Matt Pryor’s 'Wrist Slitter' Is Not A Children’s Album

Matt Pryor is not the Get Up Kid he once was. As a 36-year-old father of three, Pryor has shifted away from the emo days of his youth and is about to release a more mature solo album, Wrist Slitter. We talked to the Get Up Man about fatherhood, podcasts, sandwiches, strip clubs, and other adult subjects while he was getting ready to soundcheck in Japan. Check out the interview below and stream Pryor’s Wrist Slitter in its entirety.

Noisey: Hi Matt. You’re in Japan?
Matt Pryor: I’m in Osaka, yeah.

Why?
We’re doing four Get Up Kids shows—a festival in Tokyo and then a show in Osaka and then a show in Nagoya. The promoter said 90s emo is very big right now.

So they’re a few years behind us.
No they were on point. But apparently there’s a resurgence.

I want to get deep in this interview. Can we get deep?
Sure, man. We can go as deep as you want.

Great, what’s your favorite kind of sandwich?
I like the Philly cheesesteak. Actually, it’s probably a reuben. A good reuben with extra Russian dressing.

Should we get deeper than this?
If you want.

You took a break from Get Up Kids, sort of at the height of the band’s popularity, would you say?
No, I’d say the height of the band’s popularity was probably 2002. We put a record called On A Wire that basically split our audience in half. To be completely honest, the way things were going with music then, if we had actually given Guilt Show—the record that came out when I quit the band—if we had given it a chance, we might have regained our footing. But I was just over it.

Was that largely due to you becoming a dad?
I mean, yes and no. A lot of my perspective shifted when my daughter was born and my sons were born. And even now, I get really bad anxiety attacks when I leave home for a tour. That was something that those guys didn’t really understand and I couldn’t really explain it. It’s a hard thing. But it’s that combined with 10 years of incessant touring or writing or recording. We needed to get away from each other for a while. But we just weren’t mature enough—or at least I wasn’t mature enough—to be able to be like, “I need to get away from you fuckers. You’re driving me crazy.”

How do you think that time off as a band ultimately affected Get Up Kids and your audience now?
Well, for us, internally, taking three and a half years off was really great. Actually, these shows in Japan I’m doing right now, we haven’t played together in two years and we haven’t played with all five of us in over three so when we get together, I always liken it to a high school or college reunion where you get back together with your old buddies you grew up with and are like, “Let’s drink some beer and play loud music and then get the fuck away from each other.”

Do any of those old tensions rise back up?
They come up but we try to not talk about them. Our tour manager, we call him a “vibe tech” because he just keeps us laughing the whole time. We try to keep it light. But you know, we’re brothers. Some literally and some figuratively. We fight like that but also love each other and focus on the positive and make fun of Jim.

Well sure. In comparing the Get Up Kids to a band like Saves the Day, you guys had similar audiences at a similar time and a similar trajectory as a band. But when you guys called it a day, they kept going, putting out albums and touring. It feels like the result is that now, you’re playing shows like the Revival Tour, which skews a bit older whereas if you go to a Saves the Day show, that audience is still 16.
We definitely have a drinking crowd now. Whereas back in the day, we could never get a show on Halloween or New Year’s Eve. Promoters would be like, “Well, the band drinks more than the crowd does.” But now, I was telling Chuck [Ragan] this on the Revival Tour, the crowd is like, “We got a sitter! Woo!” But I’m really good friends with [Chris] Conley and we talk about this a lot —that we had a similar career arc in that things were going up, up, up, up, up and then we made a record that was good but divisive and how do you recover from that? And they keep slugging it out. They’ll go on Warped Tour, they’ll play shows with Bayside, and we’re just stubborn and we don’t really do things we don’t like. And our last record was pretty weird. We’re always trying to challenge ourselves to do new things. We have our fans and they’re basically our fans for life, I think. They know that we just do what we like. That’s limiting, to know you’re not gonna reach everyone in the world but the ones that we do reach are really hardcore about it.

Looking back with this perspective, is there anything you would do differently about how the band ended?
Really just we needed to take a break, take a couple years off, and get away from each other for a while. There was some substance issues within the band, there was some personal issues within the band. Even if you’re in a bus, you’re still riding in a metal tube with eight other dudes. It’s a tight ship.

I hear you’re living the real dad life now.
Yeah.

You even put out some children’s albums?
Yeah, in 2006 and 2008.

And you’ve got a new album, Wrist Slitter. Is that a children’s album too?
Yes.

Good for you. You don’t hear a lot of children’s albums named Wrist Slitter.
I’m breaking new ground.

There is a song about killing yourself in the bathtub on this album.
No, it’s about not killing yourself.

Oh, OK. So it is positive for children.
[laughs]

Speaking of Saves the Day and Chris Conley, he makes a cameo on this album. Did you have him in mind for the song?
I had written the song about an argument I’d gotten into—a heated discussion, we’ll call it—and when I wrote the song, I couldn’t come up with a chorus for it and Chris and I talked about collaborating on something and he was present when this argument happened. And so I wrote him and I was like, “Dude, this is what it’s about. Isn’t it fucked up and I was totally right and he was being stubborn and stupid?” But Chris took the song and wrote it about how we were both being stubborn and stupid. And I was just like, “Yeah, I guess I was being just as big of an ass as he was. He’s still wrong. I’m still right.” But you know, it was humbling.

So Conley was the mediator here?
No, he just showed me that I was being an ass.

How much interest do you have in touring now that you have kids?
I look at it as a necessary evil and not from a financial perspective necessarily. Last year, I quit. I quit music. I wanted to start over and do something else with my life. I came back around to find out that this is what I want to do. So touring is a way of promoting a record, so I need to figure out a way to do that that is comfortable, which means that I’m not going out for more than two and a half to three weeks at a time. I’m going for two to three weeks a month starting in December until May. And I’m trying to do it so that it’s when my kids get out of school and I’m home with them for the summer. I don’t like being away. I like being home. If I could turn Lawrence, Kansas into mini emo Branson, Missouri, and just everybody could come to town to see me, that’s what I would prefer.

You could be the Tom Jones of Kansas.
Yeah, sleep in my own bed.

Because when you’re—
You’re being surprisingly nice by the way.

You too!
[laughs] I was really like, “OK, get ready for it.” But you’re quite nice.

Me too. I was like, “Oh man, this guy hates me.”
I don’t hate you at all! I think you’re hilarious.

Well good. Hey, so I heard you raise chickens and work on farms and stuff. Is that right?
Uh huh. I’ve always been interested in gardening. I got into cooking about 15 years ago and then I got into growing my own food. And so when I had to quit making music, the only things I could think of were farming and cooking. So I went and worked on a farm, picking radishes and washing beets and shit. I also went and worked on a food truck. That’s hard work, man.

What kind of food truck?
It was a health pseudo…it wasn’t Indian but we had some curry stuff. But it was just kind of like a health food truck. It’s fucking hippies, dude.

I heard when you were doing that was when you started getting into podcasting.
Yeah, well I was just on the farm—I’ve always been an NPR junkie—so I’ve always listened to This American Life or Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me’s podcasts. And so I’ve always been a big Kevin Smith fan—

Still?
Yeah, I am actually. I think he’s interesting because he’s in the business of marketing Kevin Smith. I started listening to his podcast. He has this really positive like, “You need to take life by the balls” kind of thing. It’s just really positive. The way he does it is kind of cheesy but it’s something I needed at that point in my life. So then I started listening to other podcasts, like Marc Maron and stuff and then I was like, man, he’s just talking backstage with comedians, I could do that. Some of my musician friends are just as funny.

Do you consider yourself the Marc Maron of emo podcasts?
Yes. I thought you were gonna say music, but no, you went even more niche with it.

Well do you think you’re the Marc Maron of music podcasts?
No. The only thing I can say is I’m ripping off the conversational style of Marc Maron’s podcast. I’m not comparing myself to him at all. Some of these stories that people of being backstage are really funny. But like, talking to you is the closest thing I’ve done to a podcast interview like I do because most of the time, you’re talking to people who are journalists and they’re just asking dry questions and not conversing. I wanted to do interviews that were informational but more conversations.

So do you want your podcast to be people swapping old stories?
Um, swapping old stories or new stories, talking about songwriting with songwriters, talking about parenting and touring. I really like talking to people like roadies or promoters or people who work in the music industry because I’m intrigued by how they make money. Like, how do you make money as a promoter? Those are the least listened to ones though. Like, Jim from Jimmy Eat World, which is the worst interview I’ve done is one of the most popular ones.

Really?
He’s just a really nice guy and I’ve known him forever but he doesn’t like to do interviews. I thought I could crack him and I don’t think I did.

If someone was just coming to your podcast now—and what is it called? Something to Podcast Home About or something?
It’s called Nothing to Write Home About.

Sure. If someone was just coming to it now, what would be the best one to listen to?
The one with Conley is good. The Max Bemis one is good. I do one with James Dewees maybe once a month and he’s always hilarious. I just did one with Dustin Kensrue of Thrice and he was talking about his church that he works at now. So that was interesting.

Yeah, he quit that band to do that, didn’t he?
Well, they’re on indefinite hiatus. Bands don’t ever break up, don’t you know that?

I have to ask you about this. Let me back up, I have to tease you about this.
Here it comes.

I heard you play on an adult kickball team.
I am on the adult kickball board.

Jesus Christ.
And I do the adult kickball podcast.

Oh lord.
Let me tell you about this. This is something I’m really passionate about. In Lawrence, Kansas, which is a city of about 75,000 people when the University of Kansas is in session, we have three kickball leagues in the city. The one that I am involved with has 32 teams with 10 to 20 people per team. Every week, at Game of the Week, it ends up being like 600 to 700 people show up to this park to watch kickball. And we have a podcast, we have stat people. It’s very dorky, it’s very stat heavy. It’s fun to be passionate about something that’s just silly. It’s the total opposite of playing music.

I feel like there are two kinds of adult kickball players. The ones that embrace its irony and the ones that are very serious about it. Which one are you?
To a certain degree I am not serious about the game but I am serious about working with the league to keep it there so that it can be fun and it can be silly. I mean, I’m on the worst team in the league.

What’s your team name?
Harper Valley PTA. Do you get that reference?

I don’t.
It’s an old country song. I didn’t pick it.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask this. I would like to know what the girl from the “Action and Action” video is doing these days. Asking for a single friend who has the exact same name as me.
[laughs] I have no idea. I only met her that day and I don’t think I even talked to her. I seem to remember she was the director’s girlfriend but I can’t say that with 100% confidence.

She really set the style tone for emo girls in the early 2000s.
Think so? She looked like everyone else we knew in California.

Yeah, blonde, Zelda haircut.
See, but then on the east coast, it was always dark hair.

Yeah, jet-black. Spikey belts too.
God. [laughs]

Are you having good flashbacks or bad flashbacks?
I’m having…OK, so this is an interesting story. This is a weird one. So, outside of Lawrence, Kansas, in the middle of cornfield, there’s a bring your own beer strip club called The Outhouse and my wife and I went there for our bachelor/bachelorette party before our wedding.

Wait, so you split a bachelor party with your wife?
Yeah.

That’s terrible. Go on.
No it’s not. I mean, I’ve never liked the idea of bachelor parties because it’s like, “Last night of freedom!” I think it’s dumb. I’m excited to be with this person so let’s do this together. So anyway, she got me the lapdance where they take you on stage and whip you with your belt. But I was wearing one of those heavy leather studded belts. So my ass was tore up.

If the world is ending, Dan Ozzi toasts to it. Follow him on Twitter - @danozzi