Matt Pryor — founding singer/guitarist of the Get Up Kids and the New Amsterdams — has announced that he's publishing a memoir.
Entitled Red Letter Days (after the 1999 Get Up Kids EP and song of a similar title), the book is set for release January 23 via Washed Up Books. According to press materials, it's based on Pryor's journal entries between 1990 and 2000 and includes 22 never-before-seen photos from the musician's early days with the Get Up Kids.
The memoir sees Pryor open up about his struggles with childhood diabetes and touring in the pre-texting era. "This was never meant to be a book about emo or even the band in particular, I didn't want to write about the 'scene.' That is already well documented," he explained. "Every one of the stories in the book is one that I've told backstage, at a bar, or on a porch. I wanted to translate them from an oral tradition to a written one."
Pryor continued, "I have found — and this is fairly recently — that things I write don't really hit me like that until later. In the moment I just think that's a cool song, lyric or story; it seems to be that I can only really connect on that level once I've had some distance from it."
Red Letter Days is now available for pre-order.
Entitled Red Letter Days (after the 1999 Get Up Kids EP and song of a similar title), the book is set for release January 23 via Washed Up Books. According to press materials, it's based on Pryor's journal entries between 1990 and 2000 and includes 22 never-before-seen photos from the musician's early days with the Get Up Kids.
The memoir sees Pryor open up about his struggles with childhood diabetes and touring in the pre-texting era. "This was never meant to be a book about emo or even the band in particular, I didn't want to write about the 'scene.' That is already well documented," he explained. "Every one of the stories in the book is one that I've told backstage, at a bar, or on a porch. I wanted to translate them from an oral tradition to a written one."
Pryor continued, "I have found — and this is fairly recently — that things I write don't really hit me like that until later. In the moment I just think that's a cool song, lyric or story; it seems to be that I can only really connect on that level once I've had some distance from it."
Red Letter Days is now available for pre-order.
