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The Get Up Kids released their first ever music video for “Ten Minutes,” the dynamic, fan favorite single from the 25th anniversary reissue of the Kansas City band’s genre-defining sophomore LP, Something to Write Home About (due out digitally on August 23rd and physically on September 20th via Polyvinyl Record Co). Directed by longtime friend and scene peer Josh Berwanger (The Anniversary), the “Ten Minutes” video lovingly assembles rare archival live footage of DIY shows, posters, photos, and other ephemera from the era. The remastered single is also out now alongside its auspicious demo version that showcases the song’s sturdy, road-tested origins.“When I wrote the opening guitar riff for ‘Ten Minutes,’ my inspiration was the song ‘Do the Vampire’ by Superdrag. It’s pretty obvious once you know. Their album, Head Trip in Every Key, was on heavy rotation when we were writing Something to Write Home About,” says songwriter/guitarist/singer Jim Suptic. “When I listen back to this song and watch the new video for it, my first impression is just how young we were. Some of us were literally teenagers. My voice almost sounds like a totally different person than who I am today. With that said, maybe that is why the album connected with so many people. We were singing about the things everyone struggles with at that age. At its core, Something to Write Home About is a coming of age record.

I think Josh Berwanger did a fantastic job editing the video. He and his band The Anniversary were there for a lot of this, and witnessed some of these moments first hand.”

“Our first record is what it is—its imperfections are one of the things that people like about it,” says Pryor. “But I personally wanted us to record something that sounded like a real band, that sounded professional and, you know, big.” Working for the first time with Chad Blinman, who co-produced Something to Write Home About with Alex Brahl at LA’s Mad Hatter studio, The Get Up Kids achieved the massive sound they sought. The 12-track LP saw a quick release on September 28th, 1999, mere months after their stint in the studio, and emerged into a rock landscape dominated by commercial rock, post-grunge, and nü-metal. "Nothing that was popular sounded like our album," says Suptic. "That style of music wasn't mainstream." Yet the album, along with fellow 1999 releases like Jimmy Eat World's Clarity and the Promise Ring's Very Emergency, solidified a canon of expansive, pop-leaning emo that would guide the genre's explosion in the new millennium, and go on to inspire platinum-selling bands like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, as well as wave upon wave of emo revival acts.  

But Something to Write Home About’s success wasn’t limited to its immeasurable influence. It also positioned Vagrant, which would later add emo luminaries like Saves the Day and Dashboard Confessional to its roster, as the genre’s preeminent label. It also led to the band’s opening slots for Green Day and Weezer, and sold-out shows across a two-year headline tour that, by its end, had pushed the album’s Billboard Heatseekers chart summit to #31 and its unit sales into six figures (a rarity for an indie record in the late ‘90s).

For the 2024 reissue, remastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound, a second LP contains a mix of 12 rare or previously unreleased demos (including the original four-track acoustic recordings by singer/songwriter Pryor), and a 28-page large format full-color booklet with handwritten lyrics, photos, and more. In both the early drafts and remastered tracks contained on this definitive version of Something to Write Home About, longtime fans will return to places familiar and formative, and rediscover plenty of moments as vivid as they were on first listen. For the Get Up Kids, these demos also have the same transportative quality as the finished album, warping them right back to downtown Kansas City and the five-story decommissioned ROTC training facility that — for $100 a month — served as their practice space. “When I hear those particular demos,” says Rob Pope, “it takes me right back to that rehearsal room.”