The Get Up Kids

"This record was definitely a group effort," The Get Up Kids guitarist and vocalist Matt Pryor says, comparing the new Vagrant Records album On A Wire to the group’s much-heralded 1999 effort, Something to Write Home About. "The last one was a bit more one-sided, but this one is definitely everybody’s baby."

On A Wire is indeed a leap forward for the quintet, but then fans know that the band has never stayed in one place for very long. The group came together in Kansas City in 1994 with Pryor, Rob Pope, guitarist-vocalist Jim Suptic, and drummer Nathan Shay, who was replaced early on by Rob’s kid brother and best friend (he swears), Ryan. Over the course of those early recordings for the Huey Proudhon and Doghouse labels, and too many tours to count, the band consistently honed a melodic yet propulsive sound that grew ever sharper and more sophisticated, especially after keyboardist James DeWees came on board circa the first Vagrant album, Something to Write Home About.

On A Wire finally started to come together when The Get Up Kids all returned to Kansas and began writing in earnest. Eventually, they penned 25 songs for the album in order to choose the 12 that made the final cut. This was a departure from the way they worked before, as was their first collaboration with a real producer, the legendary Scott Litt, whose previous credits include R.E.M., Nirvana and Incubus.

"We decided we wanted to have a producer, we drew up a wish list,and we knew that we wanted to not be rushed on this album," Rob Pope says. "I mean, we recorded the first one in Chicago in two and a half days! We ended up doing this one with Scott Litt because he approached us; he heard the demos and he really liked them. We really concentrated on arrangements – just putting across what needs to come across and not overplaying. It was cool because we were recording in a house in Connecticut, and we didn’t really know anybody around there, so there weren’t a lot of distractions."

The result was another set of sparkling material like "Overdue" and "Hannah, Hold On" (the two acoustic-driven tracks that begin and end the album), the Beatlesesque "All That I Know" (one of two songs Suptic sings; the other is "Campfire Kansas"), the delightfully garagey, organ-driven "Worst Idea," and the wonderfully titled "Grunge Pig."