The Get Up Kids are an American alternative rock band from Kansas City, Missouri. Formed in 1995, the band was a major player in the mid-90s emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music. As they gained prominence, they began touring with bands such as Green Day and Weezer before becoming headliners themselves, eventually embarking on international tours of Japan and Europe. They founded Heroes & Villains Records, an imprint of the successful indie rock label Vagrant Records. While the imprint was started to release albums by The Get Up Kids, it served as a launching pad for several side-projects such as The New Amsterdams and Reggie and the Full Effect.
The Get Up Kids were viewed throughout their existence as a prototypical emo band, having been major players in the Midwest emo movement of the mid-1990s. However, like many early emo bands, The Get Up Kids, sought to dissociate themselves with the term, as it was considered dismissive to be seen as an "emo band."
Due to internal conflicts, the band broke up in 2005. Three years later, the band reunited to support the tenth anniversary re-release of
Something to Write Home About, and soon afterward entered the studio to write new material. In early 2010, the band released
Simple Science, their first release in six years, followed in 2011 by the full-length
There Are Rules.