Nearly three decades into their career, emo pioneers The Get Up Kids have plenty to write home about at this point. Specifically, their current tour, which celebrates the 25 year anniversary of one of their breakout records. The tour will bring them to Milwaukee on Tuesday, October 8th, when they’ll play The Rave with Smoking Popes opening for the band. Ahead of their Milwaukee stop, we caught up with guitarist Jim Suptic to talk about the feeling of making “Something To Write Home About,” and how it has aged gracefully into becoming a alternative rock classic.

Your tour is celebrating 25 years of “Something To Write Home About.” I know in the grand scheme of things, this is the biggest record for the band. But what does this record mean to you when you think about it?

It's a lot of reminiscing and nostalgia, which is okay. I'm okay with nostalgia. You know, when you make a record, you hope people like it. It's crazy. It kind of changed all of our lives, and it's hard to believe 25 years later, we're out here doing the biggest tour that we’ve done in a while.

So when you think about recording this record, what are the memories that come back tp you? Where was the band at this point?

It was kind of a crazy time. Our band had a lot of hype behind us back then. We were getting courted by a lot of labels. We went out to Los Angeles to make it for almost two months, and I had never lived outside of the Kansas City area. We were kind of naive, and we just knew we had to make a good record that sounded right. When we walked away from it, we were all happy, because it was a step up from our first record, which I still love. But we had only two and a half days to record that one.

That is absolutely unheard of, to think about making your debut record in that timeframe these days.

It is. But for “Something To Write Home About,” we demoed this record and we reissued it last year, and the reissue comes with all that. You can hear a lot of those demos. Our friend had a mobile digital unit for recording, which was a big deal at the time.

It was big that you could be any kind of portable in those days.

I think that really did help the songs. It's interesting to listen back to it, how we changed parts. We did pre-production before, and Chad Blinman, who produced it, was involved. So we had the luxury of all the time that we needed, which is great.

What has been the biggest aspect of seeing this album grow? Because I think it is one of those ones that maybe had a great reception initially, but now, new generations of fans are picking up on this. Are you noticing that there's a wider range of fans at the shows?

Yeah, there’s parents that got into the record bringing their kids to the shows now. But I think the lyrics are very universal. Like, going from a teenager to growing up. That's what the album is about, you know, and I think it must have struck a chord with people, and that's awesome. That's all you can ever ask for.

Are there one or two songs that when you play them live, you still get excited for? Just because you know that a reaction is coming?

The bangers are sort of back to back on the record, and so being able to start the show with those two songs (“Holiday” and “Action & Action”) kind of sets the tone in a good way. We literally play on the record front to back, so it's like you're listening to it, but “I’m A Loner Dottie, A Rebel” is probably my favorite song to play live.

So let’s talk Milwaukee. Do you have any experiences with the city or stories from coming through this part of the country that stick out? 

We played Milwaukee with The Promise Ring many, many years ago. I feel like we kind of skipped Milwaukee a lot because we always played Chicago, and I feel kind of bad about that. Scott Schoenbeck of Dashboard Confessional lives in Milwaukee, and he took us out for a nice time. Todd Bell from Braid also lives there, and so we had some fun there. Last time we played, I think, was right before COVID. We were opening for Dashboard Confessional. It was a great show, and I’m hoping the next time we play it’ll be lovely, too.

You know that The Rave is a haunted venue, right?

(Laughs) Oh yeah. We played the big room twice in, like, six months. We opened for Green Day and then we opened for Weezer. So they told us about it.

Have you been down to the haunted pool?

Yes, and I don’t need to go back down there ever again (laughs.) I think we went with Green Day on that tour to see the pool. I don’t need to be back there. 

You can catch The Get Up Kids at The Rave with Smoking Popes on Tuesday, October 8th, and purchase tickets via The Rave’s Website.