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. Their sophomore album Something to Write Home About remains their most widely acclaimed album, and is considered to be one of the quintessential albums of the second-wave emo movement. 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." The band departed heavily from their established style with the release of their 2002 album On a Wire, which saw the band take on a much more layered, alternative rock sound. Years later, guitarist Jim Suptic even apologized for having the influence they did on many of the modern third-wave emo bands, commenting that "[t]he punk scene we came out of and the punk scene now are completely different. It's like glam rock now ... If this is the world we helped create, then I apologize."