If they continue their older and wiser ways, the Get Up Kids may have to change their name.

To create their third album, On a Wire, the twentysomething quintet adopted a more mature approach that could warrant a the group to re-title themselves the Grown Up Kids, if it didn't sound so stupid.

For starters, the 12 songs featured on the LP, which was released May 14, were collectively written by the band — and credited as such — as opposed to their previous two albums, which were primarily singer-guitarist Matt Pryor's forums for emotionally wrought power pop that obsessed over budding relationships. They also wrote more than twice the amount of tunes that wound up making the final cut.

"The idea was to write as many songs we possibly could, and to let everybody have input," Pryor said from his home in Lawrence, Kansas, where he lives with his wife and infant daughter. "We all write songs, but the way we had always done before was whatever 12 songs we had when we went into the studio, that's what ended up being on the records. So this time around, every individual member would come to practice with a song and we'd finish it.

"I think it's also healthy," he continued, mindful of his five-year-old band's anticipated longevity. "When one person is writing all the material, and everybody else is in fact a songwriter, and they don't have an outlet to do that in, it starts to build resentment. So we kind of have this sewing- circle thing going on."

After the group finished knitting their pop ditties, they embarked on another first that's usually reserved for older artists. Together with big-time producer Scott Litt (R.E.M., Incubus), the group took a looser, more hands-on approach to the recording process, where the songs were more constructed than simply recorded.

"We've always sort of had songs, played them a bunch as a band — possibly even toured on them — before we'd go into the studio and bust them out really fast," Pryor explained. "Whereas this time it was more like, 'Yeah, I have this demo that's just me playing acoustic guitar,' and we'd build a song around that."

As such, when preparing for their tour, which kicked off May 24 and runs through July 16 (see ), the band basically had to learn how to play the songs together, since, unlike during previous recording sessions, they hadn't played the songs collectively.

The trek comes on the heels of On a Wire's first single, "Overdue," a unforgiving mid-tempo ballad on which Pryor leads off with "You're a few years overdue/ I spent them waiting there for you." At first he was hesitant to reveal the inspiration and meaning behind the melancholy acoustic strummer, choosing, as he usually does when pressed for "the story behind the song," to let the fans interpret it however they wish. The wall eventually crumbled, though.

"It's about my dad," he fessed up. "I know there's no way to say that and be slick about it, but I try not to be incredibly obvious in interviews, just in case whomever the song is about reads the interview.

"I wrote the music and was just singing along and that first line was the first thing I came up with. And when I started writing the lyrics, it all came out really fast because it's about things that I think about sometimes — especially now as a parent myself. If I'm going to learn anything from my parents, it's going to be what not to do."

A video for "Overdue" was recently completed and comprises both animated and live-action sequences. The animation was conceived by Travis Miller, the artist responsible for the cover of 1999's Something to Write Home About and the elaborate, die-cut Digipak encasing On a Wire. Again, Pryor, who had yet to view the end result, was hesitant to reveal too much about the "secret" video, though he explained his reasons for holding back with a little more confidence.

"I'm sort of vague on the whole thing," he said. "We have a tendency to give Travis a free rein on what he does. All I know is that my artsy-fartsy friends visited him in New York, saw clips of it and said it was really good. I'm never disappointed in Travis' stuff."

Get-Up Kids tour dates, according to Vagrant Records:

  • 6/3 - West Hollywood, CA @ House of Blues
  • 6/4 - West Hollywood, CA @ House of Blues
  • 6/5 - San Diego, CA @ The Scene
  • 6/6 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
  • 6/7 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
  • 6/8 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
  • 6/10 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
  • 6/11 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
  • 6/13 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Brick's
  • 6/14 - Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
  • 6/25 - Boynton Beach, FL @ Ovation
  • 6/26 - Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues
  • 6/27 - Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
  • 6/28 - Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
  • 6/29 - Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa
  • 6/30 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
  • 7/1 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
  • 7/2 - New York, NY @ Roseland
  • 7/3 - Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
  • 7/5 - Hartford, CT @ Webster Theatre
  • 7/6 - Worcester, MA @ The Palladium
  • 7/7 - Rochester, NY @ Harro East
  • 7/9 - Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre
  • 7/10 - Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart's
  • 7/11 - Pontiac, MI @ Clutch Cargo
  • 7/12 - Chicago, IL @ Metro / Smart Bar
  • 7/13 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
  • 7/14 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
  • 7/15 - Minneapolis, MN @ Quest Club
  • 7/16 - Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theatre