now, this is May of 96. The second first show takes place in the lore of the Get Up Kids, which is the night of Jim, Rob, and Ryan Pope's high school prom, because they're still in high school. I think Jim and Rob are probably seniors. They play a show at a place called The Daily Grind. They took their dates out to dinner in a limo, popped into the gig, played in their tuxedos. High-tailed it to the prom. Very cool. Matt Pryor did load out because he was not in high school anymore. Yeah. And then they tour over the summer. They're like, let's go. Bunch of little places, including their third first show, which is at the Slant House in

• 32:54Yasi Salek?

  Madison with Mineral and the Promise Ring. Puck. We used to be a proper country.

• 33:03Yasi Salek?

  Although according to Matt Pryor, this show actually wasn't that great or well attended. So even though in our imagination that it's like a magic and miracle show, he was like, it was like, whatever. But he said, "Later I catch The Promise Ring playing a mixtape on their van stereo. I'm surprised by their unironic love for top 40 pop radio and the hits of today," which makes so much sense when you listen to The Promise Ring. He said, "It leaves an impression on me. I've been so steeped in the indie rock underground and noise scene that I forgot what a joy pop music is."

• 33:30Speaker 04

  And I get that.

• 33:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 33:31Speaker 04

  It is joyful.

• 33:32Yasi Salek?

  Totally. And I think that does seep in to the shift in Get Up Kids music that starts to take place. I mean, this is very early, so they only had two songs, but you know, you can kind of see this arc is forming.

• 33:43Yasi Salek?

  He also mentions in his book, "Being heavily influenced by the Kansas City," very early, I don't even think would have been called emo because that wasn't super minted quite in that way yet, with the band Boys Life.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, that feels like the other big Kansas.

• 33:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Speaker 04

  City.

• 33:58Yasi Salek?

  I'm not really up on Boys Life, but I did listen to some. Quite good, gotta say. And also hilariously, I just couldn't help but notice that the Spotify bio of Boys Life starts with, "While the Get Up Kids were still in braces, Kansas City's Boys Life were setting the pace for local post-hardcore shift towards emo."

• 34:22Speaker 04

  That's not nice.

• 34:23Yasi Salek?

  Well, isn't it? I mean, they're just setting the record straight.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Who, do they even have braces, you know? I don't know if they were doing it to all the kids back then.

• 34:30Yasi Salek?

  Such a good point.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  Anyway.

• 34:31Yasi Salek?

  There's no, there's no.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  Nothing wrong with orthodontics, but anyway.

• 34:34Yasi Salek?

  I, myself, had headgear and braces, so.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  Boys Life got the numero treatment. That's why I feel like they have a second life in a nice way.

• 34:41Yasi Salek?

  Numero is really doing the heavy lifting of.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Emo from that era, for sure.

• 34:46Yasi Salek?

  Bringing it, be like, "Hey, you have ever heard of this shit? No? Okay, well, you're gonna listen to it now."

• 34:52Speaker 04

  I imagine the emo, the offices of numero, they have like a big whiteboard and someone comes in, rolls in, rolls in another whiteboard.

• 34:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 04

  And it's like, and all it has on it is a band and the band is, what is it? Somebody asked about you and they're like, "Say, perfect."

• 35:05Yasi Salek?

  Perfect.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  "You've done it."

• 35:06Yasi Salek?

  You've done it.

• 35:07Speaker 04

  We're putting it out.

• 35:08Yasi Salek?

  The name.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  We're putting it out. But yeah, so Boys Life is the other Kansas City, like, I feel like they were kind of putting them on the emo map a little bit before and. But yeah, they set the stage in a way.

• 35:20Yasi Salek?

  Well, he also, this is just nerd shit, but I, I was quite delighted by it. In, in his book, Matt Pryor mentions two other local Lawrence bands that I've never heard of. And he describes them like, he's like, two of the very best bands in the world are from Lawrence, Kansas. One is called Kill Creek. They have 532 monthly listeners on Spotify. However, they are so good. I love when I find something like that. Thank you, Matt Pryor. It's really, really good. And then there's another one called Vitrius Humor. Also quite good. That one is a little more, I think, well-known, but thank you, Matt Pryor. And if you guys at home, go listen to those because they're really good. Kill Creek I really enjoyed. His love of those bands aside, Matt Pryor says that the Get Up Kids are not part of the Kansas City music scene.

• 36:05Yasi Salek?

  And pretty much are ignored until they get noticed by Jackie Becker, who's the booker of the bottleneck in Lawrence. Honestly, one of the best venues. I've been there somehow. It's really great. Matt Pryor calls it the troubadour of the Midwest. It's a big deal to be booked there. And then another really important biographical note is at the end of this summer, we're touring. We're playing with the promise ring in Mineral. We are getting noticed by the Lawrence, Kansas troubadour of the Midwest, the bottleneck. And then I actually literally don't know her name because he calls her something else in the book. He calls her Honey White in the book. I don't know what Matt Pryor's wife's name is. I'm sorry. Don't blame me, Matt Pryor's wife.

• 36:49Yasi Salek?

  I love to name people by name, but it's not in the book. She moves to Boston for school, starting along this relationship that will be incredibly inspirational for many songs.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  I think when I first found the Get Up Kids, I thought they were from Boston.

• 37:08Yasi Salek?

  Many people because of the Mass Pike song.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Mass Pike song. And there's also, there's multiple, well, then there's that single they have, The New Found Interest in Massachusetts. After which I believe a band that's real called A New Found Interest in Connecticut formed. But like, I think based on that name, I think.

• 37:22Yasi Salek?

  Amazing.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 37:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this is all, all rooted in.

• 37:27Yasi Salek?

  Early wife guy Matt Pryor being absolutely devoted to his childhood sweetheart, who moved to Boston. So, so much so that people think his band is from Boston. That's love. It's really beautiful. All right. So in the fall, they're like, let's send this seven inch to some labels. Like, let's get this popping. They do not get it popping. They're mostly rejected or ignored, except for two offers. One Matt Pryor calls a one man kitchen table sort of affair that one takes on in their college years, which I like couldn't help but wonder Carrie Brown 's voice if that was polyvinyl, since that's a college-based sort of one man-ish thing.

• 38:10Yasi Salek?

  But I haven't, that's just me speculating. And a hardcore label called Doghouse formed by Dirk Hemseth in 1987. So this, this label wasn't exactly maybe like a genre fit, but they had their own distribution. That was like a big part of the company and a partnership with an agency in Europe. And so they were like, well, we would have distro and we could play Europe. Yeah, it's a safe bet. It's a safe bet. The contract was for two albums and two EPs. So in 1997, first

• 38:46Yasi Salek?

  EP, Woodson. Just want to quickly paint a picture of the music of 1997 that this is emerging into. You are not born. I'm two. You're two. You're two years old. Okay. So maybe you're enjoying some Spice Girls. I was. At the house, yeah. Wallflowers, great band, put up Bringing Down the Horses here. Perhaps the only thing, it's just Radiohead's OK Computer, huge deal. Modest Mouse. I was gonna say, yes. Most. That's a big deal. Another like, are we emo, are we not emo? What do we call them? Elliott Smith, either or. Sorry, I'm doing ASMR. Elliott Smith. Well, The Promise Ring, Nothing Feels Good. Come on.

• 39:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Come on. Raina Maria, Password and Searching, Static Prevails, Jimmy Orled at the drive-in EP.

• 39:40Yasi Salek?

  I believe Cursive, another band that I'm not super familiar with, The Ice Cream Party.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Oh, you must.

• 39:45Yasi Salek?

  Uh, Joan of Arc.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 39:48Yasi Salek?

  A portable model of knapsack. Honestly, really good band. Um, okay. So, Stuff's Happening, Stuff's Popping Off, and Woodson Comes Into This World. They had promised two of these tracks to a tiny label in Rhode Island called Contract Records. So actually, A New Found Interest in Massachusetts, which you just referred to, and Off the Wagon initially came out. That and a seven inch. How do you feel about these songs?

• 40:15Speaker 04

  I, I mean, I'm like one of those people who.

• 40:17Yasi Salek?

  Loves their earlier stuff.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, unfortunately, or like, or just not just there.

• 40:21Yasi Salek?

  You're a music journalist.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  I have that tendency in all the bands to be like, I love their scrappy, kind of, you know, homespun. Rawness that you just miss. Uh, but so, yeah, I do really enjoy them and I feel like I don't like go back as much because they're not as replayable. Like, they are a bit more, I don't know.

• 40:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  Abrasive, maybe, but I think, uh, you can just hear a lot of the things that will come later, I think.

• 40:42Yasi Salek?

  Right, like the DNA.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:43Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I'm with you. I have a kind of a long-held theory that rock music is like the sound of youth, you know? So there's a reason that we always like the earlier stuff. It's just, it's more visceral. It's more at the surface of what it's trying to get to. It's just, it's just like right there, like the veil is thin, if you will. Whereas like, unfortunately, the older you get, you'll make great music, but it's not going to have the immediacy. Um, nobody likes it when I say that. And by nobody, I mean musicians.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  But I generally agree with that.

• 41:14Yasi Salek?

  And I'm sorry. Um, I really like What's Happening Here on Woodson. Like, second place, let's go fucking clapping. Let's fucking go.

• 41:28Yasi Salek?

  And A New Found Interest in Massachusetts is actually a really beautiful song.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  It is.

• 41:32Yasi Salek?

  Not actually, why would I say actually? It's a really beautiful song, period.

• 41:46Yasi Salek?

  They're building a fanbase. Like, people are starting to kind of get into it. Woodson ups that fanbase a little bit. They also go on a national tour with Braid and Ethel Mizerve.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Um, you got it.

• 41:59Yasi Salek?

  The first date takes place, uh, after their high school graduation.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  Which ones?

• 42:07Yasi Salek?

  Well, um...

• 42:09Speaker 04

  Well, it has to be, because Ryan's still in high school.

• 42:10Yasi Salek?

  Ryan's still in high school when they record Four Minute Mile. Yeah, so it's, uh, Rob and...

• 42:15Speaker 04

  Uh, Jim.

• 42:16Yasi Salek?

  Jim.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:17Yasi Salek?

  It's on this tour that they meet James Dewey's.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  Huge.

• 42:21Yasi Salek?

  Huge. He is the drummer for Coalesse, which is a pretty incredible post-hardcore band. Um, and they played together at a show, which yields their split with Coalesse. This split has the Get Up Kids song "Burned Bridges" and the Coalesse song "I'm Giving Up on This One." Splits have inches were so cool. Such a, such a marker of the burgeoning emo community.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  It's awesome. It really traces, like, you know, they'll later, we'll talk about, like, they're split with, or they have a split with the anniversary, and I'm like,

• 42:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 04

  "Were we ever so young?" You know?

• 42:51Yasi Salek?

  "Were we ever so young and naive?" This idea of community and this idea of, like,

• 42:57Yasi Salek?

  teaming up with a band that you feel a kinship with to, like, expose your audiences to each other's music. It's, like, so tender.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  I agree. Love it.

• 43:08Yasi Salek?

  So the next split they do is with Braid. It's called Postmark Stamps Number Four. The Get Up Kids put "I'm a loner, dotty, a rebel" on this one.

• 43:17Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 43:17Yasi Salek?

  I know. It's crazy. I'm assuming not a ton of people heard it at that time, but that's gonna become an important Get Up Kids song.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And then Braid's song is "Forever Got Shorter." And then, September of that year, they put out their first album, Four Minute Mile, produced by the bassist of Shellac, Bob Weston.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:38Yasi Salek?

  It's 28 minutes long.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  And how many, it's like four, not four, it's 11 songs.

• 43:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, tight.

• 43:44Speaker 04

  Uh, I read later that they thought because they could record four songs in a day, they thought they could record 11 songs in two days, which is awesome math. Like, you're like, I'm just gonna get better and actually I'm gonna keep.

• 43:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, so because that's not even correct, because you, it would be eight songs.

• 43:57Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:58Yasi Salek?

  But I guess they had two and a half days because they started Friday like afternoon. Basically, yeah, Ryan's in high school, so they like pick him up from school, high tail it over to Chicago, I think it was in Charlotte they recorded, and spend the entire weekend and then Sunday late night drive home. And they bang this thing out. Um, I don't think they were very happy with the result.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, later I read like a Jim Septick interview where he called the Bob Weston collaboration like a missed opportunity because of course, you know, you're not gonna know what to do with that with like, I feel like you wouldn't appreciate that as much when you have like, until later in your career and also like two and a half days, you know?

• 44:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, they're, they're children.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  I'm sure, but knowing their taste, I'm sure they could respect and like valorize and venerate um, Bob Weston at the time, but I feel like at the same time, you just, you're there to make 11 songs in two days.

• 44:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  So.

• 44:51Yasi Salek?

  Matt Prior said, "We spent every moment of those two and a half days um, at this studio, uh, only breaking to eat pizza, watch The Simpsons and sleep."

• 45:00Speaker 04

  Sounds cool.

• 45:01Yasi Salek?

  I mean, yeah. Apparently at the time, they were listening, they asked much later, like, what were you listening to while you were making this? And they said, "Boys Life, Christie Front Drive, the first Jimmy World record," because it had come out earlier that year, um, and stuff like Unwound, but also a lot of pop music like Weezer and that whole synthy thing at the end of the song, "Don't Hate Me," is very Rentals, Friends of P.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Love that song.

• 45:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, really great song.

• 45:29Speaker 04

  So good.

• 45:30Yasi Salek?

  The first Rentals record was a big one for them at the time. I thought that was interesting.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  That's fascinating. I, I wonder how many other bands have even ever like mentioned the side project of Weezer, the Rentals.

• 45:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, Weezer has a pretty big influence on the Get Up Kids, which you can really hear, you know, which I think is a kind of maybe is what differentiates them a little from like what's going on in the braid mineral, you know, the sort of Texas is the Reason is a little more esoteric, like.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 46:01Yasi Salek?

  They're, they seem to be driven more back to that, like hearing The Promise Ring, listen to. Radio pop, like, I think they're, they are drawn a little bit more to like pop elements and also like, kind of 80s-y, like, synth-y elements.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I think, yeah, it's a bass station synth on that song and it's like, I think you could just hear the, the things of band to come, if that's how you say it.

• 46:23Yasi Salek?

  Starting a song with the words "forgive me" is so emo. Like, you're just not gonna beat those allegations.

• 46:40Yasi Salek?

  What else sticks out to you on Four Minute Mile? I mean, it's, it's a pretty, it's a lot to talk about.

• 46:45Speaker 04

  It's a lot. I mean, I, again, like, I really like, I honestly listen to this record almost as much as the one that comes after it, I would say, just because I enjoy, like, how they're really going for it. Uh, I think Michelle with one L goes back to the, also the, like, uh, Midwest emo allegations, I think can be maybe, uh, put to rest that they were a Midwest emo band. Uh, it's very beautiful, it's very slow.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  I mean, there's just a lot there that I think you could hear that they were going to be a massively popular, I do think this, I mean, you always look back in retrospect, but I feel like they must have, at least, I hope, drove back from Chicago being like, we have like, one or two, like, gems.

• 47:34Yasi Salek?

  I mean, there's, there's absolutely, better half?

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 47:36Yasi Salek?

  That's a god-tier song.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 47:38Yasi Salek?

  Come on.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  You could just tell he's an old soul, which I really appreciate. And it's also a band across the board where you could tell that they are writing the lyrics down and like, editing them, like, erasing, and like, you know what I mean?

• 47:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to like, what we were talking about with like, the background of Matt Pryor, like, being exposed to like, coffee shop poetry and sort of like, trying his hand at poetry, you know? Like, I really love that.

• 48:11Yasi Salek?

  Matt said, I remember we had 10 songs and we felt like we needed one more. So the song that's called Lowercase Wes Thomas, we wrote randomly in the studio. That song is our friends, I guess about our friends Brian Case and Robert Lowe, not the actor. So that's Lowe and Case and they lived on Wes Thomas, which was the apartment that we stayed in when we were making the record.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 48:32Yasi Salek?

  There you go. A little lore, a little bit of lore. It's funny, like, I feel like this is like, they also have a very Jimmy World situation in which like, some people are like Four Minute Mile truther, like that is the, that's the album. And then some people are Something to Write Home About truthers.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 48:51Yasi Salek?

  Just the same way like Clarity and Bleed American. Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:55Yasi Salek?

  Where do you fall?

• 48:56Speaker 04

  Something to Write Home About is, to me, a categorically better record for many reasons that we'll talk about.

• 49:01Yasi Salek?

  Something to Write Home About is me standing outside, Love Actually style, with the sign, "To Me You're Perfect."

• 49:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 49:08Yasi Salek?

  That's how I feel about Something to Write Home About.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  It's an absolutely, you know, it's an album many have used to woo a lover or even to put on a mixtape. It's also just, it's trick.

• 49:17Yasi Salek?

  A dorm mate?

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:19Yasi Salek?

  Many uses for that album.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  But of course, I feel like, you know, also, I think I listened to Something to Write Home About frankly first. It wasn't, like, I wasn't going in order.

• 49:27Yasi Salek?

  That was your entry point.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  You know, a 12-year-old finding this band. But I feel that Four Minute Mile, uh, yeah. It definitely, as far as like debut LPs goes, is tremendous. And it's like, you know, especially knowing.

• 49:40Yasi Salek?

  They really kind of popped out fully formed in some ways, you know, like, and maybe it's just like, which is crazy given like, they're teenagers or 19.

• 49:48Speaker 04

  But they've been in so many bands at this point.

• 49:49Yasi Salek?

  They've been in a bunch of bands.

• 49:50Speaker 04

  That start with S.

• 49:51Yasi Salek?

  That start with S. And they're, you know, they didn't come here to play, babe.

• 49:56Speaker 04

  No. Well, they came to play music.

• 49:58Yasi Salek?

  They came here to play music, but not to play.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  But yeah, and then they toured with Brayden again after, and I think you're also just like, you're seeing bands that are all like, very professional. I have to imagine that those tours were quite tame. You know what I mean?

• 50:10Yasi Salek?

  Even like they're not partying, they're not rock star vibes.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't think they're Motley Crue, even though they like Motley Crue.

• 50:16Yasi Salek?

  Who knows?

• 50:16Speaker 04

  That's true. Cause there is some messiness, but it's like the kind of messiness that like is very.

• 50:21Yasi Salek?

  Well, they couldn't legally drink at bars, which obviously, you know, stops everyone and no one drinks.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  And no wine cellar, because it's a recording studio.

• 50:28Yasi Salek?

  Right. No Erasure of J. June, by the way. They also toured with J. June.

• 50:33Speaker 04

  Oh, well, that's really cool.

• 50:34Yasi Salek?

  We don't do.

• 50:35Speaker 04

  Great.

• 50:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we don't do J. June Erasure on this podcast. They also toured with Jimmy at World that year in December, and that's...

• 50:43Yasi Salek?

  I love this tid.

• 50:44Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:45Yasi Salek?

  So they're touring with Jimmy at World in December, and this is when the Get Up Kids first hear Clarity. Because remember, Clarity was floating around for a long time before it came out. And I read that they were like, "Well, we better fucking up our game."

• 50:58Speaker 04

  Jim's up there called, uh, he said, "There's an air of friendly competition," which is really fun.

• 51:04Yasi Salek?

  I can't imagine hearing Clarity. I mean, like, motherfucker.

• 51:08Speaker 04

  Back to the stool.

• 51:09Yasi Salek?

  Back to the drawing board. Not that Four Minute Mile isn't amazing, but I mean, Clarity is.

• 51:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:14Yasi Salek?

  It's a god tier.

• 51:14Speaker 04

  You're gonna step it up.

• 51:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So Ryan Pope is meant to go to college, because he's graduating high school. But the Get Up Kids get offered a tour in Europe with Braid. That's who you're talking about. And he's like, "Never mind. I'll go to college later. I'm gonna go to Europe with Braid." Um, so they do that. And then, at some point in this, in 1998, James from Coalescive moves in with the Pope brothers and becomes their roommate. And he and Matt are hanging out a bunch, because they are the only ones who are now 21 years old and can legally drink at bars, so they're doing that. And they bond over singing and music theory. Apparently, Matt said that James taught him about music theory and how to sing harmonies and stuff.

• 51:56Yasi Salek?

  This is also the same year that James recorded his first solo album under the name Reggie and the Full Effect.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  As a joke, he says, which is, I'm like, how do you record an album as a joke? Like, what's the joke? That it's really good?

• 52:11Yasi Salek?

  Maybe the name?

• 52:12Speaker 04

  That's funny. And he's funny, and...

• 52:14Yasi Salek?

  Greatest Hits, 1984 to 1987, I believe, is the album title.

• 52:17Speaker 04

  Well, and then, like, his next record was called Promotional Copy. Confusing. Funny.

• 52:22Yasi Salek?

  It's so great.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  But, like, laugh-out-loud funny.

• 52:23Yasi Salek?

  Um, I don't want to bismerch anyone, but I'm not a Reggie girl.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  I understand.

• 52:27Yasi Salek?

  But I'm happy for everyone.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  I'm not turning to it, but I actually, like, from that era of just, first of all, I'm very impressed by him because he, it's like-

• 52:35Yasi Salek?

  Incredible. He's like, "Oh, what are you guys doing? Sorry, I'm just making a joke record that's actually quite polished and incredibly advanced."

• 52:40Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna play every instrument on it all the time. Um, I was, I looked into it, obviously I'm not, or maybe not obviously, but I'm not checking in on Reggie that much, but obviously before this-

• 52:48Yasi Salek?

  To see what they're up to these days, you mean?

• 52:50Speaker 04

  What he's up to, yeah. And he released a record, I want to say in 2017, called Forty-One.

• 52:55Yasi Salek?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  And if you look at it, uh, I'll try to pull it up, but it's, uh, he was parodying Adele's Twenty-One on the cover.

• 53:03Yasi Salek?

  Cause he was forty-one.

• 53:04Speaker 04

  Cause he was forty-one. And it's like, that's actually funny now, cause, you know, that's a different age. And you're a man.

• 53:11Yasi Salek?

  It's really good.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  He nails it. So, you know, listeners at home, I really recommend. And it opens with like a, like an Italian, kind of like, um, operatic-

• 53:21Yasi Salek?

  Forty-One does?

• 53:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:23Yasi Salek?

  Incredible.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  First, yeah.

• 53:24Yasi Salek?

  He's clearly like very talented, and I think part of the thing that I read that I enjoyed was like, they had a piano in this house, the Pope House, and they would just be like, "Play Eternal Flame by The Bangles," and he could just play anything.

• 53:37Speaker 04

  I believe it.

• 53:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 53:38Speaker 04

  He's a highly talented guy.

• 53:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  Is it too funny, is it too goofy for you, too ner- like, is that where you come down?

• 53:44Yasi Salek?

  I just like, it's not for me.

• 53:46Speaker 04

  That's okay.

• 53:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. They end up like, after all this hanging and this like music theory talk and bonding over singing, they're like, "Well, actually, maybe we should have a keyboardist in the band, like we should have James in the band." But he has to tour with Coalesse first, so that doesn't happen quite yet. Now, the band is getting bigger and bigger, right? They are like, rightfully so. People are hearing Four Minute Mile and being like,

• 54:07Speaker 04

  Holy shit.

• 54:08Yasi Salek?

  Yes, I fuck with this heavy. And they start getting label interest, you know? Including from Sub Pop and Geffen, which I thought was interesting.

• 54:18Speaker 04

  And Mojo.

• 54:19Yasi Salek?

  And Mojo.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Where they briefly even say, "Maybe."

• 54:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Mojo's such a weird one to-

• 54:28Yasi Salek?

  I think they just really liked the A and R guy is what I read like. And that's because Mojo was home to Real Big Fish and Goldfinger at the time. So it's not exactly like a stylistic fit per se.

• 54:40Speaker 04

  And Cherry Pop and Daddy's.

• 54:41Yasi Salek?

  Of course, how could I forget Cherry Pop and Daddy's? So we have a bit of ska, we have a bit of swing, you know, we have, we have everything going on. Um, the spirit of the nineties is alive at Mojo Records. They also had a joint venture at this time with Universal. So they were like arguably both Indiana major, like they had the power to. But remember like the Get Up Kids are still signed to Doghouse. They have not fulfilled their contract. They've put out one EP and one album. They're signed for two EPs and two albums. The reason that they were unhappy with Doghouse is because Doghouse could not or would not, I don't know, keep up with their growth like. And I think it was partially to do with the fact that the distribution system was in-house

• 55:25Yasi Salek?

  in the sense that like they prioritized the vinyl that they were able to print up to distribute it because that's their bread and butter. Not sending it to the band to be able to sell on tour and like, there's just some other things I think that like they were feeling like, okay, you can't keep up with what we're trying to do here.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's an article I read from, I want to say, yeah, 2000, 2000 CMJ article. It's like, uh, they sold 40,000, which is great. First of all.

• 55:50Yasi Salek?

  It's a lot.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  It's a lot.

• 55:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  And they would have sold more if not for.

• 55:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:54Speaker 04

  Issues with Doghouse.

• 55:54Yasi Salek?

  Keeping in mind that they're not on the radio or MTV or anything that would, you know, promote the selling of so many records. Okay, so they're in talks with Mojo, but it's like extremely difficult and contentious. Mojo also had requested that they rerecord Don't Hate Me for the next record because they, they were like, that's a single, it just needs to sound better, like your voice is out of key or something.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  To be fair, it's a huge bop.

• 56:21Yasi Salek?

  It's a huge bop, but they were like. That's offensive. You think that's the best we can do. We can do better. They also wanted to own merchandising rights, which is like when you're selling T-shirts on the road. Also, this is just sidebar, but Alex Ross Perry and I were talking about this on last week's episode, and I can't stop thinking about it because it's so right. What happened in this specific genre where people were like, "Black and white T-shirts? We're done with that. What we need is maroon, yellow, navy, baby blue." And it was just a bunch of men wearing too small, baby blue and yellow T-shirts.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  And you're mad about that?

• 56:55Yasi Salek?

  It's ugly.

• 56:56Speaker 04

  It's interesting.

• 56:57Yasi Salek?

  I am mad about it. I'm gonna be mad about it in the newspaper.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  I remember I was super into Panic at the Disco, and I was like looking up old photos of Ryan Ross, because you're a 12-year-old girl, and he's the primary songwriter.

• 57:07Yasi Salek?

  Not me. I know who that is, but not me when I was 12. We were looking at photos of Kurt Cobain. It was a different, this and you are different.

• 57:12Speaker 04

  That's better. But there's like a picture of him, he like took like a digital camera selfie. Anyway, he's wearing a yellow-

• 57:19Yasi Salek?

  Of course he did, from here.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  Tiny, tiny, tiny, yellow, modest mouse with I think a water buffalo on it.

• 57:25Yasi Salek?

  I'm like, this is, this is why I can't be trusted to finish my deadlines on time, because I will spend like six hours going in a rabbit hole of like, who, who did this? Who decided we need maroon T-shirts now?

• 57:39Speaker 04

  I think it's probably also because we were talking, if I can, you know, just pontificate like the, or just, my guess is, you know, the preppiness of like, you know, they rejected it, because all these kids are like suburban kids who are like, no, but many are grown up in that time. And I feel like it bleated into maybe their desire to have some color and like separate themselves also as well. Like they're, because they, you know, they're emotional. And weirdly, I feel like the black was like too tough for them.

• 58:08Yasi Salek?

  I see, yeah. They were two, they were pussies. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  They're sweeties.

• 58:14Yasi Salek?

  Sweeties. I'm, I'm really happy for them, but I don't want any of those T-shirts, and I'll never wear them. And good for, good for them.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Throw mine away.

• 58:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, no, you can, you guys can do whatever you want to do. I just think black and white T-shirts were great with it ain't broke. So maybe the most pressing issue was that whatever label signed Get Up Kids would have to pay $50,000 to buy them out of their Doghouse contract. Around this time is when our pal Rich Egan approaches them to become their manager.

• 58:46Yasi Salek?

  I asked him, I was like, how did you? Like, what did you, like, how did you? Because he approached them, he was just like, and he was just like, yeah, I heard Four Minute Mile. Like, I heard the music, it was incredible.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  Like, someone brought it into the office and was like, you gotta hear this?

• 59:03Yasi Salek?

  I mean, they had one band at that time. I think Vagrant had Face to Face. Like, they were not, it's not exactly like a huge operation at the time. Maybe they had one, I think they had put out also like one seven inch before that of another band that I can't remember respectfully to Vagrant Records. Um, so it's not like they were like a huge label, but what he said was that he heard New Found Interest in Massachusetts for the first time on a mixtape. And he said it was the best song he'd heard in forever, and he made it his mission to hunt them down. So he approached them, not to sign them at first, just to be their manager. Rich Egan said in the oral history, "They're fighting with Doghouse, they want to go to Mojo." And I'm like, really? The Cherry Poppin' Daddies? And the Get Up Kids? Um, so Rich Egan was like, "You guys, I'm your manager, I'm, I've been trying to work this stuff out for you, but it's not working.

• 59:48Yasi Salek?

  Why don't we just put it on a Vagrant? You have the songs done," because they already had most of the songs written for, uh, something to write home about. And he's like, "You guys are going nuts, we gotta get on the road, let's just put it on Vagrant." Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Get Up Kids, they're like, "Yeah, okay." Um, John Cohen's parents had to take a mortgage out on their house in order to get the money together to buy that contract out.

• 1:00:14Speaker 04

  How do you think he explained that to his parents? Do you think he showed them?

• 1:00:18Yasi Salek?

  In what? He was like,

• 1:00:19Speaker 04

  He showed them?

• 1:00:20Yasi Salek?

  "Babe, I need you to hear, um, 'I'm a loner, Dottie, I'm a rebel, and I know you're gonna understand that you need to go to the bank right now."

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Yasi Salek?

  My parents would be like, "You need to go to law school, get out of my face."

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, that's the kind of, uh, that's the other end, maybe, of the, um, middle class, like, uh, you know, punk, middle class.

• 1:00:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, it's very cool, the Santa Monica Boys. Right before they record something to write home about, Matt Pryor lost an entire notebook full of lyrics he had written for these songs, and he had to like start from scratch. Or I was stolen, I guess.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 1:00:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  Are the demos from that, those, that notebook, is that?

• 1:00:58Yasi Salek?

  I think it was even prior to them recording demos.

• 1:01:01Speaker 04

  Damn.

• 1:01:01Yasi Salek?

  Because he said, like, A lot of the songs had to start over completely from scratch. So it must have been prior to the demos. He said, maybe it made them worse, but having the time and honestly, hyper fixating on it and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting was beneficial. So maybe that's why the words are so sort of good.

• 1:01:19Speaker 04

  Well, one of my favorite sliding doors of emo history is that, you know, Holiday was supposed to start totally differently. Like the lyric, well, because the demos are now out. They did this reissue for 25. So that would have been, whatever, 2024.

• 1:01:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, on polyvinyl.

• 1:01:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, beautiful reissue. But I-

• 1:01:39Yasi Salek?

  Written about by One Ariel Gordon on Pitchfork.com.

• 1:01:42Speaker 04

  Oh. But yeah, so the original lyrics are, "See you every year and yet we don't embrace", which would be a different start to the song. I don't like it as much.

• 1:01:53Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you like what they landed on?

• 1:01:55Speaker 04

  Much better, I think. "See you every year and yet we don't embrace." What is this, talking about grandma at Christmas time?

• 1:02:02Yasi Salek?

  Who are you not embracing?

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Once a year, you see it.

• 1:02:06Yasi Salek?

  You're right. I can't argue with it.

• 1:02:08Speaker 04

  So it makes sense that they did a lot of rewriting is what I'm saying. Yeah, many versions.

• 1:02:12Yasi Salek?

  Love that. Love that James is finally in the band, Dewey's. I keep not saying his last name because I feel like I'm saying it wrong. And then they head on over to Tinseltown, babe. Los Angeles, California, actually Silverlake, to start recording something to write home about.

• 1:02:27Speaker 04

  Do you think it sounds like a Silverlake record? Angelina? No.

• 1:02:32Yasi Salek?

  I don't think so. Do you think so?

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  Well, I've only been to Silverlake a couple of times and it doesn't sound like the two places I've been there, which are the Silverlake Lounge and the Erawan there. If I heard that song in either of those places, I'd be very confused.

• 1:02:45Yasi Salek?

  I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear any music that sounds like the Erawan in Silverlake. They should, whatever that music is, they should use it at Guantanamo.

• 1:02:52Speaker 04

  It's like "Believer" by Imagine- No, that's not it either. It's kind of-

• 1:02:55Yasi Salek?

  No, it's something else.

• 1:02:56Speaker 04

  Something else, I'll think about it.

• 1:02:58Yasi Salek?

  Father John Misty? I don't know, we don't want to go down this road. They stay at Kevin Kusatsu's house, who's their friend. This is only for like some real heads in the audience because Kevin Kusatsu was the first intern at Vagrant Records at like 13 or 15 years old or something. And later became Diplo's manager.

• 1:03:18Speaker 04

  Huge.

• 1:03:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  I see the connection.

• 1:03:20Yasi Salek?

  The arc.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And they bring along their tour manager Alex Brol and they go ahead and record. Well, they had already recorded Red Letter Days, the EP, because they needed to fulfill part of the rest of the Doghouse contract.

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  So they didn't need more mortgage.

• 1:03:39Yasi Salek?

  No more mortgage. Simply one mortgage of John Cohen's parents' house. This was produced by Ed Rose. It had James on it.

• 1:03:48Yasi Salek?

  I want to talk about it first, obviously, because it comes out first, even though it's within the same year.

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  And there's overlap, which, you know, I am curious about if they didn't want to re-record "Don't Hate Me" was on there they wanted them to re-record?

• 1:04:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01Speaker 04

  And then "Red Letter Day."

• 1:04:02Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I have so many questions here. Number one, it's not that I don't like "Red Letter Day." It's a good song. You have motherfucking Mask Pike in your hands. You have a treasure. You have a winning lottery ticket. And you're like, nah, we'll just leave that on that EP and we won't put it on the album. I just like, that's my sliding doors moment. What happens?

• 1:04:30Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:04:30Yasi Salek?

  What's the alternate history of the Get Up Kids if Mask Pike is on "Something to Write Home About"? Don't you feel like that could have been a radio hit? Like, that could have been like, now we're "Death Cab for Cutie," you know?

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  But they were for a moment. I don't know.

• 1:04:42Yasi Salek?

  Not really.

• 1:04:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I guess they never-

• 1:04:43Yasi Salek?

  They never hit.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Really, really hit, but they were-

• 1:04:46Yasi Salek?

  They didn't have radio hits. "Death Cab for Cutie," come on.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  No, of course.

• 1:04:49Yasi Salek?

  You know, they never got to that level.

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  Well, I think the "Death Cab for Cutie" single level is like what-

• 1:04:55Yasi Salek?

  Or Jimmy Wurles is a good example.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  True. They didn't have "The Middle" on there. But, I mean, I wonder if "Unnamed Wife" was kind of like, I don't know, like, I'm a little nervous about having a song about me on there.

• 1:05:07Yasi Salek?

  I mean, all the songs are about her.

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 1:05:10Yasi Salek?

  Every song on "Something to Write Home About."

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  Ann Arbor as well.

• 1:05:12Yasi Salek?

  Is either about her or about the label boss, so.

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  True.

• 1:05:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  And they can't tell sometimes.

• 1:05:17Yasi Salek?

  You can't tell sometimes. Um, sorry, that's just my, that's my hill, Diana. I'm just like, I, I am so curious what the alternate history is if Mask Pike is on something to write home about.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  But yeah, Ann Arbor also, also something I think about where I'm like, you left it there. You could have done more.

• 1:05:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  Really beautiful. Also a fun pun.

• 1:05:36Yasi Salek?

  Cause it's spelled like a name.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  Like a name, yeah. And there's some rumors that it might, question mark, be, question mark, about Adrian from the anniversary.

• 1:05:44Yasi Salek?

  Oh, right, cause that's maybe starting at that time.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Yasi Salek?

  Rob Pope and Adrian who.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  I didn't give you her last name, I'm gonna pull it up.

• 1:05:51Yasi Salek?

  Verhoeven.

• 1:05:51Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:05:52Yasi Salek?

  Um, who, uh, got married and later quite quickly divorced. The anniversary, and part of the deal with Vagrant, the Get Up Kids had an imprint and Heroes and Villains, I think it was called.

• 1:06:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Yasi Salek?

  And then one of the bands, maybe the first band they put out was the anniversary.

• 1:06:07Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:06:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Also a Kansas City band.

• 1:06:09Speaker 04

  I believe so.

• 1:06:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think so too. Well, Red Letter Days is amazing. It's kind of a crazy collection of songs to use to fulfill an obligation. Um, again, and I don't know what they were trying to do, but it's, it's just, there's really good songs on there and not limited to Mask Pike, which is a god tier. A god tier song.

• 1:06:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:06:35Yasi Salek?

  It's a twinkle daddy energy, you know, it's the song that makes people think they're from Boston. It's so catchy. It's the, it's like a sing-along, anthemic. It's.

• 1:06:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:06:46Yasi Salek?

  I ride for that song.

• 1:06:56Yasi Salek?

  It's okay. We have a different, we have a different.

• 1:06:59Speaker 04

  A different history, yeah.

• 1:07:00Yasi Salek?

  Um, Pitchfork gave this a 5.1. How do you feel about that as someone who is associated with Pitchfork.com?

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  The EP? Um, that that was very generous of them at the time. At the time, that was probably, um, the nicest that they could have ever been.

• 1:07:13Yasi Salek?

  That was essentially them being like, this is a 10. This is a 9.5.

• 1:07:16Speaker 04

  And being like, okay, like, good job, you know? Um, but, cause, you know, I think they only got harsher and meaner. And maybe that also speaks to, like, if I could bring myself to be a Pitchfork editor in 1997.

• 1:07:30Yasi Salek?

  Mm-hmm. He could occupy the mind and heart.

• 1:07:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm dressed awesome.

• 1:07:34Yasi Salek?

  Are you though?

• 1:07:36Speaker 04

  I'm wearing a button up shirt and I'm sitting in Chicago and I'm listening and I don't know where these guys fit in. I might think maybe that they're a lit, like, I don't know if I know what emo is. Or I know what emo is coming up on Pitchfork, but maybe I think emo is like actually kind of cool still. Cause I'm still like embrace and then also, you know, thinking about American football, things that maybe were more critically pleasing.

• 1:07:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  Or felt more mature adults, question mark? And then I think what we hear as amazing pop, sugar, success, on the next record, maybe a critic at Pitchfork.com in 1999 would hear as a sellout.

• 1:08:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah, is like, is turned off by.

• 1:08:14Speaker 04

  Turned off by.

• 1:08:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  So 5.1, I say, I was expecting lower.

• 1:08:19Yasi Salek?

  Amazing stuff, amazing stuff.

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  Amazing commentary.

• 1:08:21Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah, so that was July of, of 99. Also insanely, they had to forfeit their vinyl rights to get out of the Doghouse contract, which is really nuts.

• 1:08:36Yasi Salek?

  All right, September 28th, 1999, something to write home about is birthed into this world. They recorded with this producer named Chad Blinman.

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  Yes, uh, who I was looking at his like discography and it's all the bands that you love that you say you're loving. Saves the Day, Senses Fail.

• 1:08:56Yasi Salek?

  This is all after this.

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, after.

• 1:08:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think prior to that, he had.

• 1:09:00Speaker 04

  Well, Face to Face was the other vagrant band.

• 1:09:03Yasi Salek?

  Is the, I'm a huge Face to Face fan. I'm a, I'm a young Warped Tour child, so.

• 1:09:08Speaker 04

  What was it like?

• 1:09:10Yasi Salek?

  It was fun.

• 1:09:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I bet.

• 1:09:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it was really fun.

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:09:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I remember the first year I went, Eminem played.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  That's fun. That's, that's kind of matches the energy.

• 1:09:22Yasi Salek?

  He was booed offstage, but yeah.

• 1:09:24Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:09:24Yasi Salek?

  It was, it was when he had only put out Real Slim Shady. But also Ice T M Body Count played that year and they were universally beloved.

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:09:32Yasi Salek?

  It was really fun. It was like, you know, the vandal. It was a great time. Less than Jake.

• 1:09:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Yasi Salek?

  Good, fun times. Yeah, so Chad Lindman is not trusted by the Get Up Kids. They bring Alex Braw, their tour manager, and they said that they basically brought him because they were like, we want to make sure this Chad person doesn't fuck up our sound. Um, Matt Prior said, "The only thing we knew of Lindman was that he was an industrial goth who'd worked with face to face. We don't want to sound like either of those things." It's a bit rude.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  Would you agree with that?

• 1:09:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think that's probably right.

• 1:10:00Speaker 04

  They succeeded, yeah.

• 1:10:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I don't think this record sounds like either of those things. Um, it took six weeks to make. I thought this was interesting. What Matt Prior was listening to a lot when they were doing the record was Wilco's Summer Teeth, which is one of my favorite Wilco records because I like, in, in the parlance of the, I like the earlier stuff.

• 1:10:26Speaker 04

  It's, it is the best. I, I really think that.

• 1:10:29Yasi Salek?

  I just like that kind of Wilco better than the later kind of Wilco, but I know that I'll be like flailed in the town square by a certain man for saying that. And that's fine. We all have our opinions.

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:10:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And then Clarity. So they had already, they had been inspired by Clarity. Now Clarity's out. They've purchased it. They're listening.

• 1:10:44Speaker 04

  And the Wilco thing makes a lot of sense. Like, it does sound like if, uh, is it, "I'm Always, I'm Always in Love", like the sense there, come on.

• 1:10:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 1:10:52Speaker 04

  Ripped and torn from there.

• 1:10:54Yasi Salek?

  And then the, they wanted the guitars to sound like the Foo Fighters, The Color and Shape, which had just come out.

• 1:11:02Speaker 04

  And do you think they succeeded?

• 1:11:03Yasi Salek?

  Um, I, you know what? Whenever I talk about how guitars sound, I'm doing cosplay because I, that's like shit I don't really understand, so.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, we're not supposed to call them crunchy.

• 1:11:12Yasi Salek?

  Well, sometimes they are crunchy.

• 1:11:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:14Yasi Salek?

  Like, what are we supposed to do? Um, I'm going to tell you something, though. Color and Shape is maybe the only Foo Fighters album I fuck with.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  Okay. Interesting.

• 1:11:22Yasi Salek?

  I mean, uh, the first one as well.

• 1:11:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I would say-

• 1:11:26Yasi Salek?

  But Everlong, bro?

• 1:11:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's, I get it. 1997 was crazy.

• 1:11:32Yasi Salek?

  Everlong, everlong god tier song to this day.

• 1:11:36Speaker 04

  When I was doing research for this, I found an interview from 2024, I think. So it must have been from the reissues at Jim, Jimmy Subdick. You think it was by Jimmy Ever?

• 1:11:45Yasi Salek?

  I think you should. Maybe it was too confusing with Jimmy the world.

• 1:11:48Speaker 04

  And also James was also in the band.

• 1:11:50Yasi Salek?

  Right, a lot of Jims and Jimmys and Jameses.

• 1:11:53Speaker 04

  Jim Subdick was talking about right after they had recorded, he was showing some of the demos to Chris Schifflett, who was the guitarist, I believe, for Foo Fighters or one of them at the time. Foo Fighters had just played a small show in Kansas City and he showed them the demos. And before he showed them, Chris said, are there a bunch of Pix slides on it? As a joke, you know, because every band these days has Pix slides.

• 1:12:19Yasi Salek?

  Has Pix slides.

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  It's kind of like, read him for a filth, as they say. Are there a bunch of Pix slides? And he's like, just two.

• 1:12:25Yasi Salek?

  Just two.

• 1:12:27Speaker 04

  Just the two.

• 1:12:27Yasi Salek?

  Just the two on the ones.

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  Just the two back to back Pix slides.

• 1:12:31Yasi Salek?

  That's really funny. I thought this was interesting. Ian Cohen said, Ian Cohen, the expert.

• 1:12:37Speaker 04

  Good friend.

• 1:12:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, great.

• 1:12:39Speaker 04

  Of me.

• 1:12:40Yasi Salek?

  Talk about emo expert. He had said in a piece, I think probably about, I don't know if it was with the reissue or not, I didn't write it down. But he said, I think of it this way, something to write home about is to Superchunk, what Nevermind was to the Pixies.

• 1:12:55Speaker 04

  Okay, wow, that's a lot.

• 1:12:56Yasi Salek?

  It makes a lot of sense, actually, if you think about it. It's like Nirvana took inspiration from a lot of what was with the Pixies were doing. Obviously, the Quiet Loud thing comes from the Pixies, you know? But then what they did with it kind of helped to mint a whole new genre, which was grunge.

• 1:13:12Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:13:13Yasi Salek?

  This is not what Ian's saying, I'm just taking that and extrapolating on it. And like, in many ways, something to write home about, like, is very rooted in the kind of indie rock, melodic indie rock that Superchunk made, like. But then they kind of use that with the other things they had going on. And also, you can't get away from Matt Prior's voice.

• 1:13:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:32Yasi Salek?

  Not that you'd want to, I'm just saying like that. I think, I think his vocal quality alone pushes it a little into the emo space. Would you not agree? Or the punk space? I mean, that, the pitch and the like slight nasaliness is very associated with like emo and punk.

• 1:13:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, Superchunk is funny to me because Mac's voice is, can be that at times. Like, I would say that there are songs that I, they actually sound quite similar to me. But also, they get classified in as more, well, because Merge, I think Merge Records has a lot of the kind of classification based on who's on that label. I think it like retroactively makes people think about Superchunk a little bit differently. It's my theory where it's like, any, you know, interesting, like if your destroyer is on your label, then like,

• 1:14:11Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  maybe you're not actually emo or something, even though I think some of their songs do sound quite similar to. And, uh, yeah, I think they also toured together on some points, Superchunk and The Get Up Kids.

• 1:14:21Yasi Salek?

  I guess like that's what I wanted to ask you, like maybe to back up, like you are a woman in M.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  Music.

• 1:14:28Yasi Salek?

  A woman in emo music.

• 1:14:29Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:30Yasi Salek?

  An expert on this. What elements do you think The Get Up Kids, and in particular, Something to Write Home About, have that sort of earned them their place, like whether they want it or not, in the canon of like second wave emo?

• 1:14:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, well, they also, I think they were like the progenitors of, they, they bridged this, this gap really well, I think.

• 1:14:52Yasi Salek?

  Between second and third wave.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  Between the second and third wave, which I would consider to be like, third wave is where you're getting just like any teenager in the world who knows how to play three chords or whatever is making a band. And I think it, even though The Get Up Kids are like skilled musicians and have a lot going on, um, you know, there's a lot of power chords. They make it seem, I think, a little bit more effortless. And also, I think the lyrical content is a big thing people talk about a lot.

• 1:15:18Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:15:18Speaker 04

  The shift, anyway, of just being so unabashedly, kind of.

• 1:15:22Yasi Salek?

  The yearning.

• 1:15:23Speaker 04

  Yearning and, um, and, and not afraid to sound like you're crying as you're singing, kind of.

• 1:15:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  And the suburban kind of woes, like, you know, how the actual record starts, as we know famously, A, two pick slides.

• 1:15:33Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:15:34Speaker 04

  And then what became of everyone I used to know, which is.

• 1:15:37Yasi Salek?

  Everyone.

• 1:15:38Speaker 04

  Can see him reading that at the po- the coffee house, you know?

• 1:15:41Yasi Salek?

  And, and what do you think about that part about his vocal tone, Matt Prior's vocal tone? Like, do you think that is an element that sort of helps?

• 1:15:50Speaker 04

  Shift them.

• 1:15:50Yasi Salek?

  Well, just sort of helps place them within the emo genre, again, whether they want to or not. Like, it's.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think then you get Saves the Day and, you know, you go also, which I guess we're kind of, uh, Through Being Cool was 99, 2000, I should know this. Um, but, uh, it's about around the same time. I think you get this, this wave of, uh, disaffected suburban kids who all channel this nasally thing. And I also think that you then move away from this more like post-hardcore low.

• 1:16:21Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:16:22Speaker 04

  Like, quiet, not actually even, I feel like a lot of early emo is, um, a bit more subdued, if you could say.

• 1:16:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like, this is the bridge between their sort of tour mates and friends in Braid and, and Mineral and stuff. And also what came a little bit before Sunny Day Real Estate. That's just kind of a very different value proposition within the same genre. And this sort of begets the more pop punk-esque version. Is that about right?

• 1:16:58Speaker 04

  I think that's correct, yeah, because I think that's exactly what it is, you know? It's pop-driven, uh, they're going for, like, I think it wouldn't sound, um, out of place in, I don't know, like a Hanson, like a Hanson quality, almost.

• 1:17:11Yasi Salek?

  Well, yeah, because it is, it's, it's incredibly catchy and fast-paced and, and pop.

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  And pop, ultimately. That's why I'm kind of surprised it didn't have bigger radio crossover in that way, especially what was happening at the time. And I think it was also just like younger sounding. I don't know how to really quantify that than something like In Circles or something like this. Where like if you're a 12 year old kid, you are probably going to prefer the kind of.

• 1:17:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, In Circles is quite heavy. I mean, In Circles kind of seamlessly fit in with the back half of the 90s.

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  The Seattle thing.

• 1:17:47Yasi Salek?

  Coming out of sort of grunge into that, it made a lot of sense, although I don't, wouldn't call it grunge at all. But you know, it's more of a mucky sound in the best way. It's thick, you know? This is not that.

• 1:18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. In terms of what then creates the Fall Out Boy's of the world, like what I think they were hearing, it's, you know, I think the, like Fall Out Boy, for example, they were playing in groups called, like, he once was in a hardcore group called, or screamo group called Race Trader, where there was this like, very hard and very like screaming vocals, whatever. And I think that this allowed a whole generation to kind of soften a little bit also and be like, we can write pop songs. It's okay, guys, you know? Like, don't be scared. It's gonna be fine. And actually, it's great. And like, that, I think, is a bigger shift that they helped usher in.

• 1:18:37Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Matt Prior said about the title that, that it came from Jim talking to his mom on the phone. He said he was telling her about the record and all the shows they were gonna do, and they were having so much fun. And she said, well, you definitely have something to write home about. And they were like, oh, well, all our lyrics are really about leaving home, seeing the world, being a bunch of kids who dropped out of school to be in a rock band. Like, that's the core of the album. So that's how the name got minted.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  I love that. Thanks, Mom.

• 1:19:04Yasi Salek?

  Thanks, Mom. Should we talk about the artwork real quickly before we get to the music?

• 1:19:07Speaker 04

  Do you know who did it? I should have.

• 1:19:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Travis Millard, who at the time went by the name Fudge. He's an amazing artist. He's, I think, has done a lot of like skateboard artwork sense and, I mean, he's, he's a real fine artist. But at the time, he was just like their pal, Fudge, that Jim, you know, famously went to art school, so went with him. And they were like, really on a deadline. Like, they were like, we need art. And so they hit up Fudge. And they're like, it's gonna be a three-fold, gatefold record. We want one painting that's gonna go across the entire front cover, and on the inside's another painting, two really long paintings. And it needs to be in Santa Monica by next Friday. And he was like, I felt sick to my stomach. I was like, I have to go home. I didn't even finish my beer. They were at a bar.

• 1:19:53Yasi Salek?

  And so he finishes and then I guess, so they're, they're back in Kansas town or Kansas City. And Rob Pope's like, he invites me to his studio in this weird little barn. And he shows me the drawings of these punk dudes playing guitars and their faces are all fucked up and they have horns. It's like bearded ladies having a beer, like sideshow stuff, basically.

• 1:20:13Speaker 04

  Sounds cool.

• 1:20:14Yasi Salek?

  It sounds really cool. And Rob Pope was like, um, have we listened to the record? It's not this aggressive. I just feel like this doesn't really match. And I, and Ryan Pope was like, can we just do something a little softer? So he was like, oh, I'm fucked, man. I'm totally fucked. He said, I was sitting around my room, wondering what I was gonna do. I had this toy that my dad had had that was his from the 50s on a shelf of knickknacks. It's like a wind up toy. I started to draw that robot. And then I thought of robots caring for each other. I liked that. A dichotomy of these robotic things that have feelings for each other and they're sharing this tender moment on the couch.

• 1:20:47Speaker 04

  And I, and I think that makes a lot of sense with the record, much more sense than the.

• 1:20:51Yasi Salek?

  It's so funny. You do think that. You know who did not think that was Matt Prior? He was like, okay, so he sees it at the end and he's like, what the fuck do robots have to do with anything? The songs, the lyrics, the album title? None of them indicate robots. Fine, fuck it. There's no time to debate it. I think he's come around to it since. And he said that may, he kind of thinks that like maybe Travis Moore invented this like, retroactively invented this story about defining the kids.

• 1:21:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Yasi Salek?

  But anyways, either way, I think, I can't think of the album without thinking of the artwork.

• 1:21:22Speaker 04

  Sorry, I'm laughing because I'm trying to imagine the record, but it's just about robots.

• 1:21:26Yasi Salek?

  Right. It's just like actually about robots.

• 1:21:27Speaker 04

  And it's different. But it is kind of like, who what? Fall in love?

• 1:21:31Yasi Salek?

  Who fall in love or mad about how their label had treated them.

• 1:21:36Speaker 04

  Very granddaddy, that record to me. But I feel, yeah, like, uh, that's interesting. I also think that also helps all the record, frankly. Like if you're a young woman, you're not, that's a nice cover. You're like, that says pink in it.

• 1:21:50Yasi Salek?

  You think that it's appealing to women.

• 1:21:52Speaker 04

  I think it was their, their appeal to women to make the cover pink and purple. Uh, no, and also just.

• 1:21:57Yasi Salek?

  Female colors.

• 1:21:58Speaker 04

  Feet for ladies.

• 1:21:59Yasi Salek?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  It also just sets it apart in this like, it is a little, yeah, like again, the youth thing. I think it's a very like, because their other covers are kind of classic emo.

• 1:22:09Yasi Salek?

  It's definitely more, exactly. I think I was gonna say it's more legible. Like, it's like, it's like a very like memorable, it's figurative. I think so, that's the joke about emo covers, right? It's like, okay, this is a roof with snow on it. That's the American football, like, they're all just like this very like sort of illegible landscape type. That was kind of the going thing for album artwork at the time. And, and they were like, oh, here's these two cartoon robots who love each other. And people were like, oh.

• 1:22:41Speaker 04

  Interesting. Yeah, it's softer, it's sweeter.

• 1:22:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  And that's also, to me, does sound like it because, not to get too much into the cover, but yeah, just in terms of, not a lot of bands were incorporating that much like kind of mogi sounding synth. And I think that is a little bit like a robot.

• 1:22:55Yasi Salek?

  That's, that's a great point.

• 1:22:56Speaker 04

  Well, like, you know, the anniversary also did that. And I feel like their cover to that record, like the In Detroit record is All Things Ordinary. It's all pixelated.

• 1:23:07Yasi Salek?

  Because it sounds, because, you know, a moog has, anyway, it's cute.

• 1:23:10Speaker 04

  Computer.

• 1:23:11Yasi Salek?

  Computer. All right, let's talk about the music.

• 1:23:14Speaker 04

  Let's.

• 1:23:15Yasi Salek?

  You already said, it starts with holiday, pick slides. We did not fucking come to play, babe. We have two pick slides. Let's fucking go.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  It really is a way of being like, I'm tired of wasting time.

• 1:23:33Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:23:33Speaker 04

  I've been enough bands.

• 1:23:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:35Speaker 04

  They all have failed to launch. It's like my one shot. We have more time and 10 times as much money and let's record. I think it was, I think the budget was 40. That's what I heard that they got from vagrant at the end of the day.

• 1:23:47Yasi Salek?

  I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but that sounds, I mean, they definitely had six weeks instead of two and a half days, so.

• 1:23:54Speaker 04

  Much better.

• 1:23:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:55Speaker 04

  But then also All New Notebook, I guess.

• 1:23:56Yasi Salek?

  And All New Notebook. It's so interesting that the like lyrical considerations of these songs sort of go back and forth between Love of My Life, I'm Separated From You, and Label Had You At Two Brew. You've stabbed me in my back and I hate you, but they still sound like love songs.

• 1:24:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:24:15Yasi Salek?

  Like even, it's very much Dave Matthews singing about his lawyer in Number 41, which I thought was the most beautiful love song on earth. And then I'm like, this is about your lawyer. And Holiday is about, from what I can tell, the situation with Doghouse.

• 1:24:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, it's also just, I think anger was a very, was in, you know, in terms of, and like, maybe you could push it on to, of course, being angry at the world or angry at your hometown. And I think that kind of vagueness, even though it is about Doghouse, clearly, yeah.

• 1:24:45Yasi Salek?

  I mean, it could also be about, that's the, that's kind of the magic trick of it. It could be about the relationship. It's really difficult to tell, you know?

• 1:24:51Speaker 04

  I guess they do talk about seeing you once a year because maybe I will see you on, maybe I can see you on holidays. So the original opening lyric of see you once a year and yet we don't embrace, comes back.

• 1:25:01Yasi Salek?

  And it's maybe when they go through town on tour, you know?

• 1:25:03Speaker 04

  Right. And they're like, alright, fuck Wad. Probably is how they talk. And yeah, I think it's very, what I think about this record, and I think Matt Prior has spoken to it, is like, it's difficult, it must be so difficult to sing on tour. Like, I'm not a singer or guitarist, but these are like, in terms of the pitch and also the amount of syllables, like, I feel like that's also what emo gets like a lot of hate for, like at least Third Wave, where it's these very poetic, bookish, like overwritten, not overwritten in this case, but it can be overwritten.

• 1:25:34Yasi Salek?

  They really fit a lot of words in there.

• 1:25:35Speaker 04

  The evidence presents itself accusingly. I can't even say it, like, speak it, you know? And then he, I think in future interviews, or later interviews, as we might say, would, would say that he wished that they recorded the record like half a step down. Or like they tuned it down a little bit, because it's hard to hit that every week, even him.

• 1:25:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's funny, I never thought about that, but that, I, that is sort of such a temple thing about emo is like, the wordiness.

• 1:26:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:26:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I'm just gonna tell you, Valentine is one of the best songs that's ever been written, and I will cry and constants aren't so constant anymore, and I love it so much.

• 1:26:13Speaker 04

  It's beautiful.

• 1:26:14Yasi Salek?

  That's my journalism.

• 1:26:15Speaker 04

  It's, and that's really, I mean, I all agree with you wholeheartedly, and they don't, I think, play it anymore.

• 1:26:21Yasi Salek?

  Why?

• 1:26:21Speaker 04

  Because I think it's about Adrian from the anniversary. And so...

• 1:26:27Yasi Salek?

  In order to forget to anniversary songs. That's okay, there you go.

• 1:26:31Speaker 04

  But, uh...

• 1:26:32Yasi Salek?

  That's very interesting, so... Again, I don't know if it is about her or not, but if it is, an early version of Matt writing from the perspective of Rob, right? Because Rob didn't write these lyrics.

• 1:26:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:26:44Yasi Salek?

  Matt wrote them.

• 1:26:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Yasi Salek?

  Um, which is an interesting thing to do, right?

• 1:26:47Speaker 04

  I think that's, shows speak to his talent, you know?

• 1:26:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  Because I'm just like, he can write love songs for himself, he can write them for other people. And also, I think that they probably were just spending so much time together that they were just like bouncing around ideas.

• 1:26:59Yasi Salek?

  And it doesn't really matter, right? Because it's like, what it really is about is like, being on tour and being away from someone you love, right? I'm, you know, we're gone all the time, I'm a world away.

• 1:27:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Yasi Salek?

  You know?

• 1:27:19Speaker 04

  They do repeat a lot of lyrics, I guess, here. Because even saying "world away," like, that's on two of their biggest hits, you know?

• 1:27:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Speaker 04

  But I think that's also part of why it was easy to probably learn, and easy for kids to learn. Because they're like, there's not that many. And, uh, but yeah, no, "Valentine," I wish they still played live.

• 1:27:35Yasi Salek?

  I like what Nico Stratus said about, she said about it in Spin. She said, "This is a perfect snapshot of the way any distance, emotional or, or emotional or physical, feels oceanic in scope."

• 1:27:46Speaker 04

  Beautiful.

• 1:27:47Yasi Salek?

  Um, here's "Red Letter Day," the wrong song off the EP. Um, but a great song.

• 1:27:53Speaker 04

  A real, um, a real like, uh, fuck you, you know?

• 1:27:56Yasi Salek?

  I wonder if that, I mean, pure speculation fanfic on my part, I wonder if that's why they wanted to put this on here? Because they were like, you know what? It wasn't enough to put it on the EP. Fuck you twice, it's on the, it's on the album that we left and went on another label to do.

• 1:28:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's 100% why they did it, if I can get in their minds.

• 1:28:13Yasi Salek?

  "We're loyal like brothers, just us versus all the others. You're the one, you're the one for me. I trusted misleading promises worth repeating. How could you do this to me?"

• 1:28:21Speaker 04

  "We're loyal like brothers" is very sweet. And very like, that must have hurt. Like, now I understand. And also, the opening it with "you've got some nerve" is so like-

• 1:28:30Yasi Salek?

  "You've got some nerve." I have, these are really imprinting on my soul. Out of Reach, babe?

• 1:28:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, I mean-

• 1:28:38Yasi Salek?

  Sobbing.

• 1:28:39Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 1:28:39Yasi Salek?

  Weeping.

• 1:28:40Speaker 04

  "I've smuggled myself into new nationalities. You'd be proud of me."

• 1:28:44Yasi Salek?

  I don't really know what that means, but I love it.

• 1:28:46Speaker 04

  It's beautiful. I think he's probably just talking about tour and he's like, "You know what? This is smuggling myself into new..."

• 1:28:50Yasi Salek?

  Myself into new nationalities.

• 1:28:51Speaker 04

  ...passport.

• 1:28:52Yasi Salek?

  Right, right, right. And European tour, yeah. There was a lot made in the book about like, again, we have to keep remembering they're like 21 years old and 18 and 19 and 21. It's like a huge deal to go to Europe, you know?

• 1:29:03Speaker 04

  I've read this interview from like just after it came out where they're like, it's with Ryan and he's like, I think 20 at the time and he's like, "Well, we're old now, so I don't know what comes next." So I was like, "Oh, baby, you're 20."

• 1:29:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I really, I just, there's room to believe out of sight, out of mind, out of reach. Start over is no way to begin.

• 1:29:24Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 1:29:24Yasi Salek?

  Come on.

• 1:29:35Speaker 04

  When we talk about third wave emo, it's like the people get embarrassed by it because it's so vulnerable and because it's just so overly indulgent of like self-pitying. And I think this struck a balance of like, this is maybe, it's not self-pitying, but it opens up that door to that, if that makes sense.

• 1:29:51Yasi Salek?

  I think it's so wonderful because it's like unrepentantly like, "I love my girlfriend and I'm sad that I'm away from her." And there's like no real pastring or, you know-

• 1:30:04Speaker 04

  You're not trying to be funny.

• 1:30:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I do think it must be difficult to write these songs when you're 21 years old and then that's like who you are for the rest of your life and that's what everyone wants from you.

• 1:30:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, we'll talk about their later discogs. I think they went through a kind of classic band transformation that we see often of just kind of becoming adults, really. Growing up because they grew up and then their fanbase is still young or wants to feel young.

• 1:30:29Yasi Salek?

  Wants to feel young, yeah. Out of Reach, just a fun fact also is that in the middle of making the record, they got on the guest list to see Ben Folds Five.

• 1:30:37Speaker 04

  Cool, abortion song.

• 1:30:39Yasi Salek?

  And Sarah Michelle Gellar was there. Jim Subrick just pointed that out because he was like, "Oh my God, we're in Hollywood." But Ben Folds did a song where the bass player, instead of playing the bass, played the Moog as a bass. And so that's- What inspired them to have Rob Pope play the Moog on Out of Reach instead of the bass?

• 1:31:00Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:31:01Yasi Salek?

  Ben Folds Five.

• 1:31:01Speaker 04

  That's a great sliding door.

• 1:31:02Yasi Salek?

  There you go. "Ten Minutes" is a song that had actually already come out as a sub-pop

• 1:31:10Yasi Salek?

  singles. They had a seven-inch singles club thing and that was on there.

• 1:31:15Yasi Salek?

  "Ten Minutes to Downtown."

• 1:31:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's "Ten Minutes" too far, but I get it.

• 1:31:19Yasi Salek?

  Like, not in Los Angeles, babe.

• 1:31:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:21Yasi Salek?

  Nothing is...

• 1:31:22Speaker 04

  I guess it's in downtown Kansas City, I think.

• 1:31:24Yasi Salek?

  Who knows?

• 1:31:25Speaker 04

  Who knows?

• 1:31:25Yasi Salek?

  Who could know? It's a fun song.

• 1:31:27Speaker 04

  It's fun. I like it. I think the drum, the drum is good. That's my music criticism.

• 1:31:32Yasi Salek?

  The drum is good.

• 1:31:40Yasi Salek?

  "My Apology" is constantly in my head.

• 1:31:44Speaker 04

  Fascinating.

• 1:31:45Yasi Salek?

  You'll be accepting my apology for taking things too seriously.

• 1:31:51Speaker 04

  Right. Well, it's like, well, of course you're taking things too seriously. Like, this is the most serious thing you could do. And it's just like, it's very, I feel for him.

• 1:32:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, "I'm a Loner Dotty" is probably my favorite.

• 1:32:09Yasi Salek?

  Mmm, gone, yeah.

• 1:32:11Speaker 04

  "Apology" is also great.

• 1:32:12Yasi Salek?

  Sing it, babe.

• 1:32:12Speaker 04

  "Say it too fast." I can't even sing it because it's too high. Oh, sing the praises.

• 1:32:16Yasi Salek?

  You can do it. You can do both.

• 1:32:17Speaker 04

  Come tomorrow. But like, they really attack that. And I also just find any kind of, I'm very compelled with, whenever a vocal kind of starts before.

• 1:32:27Yasi Salek?

  I know there's one of my favorite things in the world is when the song starts with the vocal first and then the music comes in.

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Yasi Salek?

  I mean, you have to do it sparingly, obviously. You can't just have it all over the record, but when it works, it's so effective.

• 1:32:39Speaker 04

  It's so effective.

• 1:32:40Yasi Salek?

  "My Apology" has that, too.

• 1:32:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's true. Yes, but yeah, it's very, that also is, I think, yeah, the one I come back to the most and does get stuck in my head.

• 1:32:52Yasi Salek?

  This one is an interesting one because Matt Pryor has said that he actually... It was one of his first attempts to write lyrics from someone else's perspective. Because this is not about him. He said, "There are plenty of songs about other people, but this is the first one where I inhabit a different individual. It couldn't be any less me. The song is about a one-night-stand that a friend had, thus the immortal line from Pee-wee Herman becoming the title, even though it doesn't appear in the song. There was some controversy when the song came out. Some thought the subject matter was misogynistic, but that's misguided. Song is about two consenting adults who are having a fairly mature discussion about whether they want to make the previous evening into a broader relationship and ultimately decide they don't want to." That some people thought I was singing about myself was hilarious. I think in the book

• 1:33:33Yasi Salek?

  he says, "I was way too obsessed with Honey White to ever, like, have any one-night-stand." He was like, again, wife guy. But yeah, that's like, "one night doesn't mean the rest of my life."

• 1:33:42Speaker 04

  Sure. Right.

• 1:33:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  Also, in the morning, you know, it was nice to get a call after from a roadside telephone. Because I didn't have a cellphone. Well, they did, but it was different.

• 1:33:50Yasi Salek?

  Did they?

• 1:33:51Speaker 04

  2000, or 1999?

• 1:33:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I guess. I remember, in 99, I would have been borrowing my mom's cellphone on the weekend when I went out.

• 1:34:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:34:00Yasi Salek?

  But I did not have my own.

• 1:34:01Speaker 04

  For, just for emergencies.

• 1:34:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, you go to a party, take my cellphone.

• 1:34:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:34:06Yasi Salek?

  I had a pager.

• 1:34:17Yasi Salek?

  "Long good night."

• 1:34:18Speaker 04

  "Long good night."

• 1:34:19Yasi Salek?

  She's weeping again.

• 1:34:20Speaker 04

  I'm crying.

• 1:34:20Yasi Salek?

  This is a, this is a tearjerker, this album.

• 1:34:23Speaker 04

  But the thing is, it's so fun, and it also sounds, like, it sounds like a pop song in a way that all pop songs are sad, you know, or like, many of the best. But, again, "good night," it's a song, it's a word that comes up so much.

• 1:34:37Yasi Salek?

  Well, he's, it makes so much sense when you have all this background, right? It's like, you're constantly on the phone to a person you love, and you're never in the same place, because they live in a different city and you're always on tour. So regardless, it's constant phone calls.

• 1:34:53Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:34:53Yasi Salek?

  And so you're always saying "good night" and being far away and having distance. So, I mean, I can't fault him for writing about that over and over again. That's what he's experiencing.

• 1:35:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. But the nice thing is that I feel like you can read into that if you want, but you can also just, you know.

• 1:35:09Yasi Salek?

  Take it at face value.

• 1:35:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Or just reply it to your not-long-distance-relationship and just be like, "It's hard to..." I want the old days. What does he say on this? "Back to the good old times before I won."

• 1:35:27Yasi Salek?

  This whole album is like so well paced, I think also, and it goes from like, kind of like, up tempo to like, more like sad songs really well, and then brings it right home with God Tear, "I'll Catch You." Amazing. I also really like Close to Home, which also does the thing we were talking about of starting song. Right. Starting song. They really love to do that, starting the song with the vocal. You know, probably. They do it well. They do it well. In "I'll Catch You," Matt Pryor said that he remembered James like walked into a door and almost passed out, and then went ahead and played the piano line to "I'll Catch You" when he was fully concussed. Yeah, that's, that makes sense. Jim Substack, by the way, or not Jim, James, sorry,

• 1:36:12Yasi Salek?

  sorry. James Dewey, Jimmy Dewey, like loves like Mozart and like, I know, like is classically trained as a pianist, and like, I don't think, I think that is worth mentioning, maybe, is that he is just coming to this record with so much background that it's almost like, I feel like it must be like child's play for him to be like adding this amazing sin line. He's like, "I'm concussed, no problem." No problem. I don't know why, but the, a song that is constantly on loop in my head, a lot of these, but "That I Should Stare at Receivers to Receive Her Isn't Fair" is always looping in my mind. I just like, I know it's like a kind of a simple wordplay, but I just love that wordplay. No, it's brilliant. "That I should stare at receivers to receive her isn't fair." It's crazy.

• 1:37:02Yasi Salek?

  In his book, he talks about being on the phone with her at one point, and he's like expressing his fears about something feeling off in the relationship, and like, he's like, "I feel like you're hiding something from me," and she's like, "Well, I am, but I can't tell you what it is, but it's not bad. You just have to trust me." And he says, "I tell her that I feel like this is one of those trust-building exercises, that I'm gonna fall over backwards and she's gonna drop me." And she said, "Don't worry, I'll catch you." And he said, "You'll catch me?" And she said, "Yeah, babe, I'll catch you." So I think that's where this song comes from. My arm here stood up. Anyways, God Tear album, just really incredible. Can't. You know, I can't recreate what it felt like to hear it for the first time, but it was like, it's really magical. It was really like-

• 1:37:42Speaker 04

  Even with Josh there?

• 1:37:44Yasi Salek?

  Well, I didn't hear, I don't think I heard the entire album during that time. But, you know, when I was alone and spending time with the album, I was just like, man, what a... You know what? I didn't really get into Jimmy World until Bleed American, so actually I heard Get Up Kids first.

• 1:38:00Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 1:38:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, so to me, it was pretty like, it felt familiar as a Fat Records and Warped Tour girly, because like, like I said, the vocal texture and tone is reminiscent of a lot of, you know, even Fat Mike a little bit, you know, and this is, I love Fat Mike, so not to be discouraged, but like, but then this whole other thing was happening and all this like kind of emotionality and this like, it was just like, really, I don't know, really great to hear at the tender age of 18 years old.

• 1:38:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I guess we should say that there was like pop punk happening in the 90s.

• 1:38:36Yasi Salek?

  Well, yeah, and I was a huge Blink-182 fan. So again, like that was my first favorite band, so I was also, you know, able to sort of piece that together. Again, I'm a Warped Tour girl, you know?

• 1:38:45Speaker 04

  And so this kind of, I think for people who found, I mean, love Blink-182, also one of my first favorite bands. But I feel like maybe in terms of the next wave, it's like, this is more serious than that, you know what I mean?

• 1:38:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it reminded me a little more of my, what was my favorite Blink-182 album, which was the first one.

• 1:39:04Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:05Yasi Salek?

  Because that's the first one I found, because that's when, that was when I found them. And it is, obviously, they're more jokesters, but like, it's, it has that, a similar, I think,

• 1:39:18Yasi Salek?

  love-lorn songs that are on there that play with the pop punk sensibility. I mean, it's not quite what Get Up Kids is doing here, but there was sort of a comp that my brain was able to make.

• 1:39:33Speaker 00

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code "HACK". Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 1:40:03Speaker 05

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 1:40:33Yasi Salek?

  I think the album does really well in an indie sense, right? Is that what you sort of...

• 1:40:39Speaker 04

  That's why I'm like...

• 1:40:40Yasi Salek?

  ...piece together?

• 1:40:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you should talk to Egan Vagrant and make sure I'm not lying. But I was reading like an excerpt from "Our Noise", which is that book about Merge Records. Because they talk about touring with Superchunk and how weird it was that they were headlining and Superchunk was opening. And it's like a band that... Which must be so crazy when you're like, "I'm opening for my childhood heroes or whatever." So that, and on that, I don't know why they even include this. But yeah, just the success of Something Threat Home, which I think sold, what? 150, I think is the number? 150,000, to be clear, not just 150. Which doesn't feel like that much to me, but I don't know. It is a lot. It's a lot. But the success of that is in part why Interscope took a minority stake in Vagrant after in 2001.

• 1:41:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  Which, that spoke to me about like the level of interest and also success that this brought for a really, an even smaller label.

• 1:41:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I mean, I would think at that time, people were like trawling for the next Blink 182, because Blink 182 is sort of crossing over by the end by 2000.

• 1:41:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:41:41Yasi Salek?

  You know? I don't know if it was because they were on an indie or what happened, but they don't have a radio song, you know? And Jimmy Eat World gets on the radio the next year, but again, they're on a major. So it makes sense.

• 1:41:57Yasi Salek?

  A little more sense why they were able to do that. And obviously, those songs were much more radio friendly.

• 1:42:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:42:05Yasi Salek?

  Like, the middle and Sweetness are incredibly radio friendly. Yeah. In a way that maybe, as much as we love something right at home about, isn't just immediately.

• 1:42:14Speaker 04

  It's more complicated, maybe.

• 1:42:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:15Speaker 04

  Sweetness also, and one of the best songs to ever do the vocal thing of starting.

• 1:42:19Yasi Salek?

  If you're listening.

• 1:42:23Speaker 04

  Really hard for karaoke for that reason. You have to really commit and trust yourself.

• 1:42:27Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:42:28Speaker 04

  To do Sweetness on karaoke.

• 1:42:28Yasi Salek?

  To when you come in.

• 1:42:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:30Speaker 04

  So, that was beautiful.

• 1:42:32Yasi Salek?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:42:33Speaker 04

  But yeah, I think.

• 1:42:33Yasi Salek?

  I'm a singer.

• 1:42:34Speaker 04

  Like, it's, it's, yeah, it's pretty wordy. It's pretty specific in a way.

• 1:42:39Yasi Salek?

  I also think it's the vocal tone. Like, again, I don't think that's become mainstream yet. Like, you get into the 2000s, you get into the, the third wave emo bands, and that is what you're signing up to get. But it's not yet, and you are not really hearing that on the radio.

• 1:42:54Speaker 04

  And you think people thought it was a little, like, nerdy?

• 1:42:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I just think it wasn't, maybe it wasn't, I don't want to speak for, like, the radio programmer at K-Rock, but I can imagine that coming across their desk and them being like, I don't know about this. Like, this is too, too, like, subculture. It's not, it's not, you know, we're, we're still coming out of the era of

• 1:43:13Yasi Salek?

  big alternative music, like Smashing Pumpkins and like.

• 1:43:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:43:17Yasi Salek?

  And then also, obviously, Green Day is very huge, and Offspring are very huge in the mid 90s, but they also have a much cleaner and bigger sound, you know?

• 1:43:25Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, yeah. Their hooks are, are hooks. And I think, like, the thing, there are hooks, obviously, like, Say Goodnight, Leave Me and Goodbye.

• 1:43:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:31Speaker 04

  Uh, No, You Think My Life Will Stop When You're Away.

• 1:43:33Yasi Salek?

  The only song I could think of is Masked Pike. I really thought, I think Masked Pike could have been a radio hit. Yeah.

• 1:43:38Speaker 04

  No, that's true, because of that reason.

• 1:43:40Yasi Salek?

  It is the, it is catchy pop punk in the way that, like, would have sort of fit in with the Green Days of the world.

• 1:43:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:48Yasi Salek?

  So, I'm a Masked Pike truther.

• 1:43:49Speaker 04

  I love your commitment to it. We didn't even talk about Action in Action. But I think it's also a song that, it starts huge, it goes small. Like, it doesn't necessarily be quite loud, but it has different modes that might be harder to sell. I mean, like, this is a consistent thing we're doing on the radio. I, like, I have no idea. I see 100 was playing, playing, that's my.

• 1:44:07Yasi Salek?

  Like you said, they did okay. They hit 31 on the Billboard Heat Seekers, so it's charting. It got okay reviews. Pitchfork did give it a two.

• 1:44:17Speaker 04

  Pitchfork did not like it.

• 1:44:18Yasi Salek?

  Ren DiCrescenzo, he said, is it so much to ask for a shred of originality in music? Is what he said. Um, he didn't like it.

• 1:44:28Speaker 04

  He didn't like it.

• 1:44:29Yasi Salek?

  It's one of my favorite things when the review that lives on Pitchfork now is by you, um, 25 years later, in which it gets a 7.6. And they think that I don't know this stuff, but the Wayback Machine, it is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have.

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  But she has it.

• 1:44:44Yasi Salek?

  But I have it. And I will unearth the two review.

• 1:44:50Speaker 04

  It is still up there, I think.

• 1:44:51Yasi Salek?

  But there is something in here that's like, speaks to maybe what we're talking about, how it's being received, which is, he says, these flaws would be easier, he's talking about lyrical stuff. And so these flaws would be easier to swallow if delivered with soul or conviction. Instead, we're left with the nasal whining of another pompadour youth who recently received his degree from the Bratty School of Caucasian Nostril Singing, along with his classmates, the guy from Lit, the guy from Smash Mouth, the guy from Blink 182, and the guy from Showoff. I don't even know what Showoff is. Um, well Blink 182 did fine. Um, but I, like, I, maybe that was...

• 1:45:28Speaker 04

  Where they're getting placed into?

• 1:45:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Speaker 04

  Category of, oh, where a new thing is happening, it's kinda emo.

• 1:45:34Yasi Salek?

  Well, Lit, I mean Lit and Smash Mouth were on the radio, so I don't know.

• 1:45:37Speaker 04

  Also Smash Mouth, I don't see any similarities.

• 1:45:40Yasi Salek?

  Zero.

• 1:45:41Speaker 04

  What are you talking about?

• 1:45:41Yasi Salek?

  Zero. That guy doesn't...

• 1:45:42Speaker 04

  I don't think he has a nasally voice.

• 1:45:43Yasi Salek?

  Zero.

• 1:45:44Speaker 04

  That's...

• 1:45:45Yasi Salek?

  Also, the guy from Lit doesn't...

• 1:45:46Speaker 04

  It's kind of a butt rock voice.

• 1:45:46Yasi Salek?

  The guy from Lit doesn't really have a nasally voice either.

• 1:45:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. Lit.

• 1:45:52Speaker 04

  Whenever I downloaded that song, My Own Worst Enemy, from like LimeWire.

• 1:45:58Speaker 04

  It was classified as a Blink 182 song. Classic thing that could happen if you're downloading stuff from LimeWire in 2005, is that things would just be like, wrong.

• 1:46:06Yasi Salek?

  As well as you giving yourself an irreversible, uh, virus to your computer.

• 1:46:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, that's fine. But I needed to know that Lit sang that song.

• 1:46:13Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:46:13Speaker 04

  It took me too. It was embarrassing.

• 1:46:14Yasi Salek?

  It got otherwise good reviews. Like, Enemy gave it a seven. The reviews that it got outside of Pitchfork were pretty positive. And then they toured for three years nonstop. And to promote this record, Europe, Japan, Australia, they they toured with Green Day, they toured the anniversary, they toured with Hot Rod Circuit. Hot Rod Circuit? I don't know that band.

• 1:46:33Speaker 04

  They're so good. You missed. They're the best, yeah.

• 1:46:36Yasi Salek?

  Um, Weezer importantly.

• 1:46:38Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 1:46:39Yasi Salek?

  And Jebediah. So they they pounded the pavement. They were out here in these streets.

• 1:46:43Speaker 04

  It must have been so exhausting. I can't imagine, because they had been on tour already, like for, you know.

• 1:46:49Yasi Salek?

  But you're 21, babe.

• 1:46:50Speaker 04

  You're right. It was really fun.

• 1:46:52Yasi Salek?

  Go go out there.

• 1:46:53Speaker 04

  I like, a lot of the articles I read from this time were like, including even that Merge Records book, were just like, they had a bus. Like, that was how people knew they were like, big time. That's like, I feel like they were kind of projecting this energy of being a big band, because they had a tour bus.

• 1:47:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think I read something about that, where it's like, they either got a good deal on it, but also, yeah, it was like some sort of like weird, like, very good deal they got it. And also, a lot, they were touring so much that it was like, people were getting into pretty bad car accidents on these kinds of tour circuits, with overnight drives and stuff. And so they were trying to just like, be safe as well. And I think Vagrant was able to help them out with it, maybe thanks to this 10% stake from Interscope, I don't know. It doesn't truly matter, but.

• 1:47:40Speaker 04

  I think they deserve a tour bus, I'm just saying. It was just funny that, like, all the articles are like.

• 1:47:44Yasi Salek?

  Sellouts.

• 1:47:44Speaker 04

  Sellouts. Um, and yeah, even then, there's that article that, yeah, the CMJ 2000 article, they're like, talking to Ryan, and he's like, first of all, he's like, I'm 20 and I'm old. And then they're like, what do you think about emo core? It was what they were calling it. Like emo core, the one on everyone's lips. Um, and Ryan's like, getting labeled, getting labeled emo? We're over it. Call us, what do you want to call us? Already, already a discourse, like, before the, you know what I mean?

• 1:48:09Yasi Salek?

  Nobody wanted to be called emo.

• 1:48:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:48:10Yasi Salek?

  And nobody.

• 1:48:11Speaker 04

  Nobody does now. I mean, people do now, I guess.

• 1:48:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think now people are pretty.

• 1:48:14Speaker 04

  It means so much more things. They're expansive.

• 1:48:17Yasi Salek?

  Back then, I think it felt like a slur.

• 1:48:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm sure. And, you know, they're already over it, like, you know, two albums in, or whatever, which I really like. And before it even, they knew what it would become, you know, and what they would rock.

• 1:48:29Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I think I read something, I can't, I don't, I don't write the quote down, but it was something to the effect of like, yeah, like, we knew those other bands and we played with them, but it's not like we were like, oh, we're like Andy Warhol's factory, we must like, capture the magic of the scene. Like, it wasn't that, you know?

• 1:48:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:48:45Yasi Salek?

  Well, the next year, in 2000, not the next year, two years later, they put out arguably one of their best releases, in my humble opinion, which is Eudora, the B-sides compilation. Because this has like, a bunch of their covers, which you mentioned earlier, but their cover of Alec Eiffel by The Pixies is really so good.

• 1:49:07Speaker 04

  It's so good. And it's, again, I'm not a musician, but it sounds like it would be a very difficult song to choose to cover, just in terms of how fast. And also, his, again, voice is higher and faster than.

• 1:49:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Black Francis.

• 1:49:19Speaker 04

  Black Francis, Frank Black, yeah.

• 1:49:26Speaker 04

  There's also a cover of Suffragette City.

• 1:49:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that one I don't like quite as much, but I like the cover of Close To Me by The Cure.

• 1:49:32Speaker 04

  I like it a lot, too. It makes perfect sense for them with the synth, you know?

• 1:49:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's really nice.

• 1:49:37Speaker 04

  And also, Regret, their New Order cover. Anyway, these are all, it's a great, also, they're choosing really good songs.

• 1:49:42Yasi Salek?

  Really good songs, yeah. And it's just, this is a great, it's a great comp, their B-sides are great. So like, 10 Minutes is on here, Ann Arbor is on here, I'm a Lonely Dotty, Shorty, The Breathing Method from the first seven.

• 1:49:53Speaker 04

  New Found Interest in Massachusetts.

• 1:49:55Yasi Salek?

  New Found Interest in Massachusetts. It's great. Also, somewhere in here, Matt Prior, I think it was in 2000, he released his first album with The New Amsterdam's, which was like, a side project that he wanted to do.

• 1:50:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, what do you think about The New Amsterdam's?

• 1:50:10Yasi Salek?

  I like it. I like folk music, folky type music. I wouldn't call it folk music per se, but it's definitely folkier.

• 1:50:17Speaker 04

  Kushtek.

• 1:50:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You know? I quite like it, but it does, it does kind of start to, I feel like, show you like, oh, maybe there's like, Inside Me There Are Two Wolves situation is happening, you know?

• 1:50:30Speaker 04

  The accordion.

• 1:50:31Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:50:31Speaker 04

  Is a distinct sound.

• 1:50:32Yasi Salek?

  It has a specific sound.

• 1:50:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:50:35Yasi Salek?

  I don't mind it.

• 1:50:46Yasi Salek?

  So in 2002, also, he puts out another new Amsterdam's album called Paratoda Vida. That same year, the hotly anticipated third Get Up Kids album comes out. It's called On a Wire. It's produced by Scott Lit. They had, I guess, wanted some, they had put this list of producers together. Like, they wanted Stephen Street, who famously worked with The Smiths, John Leckie, who, I mean, what a legend, had done, maybe most recently, probably Radiohead, but also, you know, The Stone Roses, and just an amazing producer. Nigel Godredge also had worked with Radiohead, Gil Norton with Pixies.

• 1:51:29Yasi Salek?

  None of these ones panned out, but they did end up going with Scott Lit, who had basically produced a lot of R.E.M. albums, and also, kind of famously, and like, in some ways, contentiously, been tapped, I think he did the mixing on In Utero for Nirvana, but he'd also been tapped to reproduce the two singles and make them, like, more radio-friendly. So Albini, taking Albini's production and, like, sort of polishing it up. Rob Pope said, "I remember we were like, we want to make the biggest record ever. And in our heads at that point, we wanted to be on the radio." Scott Lit had a pretty good success rate with that. This album is their Promise Rings, Woodwater, who I think was a similar trajectory, right?

• 1:52:14Yasi Salek?

  Everyone loved Promise Rings, Nothing Feels Good, and then they sort of-

• 1:52:18Speaker 04

  Woodwater comes out and they-

• 1:52:19Yasi Salek?

  Took a departure in sound. Although I think now, people have reassessed Woodwater. It's still not one I return to as much, but I'll be honest here, I'm nothing if not a completely honest person. I never listened to the Get Up Kids after something to write home about, until I was doing this podcast.

• 1:52:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:40Yasi Salek?

  Things just changed, my interests changed.

• 1:52:42Speaker 04

  They changed.

• 1:52:43Yasi Salek?

  They changed, but it wasn't, I just, like, by this point, I'd, like, I'm leaving college, I'm very interested in The Smiths and Dipset and partying, and I'm not really checking for new music, arguably for 10 more years.

• 1:52:55Speaker 04

  Perfect combo.

• 1:52:56Yasi Salek?

  So I can't speak to what it was like to experience this album in real time as a Get Up Kids fan, but I think I can kind of have a sense of it, given-

• 1:53:07Speaker 04

  How it went.

• 1:53:08Yasi Salek?

  How it went, yeah. And also, just like, using my, my two brain cells, which is that some things we're at home about was really beloved, really celebrated, and this album sounds just completely different. And I think if that's what the pe- the fans, it sounds completely different than pretty much everything that came before it. So I can see kind of diehard fans being like, "Oh, I don't know what to do with this."

• 1:53:36Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:37Speaker 04

  I just feel bad for the fan, uh, because I'm like, "Well, they're probably going to shows and getting so bummed out by all these bands." Like, you know, because that's what you're talking about, is like, you want to feel young, or like, capture that youthful energy. And certainly, On a Wire is the, I would say, the direct opposite. And it's like, not an album you can, like, escape your misery through. It's more of a, like, "Let's take it slow and actually be really miserable."

• 1:53:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It's, what I found really interesting is that, like, which makes so much sense, is like, these are kids, still kind of kids, but that had, like, grown up in Indian punk and like, had never really actually had the chance to discover classic bands that sort of like, maybe other young people would have already gone through their phase with, like, literally like, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. And, and that is informing a lot of like, what they do with this album. So Matt said, "We knew that we needed to do something different. We knew that we were starting to get very formulaic with stuff. We were touring on something to write home about for two and a half years, and we were

• 1:54:44Yasi Salek?

  sick of it. We were all listening to different music. I got into Steve, Earl, Wilco, and a lot of troubadour-like, alternative country and singer-songwriter stuff. Um, so on On a Wire, it probably felt a little folkier than it necessarily needed to be. To be completely honest, we just assumed that everyone was on the same page as us. We thought, 'Yeah, this is different, but it's good.' So when we got a negative reaction, we didn't see where it was coming from."

• 1:55:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. And they really created a scene around them at that point that sounded like they're at first, you know?

• 1:55:13Yasi Salek?

  Totally. They had wrought all these other bands, and, and Vagrant had signed a lot of it at the Dashboard Confessional.

• 1:55:18Speaker 04

  Saves the day.

• 1:55:18Yasi Salek?

  Saves the day. It's very funny, because Matt Pryor and I respect it so much. At every stage has kind of had the same thing about this album, which is that at the time, like, kind of right away, we really didn't give two shits if anyone liked the record or not. We were really confident that we were gonna kill this emo stigma that we had and take the people with open minds with us and leave everyone else in the dust. And later, he was like, I love that record. And so ultimately, I don't give two fucks if anyone else likes it. People snapped a lot of judgments about that record. And then even later, 2011, he's like, it's certainly not a perfect record. There's some filler on there that would not be there if I had looked at it with a clear head. I think the songs that are on that record are good and some of the best songs I've

• 1:56:00Yasi Salek?

  ever written and we've ever recorded. So he's like, I love this record and fuck you guys.

• 1:56:06Speaker 04

  And in 2024, he talked to The Ringer and was talking about this.

• 1:56:10Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I know that.

• 1:56:10Speaker 04

  And he was like, yeah, he just said, some of the songs on On a Wire are some of the best songs I've ever written. But he thought that heavier rock aspect got neutered in the production of it.

• 1:56:19Yasi Salek?

  Well, OK, here's, that's a great, I'm glad you said that, because they really, they did not mesh well with Scottlet. So that was a kind of a contentious working relationship. They just didn't see eye to eye about how they wanted the album to sound like. And I think it caused a lot of problems and probably negatively affected the sound of the album in terms of what I presume they might have wanted it to sound like. I don't know what that is, but what we got was the result of sort of like not being on the same page with the producer.

• 1:56:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, that makes sense to me. And it's a very downer, not even downer in the same way of like emo downer, but the lyrically, it's very existential. It's very like, there's that song, I was like, listening through it, and I was like, all that I know, and I don't want to just make fun of somebody's lyrics, but there's like, I wouldn't say making fun. It just, there are a lot of like zen cones in there, where it's like, all we are is part of everything. All you need to know is anything that's happening is happening. Where it's a bit like, picture like Edward Sharpie, like, you know, it's a bit more

• 1:57:26Yasi Salek?

  Little totality.

• 1:57:27Speaker 04

  Spacey, yeah, for sure, a little circular.

• 1:57:30Yasi Salek?

  Well, you know, look, I think there's a couple of good songs on here. Like, I actually really like Walking on a Wire.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  Yes, I was gonna say.

• 1:57:47Yasi Salek?

  And Campire, Kansas, I quite like too, but again, I like acoustic folkie stuff. But I, by and large, for me, this is not a

• 1:57:55Speaker 04

  Mel's in a new grunge pig, no.

• 1:57:56Yasi Salek?

  No, and I understand perhaps why the fanbase was like, we're all set on that.

• 1:58:06Speaker 04

  We're good.

• 1:58:08Yasi Salek?

  Not because it's not good, but again, because like, you're going, you're going to the 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee and they're like, well, sorry, what we have now is wheatgrass shot, you know? Like, it's just like,

• 1:58:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:58:21Yasi Salek?

  Both are good, but that's not what you want. You want a Slurpee.

• 1:58:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. Exactly. That's a good way of putting it.

• 1:58:26Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if that's a correct metaphor, but you get what I'm saying.

• 1:58:29Speaker 04

  It's more adult.

• 1:58:29Yasi Salek?

  It's more adult, yeah.

• 1:58:31Speaker 04

  Because they are adult.

• 1:58:32Yasi Salek?

  They found Led Zeppelin and they decided to go here. I'm sure it was probably pretty depressing and it's, again, it's like a lot of sliding doors on the trajectory of this band because like, what if they did make another, what if they had made Guilt Show?

• 1:58:48Speaker 04

  Exactly, as their next one.

• 1:58:49Yasi Salek?

  As their next one.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  It would have been totally different. I think about this all the time.

• 1:58:52Yasi Salek?

  Because Guilt Show's really good.

• 1:58:54Speaker 04

  Guilt Show's bangers.

• 1:58:55Yasi Salek?

  It's more in line with what they were doing, but also is a growth and maturity. It's not exact, it's not something to write home about part two.

• 1:59:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:05Yasi Salek?

  But also by this time, it's 2004 and I think the momentum around them has, has been sort of severely impeded by the reaction to On a Wire, which by the way, got really good critical reviews.

• 1:59:16Speaker 04

  On the Wire? On a Wire did?

• 1:59:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:19Speaker 04

  I, interesting.

• 1:59:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21Speaker 04

  I mean, it is more critically like a catnip kind of, where it has a lot of extra.

• 1:59:26Yasi Salek?

  Um, it was like a real, a real sharp difference between the critical reception and the people's reception. But, so, okay, well, let's talk about Guilt Show. So that's 2004. It's a couple of years later. They decided to just go back to Ed Rose, so that they had sort of made their prior, you know, four-minute mile and, um,

• 1:59:44Speaker 04

  And he also was recorded with Reggie. He's kind of their guy.

• 1:59:46Yasi Salek?

  He's like their guy. They're, they're like secret other member, basically. Oh, this is really funny. Apparently they, so they were It was less collaborative, like Matt Prior really like wrote and demoed most of the songs and then they fleshed it out. He said, "The point of every record you make is to try and make all the other ones obsolete, and that's the goal with this one." I would say by far it's the best record we've ever done. I think that's really interesting. I don't know if that's every musician's goal, but I think it was their goal. And that does sort of contextualize what you hear, especially with On a Wire.

• 2:00:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:00:16Yasi Salek?

  Like, they were trying to get so far away from something to write home about.

• 2:00:19Speaker 04

  Vaporize their past, yeah. And they kind of did. And it's also, Gilt Show is like, they're adults. There's like adults, sorry, I keep saying that, but like-

• 2:00:25Yasi Salek?

  No, it's true. I mean, they're, they're now in their like, early to mid twenties.

• 2:00:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:30Yasi Salek?

  Some of the members are married already, I think.

• 2:00:32Speaker 04

  And maybe about to not be married anymore.

• 2:00:34Yasi Salek?

  And about to be not married.

• 2:00:35Speaker 04

  And that's why maybe there's some-

• 2:00:36Yasi Salek?

  That's right. You're so right, yeah.

• 2:00:38Speaker 04

  That's the divorce record to me.

• 2:00:39Yasi Salek?

  Matt, yeah, right, because Rob Pope is, is in the process of divorcing Adrian Verhoeven, right, from the University of America, or maybe has just divorced him.

• 2:00:49Speaker 04

  Yes, is going through.

• 2:00:50Yasi Salek?

  I think James may be also going through a divorce, I believe.

• 2:00:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:00:54Yasi Salek?

  Jim on his honeymoon and Matt happily married. This was really funny. Matt, so they also did this in a studio they had purchased

• 2:01:05Yasi Salek?

  and renamed Black Lodge. They actually sold their imprint back to Vagrant to buy it. Matt said in 2011, "I think this is a good, solid record. We weren't getting along very well at the time. Rob Ryan and I wrote a lot of it, some of it while Jim was on his honeymoon. James was MIA because he was doing Reggie and a lot of coke." Okay. "We would have, we would have practice scheduled for noon and we wouldn't see James for three days. Then he'd come in the studio, the song was totally written, he wasn't involved at all, and then just slay it on the keys and say, 'Later, I'm gonna go smoke.'" He was like Slash or something.

• 2:01:35Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 2:01:36Yasi Salek?

  That was really funny.

• 2:01:36Speaker 04

  I like how all these piano parts that we've talked about are kind of seemingly added in states of like altered states.

• 2:01:41Yasi Salek?

  Right. James was going through it, or he was having a rough time of it, so he was just doing, he was doing him, yeah. That's why the next Reggie and the Full Effect album was called Songs to Not, Not to Get Married To.

• 2:01:52Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:01:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. But yeah, to your point, this is, this is kind of the divorce album. And it was very intentional because Matt Prior said, "My personal life is great." And it was gray at the time of the record. I don't think that would translate into a good song. So he's sort of like, it sounds like mostly wrote from the perspective of Rob and his divorce.

• 2:02:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a good divorce record if you're gonna, like, it's a good divorce rock record. Another really good divorce rock record, Cursive, domestica, if you ever go through a divorce, you can listen to that.

• 2:02:23Yasi Salek?

  I like the Beck one.

• 2:02:24Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 2:02:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:26Speaker 04

  Because it's hard to make that sound like not vengeful, but I feel like there's a lot of genuinely real feelings being expressed in this album, you know, going through that. And also, it's funny to think that this was also somewhat media fodder as well. The idea of like the anniversary and the Get Up Kids kind of.

• 2:02:43Yasi Salek?

  I am like, what, like, alternative press? Like, what media?

• 2:02:45Speaker 04

  I think all press or like, I guess like, there's probably some, like, LiveJournal.

• 2:02:48Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:02:49Speaker 04

  Oh, no, they didn't, probably was talking about this.

• 2:02:51Yasi Salek?

  Totally, totally. Well, also, that I thought was like, oh, maybe that's why they, part of the reason they sold The Imprint, too. Because like, the anniversary's on The Imprint, that's gotta be confusing.

• 2:03:00Speaker 04

  I think it kind of ended up, I don't know, I'm not there, but the anniversary never really came back, I think, from this event, because it was, to me, I think, I think they also kind of broke up early after. But yeah, I think it had a big impact on both bands, you can say.

• 2:03:12Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 2:03:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03:13Yasi Salek?

  This album was very critically, well, not very, but like, decently reviewed. I think it's better than On a Wire, personally, or like, or at least I'm getting more of what I want out of it. From jump, it starts out more up, like, more energetic and upbeat. Hot Rod Circuit guy, Jason Russell is, actually does vocals on the first song.

• 2:03:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:03:35Yasi Salek?

  Man of Conviction. I love "The One You Want."

• 2:03:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:03:38Yasi Salek?

  I think it's such a great song.

• 2:03:40Speaker 04

  Yes, it was finally also highlighted. And it's, it's as catchy, I would say, also, as, I don't know, there are other, or something to write home about. I don't know, it feels like we are getting more to songs that you could actually sing and dance along to.

• 2:03:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:00Yasi Salek?

  But my favorite on this is "Sick in Her Skin." I love that song.

• 2:04:04Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 2:04:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I just feel like it's like a really vibey song that sort of like explodes into something like really powerful. I really love it. It's it's kind of like they really succeeded there for me. And if what they were trying to do is make something really different from what they did before, but still have it be accessible and emotionally evocative. Because I didn't really feel that way about the songs on "On a Wire." And again, maybe it's just I haven't spent enough time because again, this is all sort of recent for me.

• 2:04:48Yasi Salek?

  Anyways, that's that's a guilt show. I think it's I think it was a good return-esque to form or to a form that was more similar to their form before. They go on a big tour for this to open for Dashboard Confessional.

• 2:05:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:05:00Yasi Salek?

  On the Honda Civic Tour, again, already kind of eclipsed.

• 2:05:03Speaker 04

  With Thrice as well.

• 2:05:04Yasi Salek?

  OK, so sorry to Thrice, also with Thrice. I just don't think it's interesting, and I think you can speak to it more probably. But like, this is like the time where they're really being eclipsed and overshadowed by the bands that they inspired.

• 2:05:18Speaker 04

  What's coming up from behind, yeah.

• 2:05:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, which in a lot of them, they inspired, like the Fall Out Boy's of the world. I don't know if they inspired Dashboard or not, but like, you know, that's their label mate that came after them for sure.

• 2:05:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think we were also getting, like, it's funny because the pettiness of the label stuff, like, that's how I define third wave emo when I think about it. Like, I think lyrically, it's a lot about score settling and scene settling and being the idea of fame itself, which.

• 2:05:46Yasi Salek?

  Right, navel gazing, yeah.

• 2:05:48Speaker 04

  Navel gazing, yeah. Like, so I think that set the tone for this almost a bit more, not like, yeah, petty is the wrong word, but but those kind of lyrical concerns, I think, really bled into that next generation. And that's why people, it's often derided. But yeah, that is probably really eerie to watch these people rise.

• 2:06:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I can't imagine it's good for morale, especially if you're already like having a lot of inner band turmoil around.

• 2:06:16Yasi Salek?

  This time, Rob Pope said in an alternate press interview, "If emo rock is remembered for all these brand-new upstart bands that get signed to drive-through records, then yeah, that would bum us out a little, since we have been pigeonholed into that whole thing."

• 2:06:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they're having a bad time. The vibes are bad. The live shows are deteriorating. Rob Pope and Jim Septik both threatened to quit multiple times on this tour. After that tour, they go on their own world tour. And finally, at some point in Australia, Matt Prior has like a full breakdown. He's stressed. He has children.

• 2:06:47Speaker 04

  Two babies.

• 2:06:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, two babies, a two-year-old, and I think like-

• 2:06:50Speaker 04

  Or about to be born, I think.

• 2:06:51Yasi Salek?

  Maybe one is about to be born.

• 2:06:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's back home.

• 2:06:53Yasi Salek?

  And he's just like, "I don't want to be here. Like, I want to be home with my family. I don't want to do this." So, he, I think, from what I understood, he sort of was like, "Oh, I want to pull back on touring," and the rest of the band was like, "We're, either we should do it or not do it." And so they were like, "Okay, well, this will be our last tour."

• 2:07:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:09Yasi Salek?

  They break up. They announce on the website in 2005, "We're broken up." All the, all the little kids go crazy.

• 2:07:16Speaker 04

  Yes. And, you know, I think that it was like around the same time also that these other bands, like The Anniversary, were breaking up. And I think people just kind of laid on to it a bit more of that narrative.

• 2:07:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:27Speaker 04

  But yeah, it did feel, they did tour, I guess, not that long after, which is funny. Like, they did some briefs-

• 2:07:31Yasi Salek?

  They did a farewell tour.

• 2:07:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, in July of 2005.

• 2:07:35Speaker 04

  But yeah, no, it's, uh, it felt like the end cap. And that makes sense in terms of like the arc of their original lineup, in terms of ending with "Guilt Show." It feels like they did what they had to, like, they came home, you know?

• 2:07:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And then again, like, they're, they've been, everything supplanted them, right? Like, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Paramore has come out.

• 2:08:02Speaker 04

  Feel by Ramen is blowing up.

• 2:08:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And then we also had, like, My Chem, The Used, Death Cab, Taking Back Sunday. Like, there's a whole swell of-

• 2:08:11Speaker 04

  Massive emo bands, like, getting radio hits.

• 2:08:13Yasi Salek?

  Exactly.

• 2:08:13Speaker 04

  Insane to think that, like, "Sugar" were going down. And also, um-

• 2:08:19Speaker 04

  God, what can I think of Panic at Disco songs anymore? But, um.

• 2:08:22Yasi Salek?

  I so know.

• 2:08:23Speaker 04

  I write since not tr-

• 2:08:24Yasi Salek?

  Why are you people hooded up?

• 2:08:25Speaker 04

  That one? You got it. I write since not tragedies.

• 2:08:27Yasi Salek?

  Is that what it's called?

• 2:08:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:08:28Yasi Salek?

  Closing the goddamn door.

• 2:08:30Speaker 04

  Um.

• 2:08:31Yasi Salek?

  But that one I know against my will, to be honest.

• 2:08:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:33Yasi Salek?

  Um.

• 2:08:34Speaker 04

  Cause we played it so much on the radio. But yeah, it must have been a very weird time to be in that band and like also feel like you can't really, like you can't be more mature because the, uh, market-

• 2:08:45Yasi Salek?

  Audience is not letting you.

• 2:08:46Speaker 04

  The market doesn't want that.

• 2:08:48Yasi Salek?

  Um, so yeah, they call it quits. Um, more New Amsterdam's albums come out. Um, Rob Pope joins Spoon. Maybe 10 years ago, I was backstage at some random festival in like Pomona or something with my friends The Black Lips. And I was quite drunk and I somehow, I think I'm smoking a cigarette with like, striking up a conversation with this guy in a suit backstage. And somehow emo comes up, no idea how, again, I was quite drunk. And I think I said something to the effect of like, yeah, but you don't fuck with Get Up Kids the way I, I love Get Up, I love Get Up Kids. And he goes, that was my band, I started that band because it was Rob Pope because Spoon was playing, but I had no idea because I don't know what Rob Pope looks like.

• 2:09:30Yasi Salek?

  And then I screamed and he's, he was like, oh my God. And I was like, oh my God. And then we hugged.

• 2:09:35Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 2:09:36Yasi Salek?

  It was a really beautiful moment.

• 2:09:37Speaker 04

  It was really beautiful. I'm sure he also thought it was a beautiful moment.

• 2:09:39Yasi Salek?

  I hope so. Um, I think he was quite drunk too, but I don't want to besmirch his name. You know, when you're quite drunk, you were think, you remember everyone else being quite drunk.

• 2:09:46Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:09:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that was a fun moment for me. Um, then in 2009, they did a 10 year anniversary tour. They got back together to tour something to write home about. Um, and I guess they had so much fun. They were like, actually.

• 2:10:00Speaker 04

  We're gonna sell Fun to record.

• 2:10:01Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna make another record, yeah.

• 2:10:03Speaker 04

  We're gonna make one, we're gonna get back into it.

• 2:10:05Yasi Salek?

  2011's, there are rules.

• 2:10:07Speaker 04

  It's fun.

• 2:10:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's it's fun. I think they wanted more, especially when you're putting your own money. Because I don't think Vagin, I think that is self, did they self-release that or no? Is that on?

• 2:10:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's on their Quality Hill album.

• 2:10:18Speaker 04

  Label.

• 2:10:19Yasi Salek?

  Label, yeah.

• 2:10:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, good name. But yeah, I feel like it sounds good for what that budget is. And also for guys who hadn't played together in a while, writing music for the first time. But it sounds exciting. Like, it sounds like they're excited to be back in the band, is what I think when I listen to that record. Because, you know, even like Dewey's, was he in the band at that point or did he? Have to look. But he had recorded other stuff with like Reggie in the meantime that like hadn't involved the band. So I'm sure they were just, I don't know, you can hear, I think, the excitement to be recording again. But I don't think it did very well. It didn't really pick up. 2011, we're talking, now we're talking actual Edward Sharp, probably. Or like, it's just too many Edward Sharps being brought up on this. Sorry for the twice, I don't know.

• 2:11:07Yasi Salek?

  I'll tell you what, I really like that song Shatter Your Lungs. Is it an extremely 2011-ass song? Yes.

• 2:11:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:14Yasi Salek?

  But I actually kind of really like this album.

• 2:11:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:19Yasi Salek?

  It's very not get up kidsy if you've only heard something to write home about. But it's it's good. It's very 2011. And there's a lot of use of like, it sounds more electronicy. It's good.

• 2:11:35Speaker 04

  I like, yeah, Automatic, it's if you're down for that, Automatic can be fun. And it's also, it's cool to see Matt Prior's writing evolve over these records. And I think he gets much more experimental in the stories he's telling. And, you know, is writing kind of poetry, if you will, about like modern society. When you read like, read the lyrics of Automatic or whatever, like the kids alone just watching static.

• 2:12:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:00Speaker 04

  Very evocative.

• 2:12:08Yasi Salek?

  I think it's good. I genuinely think it's good. I like, really enjoyed listening to it. And I was like, I think it's cool that they like kind of tapped back in. And again, like, they're not going to try to make what they made 10 years ago or 12 years ago. So like, they do make something that's more of its time, which I think is cool. And I liked it. And then they go back on hiatus because it didn't do well.

• 2:12:34Speaker 04

  That's tough.

• 2:12:35Yasi Salek?

  That's tough, yeah. Um, they do various other pursuits, you know, I think musical and non-musical, I believe. I read Matt Pryor became a farmhand. He also became a huge foodie over the years and he's very into cooking and food.

• 2:12:48Speaker 04

  Of that, I'd watch his cooking show.

• 2:12:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he's, he knows a lot about it. I interviewed him for the now defunct 24 Question Party people that was on this feed and he was really great. Um, really smart guy.

• 2:12:58Speaker 04

  Jim Subdick worked at a nonprofit for

• 2:13:01Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:13:01Speaker 04

  amputees.

• 2:13:02Yasi Salek?

  For amputees, correct.

• 2:13:03Speaker 04

  Called Steps for Faith, which is, anyway.

• 2:13:05Yasi Salek?

  That's nice. Yeah, they were doing, you know, they were doing their thing.

• 2:13:08Speaker 04

  James Dewey was in My Chemical Romance.

• 2:13:09Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yes, of course.

• 2:13:10Speaker 04

  Played keys and

• 2:13:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah, so he was doing probably quite well.

• 2:13:13Speaker 04

  He was like a pretty good, I think, like, host band, kind of filling in for keyboards on various

• 2:13:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, him and Rob Pope, I think, kind of did the best musically afterwards. And the New Amputees was still going, so that's also

• 2:13:23Speaker 04

  Full-time engagements, yeah.

• 2:13:25Yasi Salek?

  Um, and in 2017, so then Get Up Kids played When We Were Young. So now they're sort of a revival, you know, nostalgia band. Um, did you go to this?

• 2:13:36Speaker 04

  I did not. Vegas scares me, I have to be honest.

• 2:13:39Yasi Salek?

  Understandable.

• 2:13:39Speaker 04

  I'm really intimidated by Vegas and I wish, and also I was feeling at this time a bit personally distanced from the scene and felt a bit like it was a bit cosplay. It's kind of how I feel still about these massive festivals, but I'm very happy that these bands are getting opportunities to play.

• 2:13:56Yasi Salek?

  I would have really loved to go to the last one because of Jimmy World's setlist was really fucking out of this world. But Morrissey performed at this one?

• 2:14:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 2:14:05Yasi Salek?

  So strange. I just brought it up because it's crazy and they had no meat because Morrissey will not allow meat anywhere he performs. So the entire festival had, was not allowed to sell any meat. Um, the band was at the bar before they were playing and they were like, should we?

• 2:14:25Yasi Salek?

  Should we do it again?

• 2:14:26Speaker 04

  Let's run this back.

• 2:14:27Yasi Salek?

  Should we run this back? Should we do Get Up Kids again? So they do. And they signed to Polyvinyl and they put out an EP in 2018 called Kicker and an album in 2019 called Problems. Right around then, Matt Pryor said that he divides the Get Up Kids. It was kind of a weird year to put out their first album in a while because it was also the 20-year anniversary of something right now.

• 2:14:52Speaker 04

  I was like, what are you promoting?

• 2:14:53Yasi Salek?

  So they're kind of doing both, yeah. But he said, "I divided the Get Up Kids fanbase into people who only like the first two albums, Drag My Ass to Hell, and a smaller contingent of ones who've stuck with them the whole time. And Problems is in a return to form that will immediately placate the former group." Which is true, but Problems is good.

• 2:15:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. "The Problem Is Me," which is a funny song to have on an album called Problems, is really, really catchy and like could be, it just sounds like people who are like experts at writing hooks at this point, which they kind of are, you know?

• 2:15:31Yasi Salek?

  Do you think Taylor Swift heard that and it inspired her? Because you know Taylor Swift, a known Jimmy World fan.

• 2:15:38Speaker 04

  I didn't know that, actually. That's where did she encounter it, like from youth or like you think?

• 2:15:43Yasi Salek?

  I think from youth. She put a Jimmy World song on one of her playlists of like love songs and things. Like she's talked about how she likes them, which makes a lot of sense. Actually, we talk about it in the Jimmy World album. It's similar, like confessional songwriting stuff.

• 2:15:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:15:57Yasi Salek?

  But yeah, I mean, like if you fuck with Jimmy World, it's not a leap to think that you would like maybe check out the new Get Up Kids. I'm just saying, "The problem is me, I'm the problem, it's me."

• 2:16:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, the Antihero song. I feel, also, yeah.

• 2:16:09Yasi Salek?

  Just a couple of years later, so.

• 2:16:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's true. I do appreciate them, though.

• 2:16:13Yasi Salek?

  That's what Get Up Kids have gotten up to. Again, Peter Katz has produced this. I think it's, I don't want to say surprisingly good because that's rude, but that's not what I, but you know, for later era... Music from a band that has gone through a lot of shifts in sound.

• 2:16:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:30Yasi Salek?

  For better or for worse, I think where they've landed here is like quite satisfying.

• 2:16:34Speaker 04

  I agree. Yeah, I think, well, I think what maybe you're gesturing to is that a lot of bands that are around this long feel like they need to re, as they said, like, I forget how he put it, but make the other albums obsolete and continuously kind of reinvent the wheel every time in a way that's a bit exhausting sometimes as a fan because you like a band because you like what they are doing on the current record. And obviously, there's massive exceptions to that. But I think it's nice that they make new songs that they know their fans are gonna like. Or I don't know if that's why they're doing it, but they.

• 2:17:01Yasi Salek?

  I guess, I, maybe you saw, I, you know, this is maybe the last thing I'll say in fanfic mode. It's like, I assume the need to distance from your popular past self is extremely intense when you're young and quite close to it. And then the older and further away you get, you sort of assimilate all of the versions of yourself, right? You kind of put your arms around all of the parts that you were, and they all become one thing, and you're more able to tap into all of it at once without feeling any sort of way about them. That's just what I hope happens as we age.

• 2:17:37Speaker 04

  That would be really nice. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just as, it's interesting, like, I can't, you know, like, as we were talking with James Dewey's amazing new record, Forty One, and by new, I mean almost a decade old.

• 2:17:50Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:17:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think there's a lot of reckoning with age on this record, but also a lot that can be still applied to like a 14 year old who's listening to it at home or something like this, which I think they're really good at.

• 2:18:01Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 2:18:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:02Yasi Salek?

  And that, my friends, concludes, for now, I don't know what they're up to right now, maybe they're working on another album, the story of the Goodup Kids.

• 2:18:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, they toured in 2024, I think, in support. It was great.

• 2:18:14Yasi Salek?

  I'm also extremely sad that I missed the Something to Write Home About touring because.

• 2:18:21Speaker 04

  It was really good, I have to be honest.

• 2:18:22Yasi Salek?

  Well, Ariel.

• 2:18:24Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 2:18:25Yasi Salek?

  It should have been me. You guys, thank you so much for listening. Ariel, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest. Come back next week for a new episode of Bands Plan.

• 2:18:39Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandplain. Our guest today was Ariel Gordon. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Belle Roman. Executive producers for Bandplain are Gina Dalvec and me, Yasi Salek. Our Gorgeous and Catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Clavon and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fantasy and those Archer beef jerky, the long sticks. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 2:19:28Speaker 00

  I did not know that about Taylor Swift and Jimmy Eat World.

• 2:19:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:30Speaker 00

  It's changing everything, I think.

• 2:19:35Speaker 00

  With Truvia Sweeteners, it's simple to make sweetness part of your routine. From sweetening your creamy morning matcha to freshly baked blueberry scones, Truvia Sweeteners make it easy to enjoy the flavors you love with less sugar per serving. From everyday drinks to homemade favorites, they're made to fit right in. Because with Truvia, every moment tastes better. Find Truvia at your favorite local grocery retailer and bring better sweetness home.

• 2:20:02Speaker 06

  Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.