The Get Up Kids Four Minute Mile (1997-1998)
Was Four Minute Mile their album name?
Was the Four Minute Mile, The Get Up Kids, album name?
After signing to Doghouse, the band drove to Chicago to record their debut full-length album with producer Bob Weston of Shellac. The album was recorded in only two days, with the band leaving on Friday after Ryan Pope got out of school and finishing in the early hours of Sunday morning. Two months after recording the album, the band embarked on their first national tour with Braid and Ethel Meserve with the first date of the tour taking place the day after Ryan's high school graduation.  It was on that tour that the band met James Dewees, the new drummer for Coalesce while the bands were playing together in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After the show, the members of the two bands became close friends, eventually leading them to record a split 7-inch produced by Ed Rose entitled "The Get Up Kids / Coalesce". For the split, each band covered one of the other's songs in their own style. Coalesce did a post-hardcore cover of "Second Place", and The Get Up Kids recorded a power-pop rendition of "Harvest of Maturity".  A few months later, the band released their debut full-length record Four Minute Mile, bringing a great deal of attention from critics, fans and labels alike. The band was invited to join Braid on their 1998 tour of Europe and the band rapidly created an overseas fanbase.  While the band was receiving rapidly increasing national and international attention, they became unhappy with Doghouse Records' ability to keep up with the increasing popularity of the band. The Get Up Kids' announcement to leave Doghouse Records brought interest from prominent record labels including Sub Pop, Geffen and Mojo Records. The band made a decision to sign to Mojo, but before the contracts were signed, they began to have second thoughts. The main issue was over the label's insistence on owning merchandising rights, a large source of the band's income. Moreover, the band was insulted the label requested they re-record "Don't Hate Me" from Four Minute Mile for their next record, feeling that the label believed it was "the best that [they could] write". Before the deal with Mojo was official, the band met Rich Egan, founder of Los Angeles-based Vagrant Records. He convinced the band to sign to Vagrant instead, offering them $50,000 to record a second album, as well as their own imprint, Heroes & Villains Records. CANNOTANSWER
A few months later, the band released their debut full-length record Four Minute Mile,
The Get Up Kids are an American rock band from Kansas City, Missouri. Formed in 1995, the band was a major player in the mid-1990s Midwest 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.

Their second 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. Like many early emo bands, The Get Up Kids sought to dissociate themselves from the term "emo." 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."

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.

History

Early years (1995–1997) 

While in high school, Ryan Pope, Rob Pope, and Jim Suptic formed a short-lived band called Kingpin. Matt Pryor had been writing songs since he was a teenager, and was playing in a band called Secret Decoder Ring. Following the demise of the two bands in 1995, The Get Up Kids were formed. The band originally planned on calling themselves "The Suburban Get Up Kids", until reasoning that there were fewer band names beginning with the letter 'G' than there are with the letter 'S', and that therefore they were more likely to be noticed in a record store if their name began with a 'G'. The band was formed on October 14, 1995, on Suptic's 18th birthday.

At the time the lineup consisted of Pryor on guitar and lead vocals, Suptic on guitar, Rob Pope on bass, and Thomas Becker on drums. However, Becker soon left for college in California, and was replaced by Nathan Shay, who was attending school with Suptic at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1995, Pryor, Suptic, and friend Kevin Zelko saved money to self-release "Shorty/The Breathing Method", their first 7-inch. However, due to an unwillingness to tour, Shay was replaced by Rob's younger brother Ryan in April 1996. The band became increasingly popular in the burgeoning underground Midwestern music scene, forming strong relationships with bands such as Rocket Fuel Is The Key, Coalesce and Braid. After the "Shorty" 7-inch, the band released "A Newfound Interest in Massachusetts" on Contrast Records. Encouraged by interest stirred by the band's first 7-inch, they recorded their first EP, Woodson. Two songs of which were released by Contrast Records as a 7-inch titled "A Newfound Interest in Massachusetts" or more commonly known as "The Loveteller 7", with Doghouse Records releasing a CD-EP version which included the songs from both Woodson and A Newfound Interest in Massachusetts  as well as the two song Woodson 7".  After Woodson, Doghouse approached the band with a two-album contract, offering them $4,000 to record their first full-length album.

Four Minute Mile (1997–1998) 
After signing to Doghouse, the band drove to Chicago to record their debut full-length album with producer Bob Weston of Shellac. The album was recorded in only two days, with the band leaving on Friday after Ryan Pope got out of school and finishing in the early hours of Sunday morning. Two months after recording the album, the band embarked on their first national tour with Braid and Ethel Meserve with the first date of the tour taking place the day after Ryan's high school graduation.

It was on that tour that the band met James Dewees, the new drummer for Coalesce while the bands were playing together in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After the show, the members of the two bands became close friends, eventually leading them to record a split 7-inch produced by Ed Rose entitled "The Get Up Kids / Coalesce". For the split, each band covered one of the other's songs in their own style. Coalesce did a post-hardcore cover of "Second Place", and The Get Up Kids recorded a power-pop rendition of "Harvest of Maturity".

A few months later, the band released their debut full-length record Four Minute Mile, bringing a great deal of attention from critics, fans and labels alike. The band was invited to join Braid on their 1998 tour of Europe and the band rapidly created an overseas fanbase.

While the band was receiving rapidly increasing national and international attention, they became unhappy with Doghouse Records' ability to keep up with the increasing popularity of the band. The Get Up Kids' announcement to leave Doghouse Records brought interest from prominent record labels including Sub Pop, Geffen and Mojo Records. The band made a decision to sign to Mojo, but before the contracts were signed, they began to have second thoughts. The main issue was over the label's insistence on owning merchandising rights, a large source of the band's income. Moreover, the band was insulted the label requested they re-record "Don't Hate Me" from Four Minute Mile for their next record, feeling that the label believed it was "the best that [they could] write". Before the deal with Mojo was official, the band met Rich Egan, founder of Los Angeles-based Vagrant Records. He convinced the band to sign to Vagrant instead, offering them $50,000 to record a second album, as well as their own imprint, Heroes & Villains Records.

Something to Write Home About (1999–2001) 

In 1998, James Dewees recorded his first solo album under the pseudonym Reggie and the Full Effect. While Dewees wrote the songs himself, he asked Matt Pryor and Rob Pope to help record some of the instrumentals. The resulting album, Greatest Hits 1984-1987 leaned heavily on the use of synthesizer keyboards for its sound. Their work together on the Reggie and the Full Effect album led Pryor to invite Dewees to collaborate with The Get Up Kids on Red Letter Day, a five-track EP produced by Ed Rose to fulfill their two-record deal with Doghouse. The cleaner, more focused sound of the EP provided the chance to experiment with the inclusion of keyboards and acts as a sonic bridge between the raw sound of Four Minute Mile and the more dynamic, produced style of their next studio album.

After the release of Red Letter Day, Dewees became a full-time member as the band began recording their second studio album in Los Angeles in June 1999 with producer Alex Brahl. Before the album went into production, Vagrant Records co-owner John Cohen borrowed money from his parents, who had mortgaged their house in order to fund the production of the album. On September 21, 1999, the band released Something to Write Home About on Vagrant Records. The album's lyrics reflected the record label strife the band had experienced and their distance between friends and family back home after their move to Los Angeles. Something to Write Home About has been singled out as the band's only 'true' emo album, as the album's aesthetic fit more into the contemporary definition of the genre. Furthermore, the album single-handedly turned the struggling Vagrant label into one of the top indie labels in the country, selling over 140,000 copies after its release. Not only did the album make The Get Up Kids the poster children for emo, but it also launched the genre into a public consciousness broader than the scattered local scenes that had previously embraced it. The album gave Vagrant Records the financial backing to grow and sign a string of other bands. At the same time, the addition of keyboards alienated some fans who thought it moved the band away from the contemporary punk scene's DIY ethic.

The Get Up Kids toured relentlessly for almost three years in promotion of the record. As well as touring Europe, Japan, and Australia, they shared bills with acts such as Green Day, The Anniversary, Hot Rod Circuit, Jebediah, Weezer and Ozma. Their 2000 tour with The Anniversary and Koufax was sponsored by Napster. Their fanbase kept expanding through word of mouth. Venues booked months in advance could no longer hold the demand by the time the band arrived in town and fans were forced to stand outside to see them perform. To capitalize on anticipation for the band's next album, Vagrant Records released a rarities compilation Eudora in 2001. Eudora consisted of alternate takes, covers, and B-sides since the band's formation. Likewise, Doghouse released a re-mastered edition of Four Minute Mile and a compilation entitled The EPs: Woodson and Red Letter Day, combining the two Doghouse-owned EPs on one compact disc.

On a Wire (2002–2003) 
After three years of touring for Something to Write Home About, the band was beginning to feel burned-out, and wished to depart from the upbeat power-pop sound with which they had become associated. 
They also began to broaden their musical horizons, taking much greater influence from classic rock artists like Led Zeppelin. "Our musical tastes were expanding, and our songwriting reflected that. We were discovering older bands that were new to us," said Pryor in 2021. According to Rob Pope, "It was a weird time. We were a bunch of 19, 20, 21 year-old kids...It was this weird formative era where we were challenged by a totally different thing than Thurston Moore and Ian Mackeye. "We were all going through our, like bullshit Beatles phase, and unfortunately we were doing that in public."

Speaking to the change in the band's dynamic and artistry around this time, Pryor believes "[Rob & Ryan Pope's] musicianship and the way [they] were, like, locking together took a much more mature jump from Something to Write Home About to On a Wire, Jim was starting to become more of a lead guitar player, we were thinking about it more. We were conceptualizing it more." The band spent a great deal more time than in the past demoing songs, eventually sending them to their manager Rich Egan, who was skeptical of the new sound. He told them "You guys can make an art record if you want to, but I'm just saying, this is a drastic turn from your previous material."

The band decided to look for a new producer to work with on their third album, wanting to make a more cohesive, "produced" record than their previous material. They put together a list of producers, including Stephen Street & John Leckie. The band formally approached Nigel Godrich  and Gil Norton with offers, although both declined. They approached Jerry Finn, citing his work on the Superdrag album Head Trip in Every Key. Finally, the band settled on Scott Litt, best known for his work with R.E.M., The Replacements and Nirvana. "I remember we were like, 'we want to make the biggest record ever," recalls Rob Pope. "We had it in our heads at that point that we wanted to be on the radio. Scott Litt had a pretty good success rate with that."

Litt came to Lawrence, Kansas to do extensive pre-production on the record, before going to Bridgeport, Connecticut in early February for the recording sessions at Litt's suggestion. The album was recorded at Tarquin Studios, with studio owner and later Grammy Award-winning producer Peter Katis engineering. The band lived in the studio for the duration of the record, recording for four weeks. "It was freezing cold, and I don't think I left a one-block radius very often. It was kind of depressing," said Pope. Pryor had to leave after recording for the birth of his daughter, while Rob & Ryan Pope stayed behind to mix the album with Litt and Katis. The process became increasingly contentious, with Litt clashing with the band members. "There were some very questionable decisions in the mixing process. Engineering and tracking with Scott was hard for us, and then mixing with him was like, 'that's the reverb choice you're making on this snare? Which decade are we in?'"

The band's third studio album, On a Wire was released on May 14, 2002, debuting a more measured, alternative style. Just as Something to Write Home About alienated some fans with its more produced sound, On a Wire was criticized by fans who were disappointed with the album's softer musical direction. Specifically, the reviewer for Alternative Press wrote "Unfortunately, the visceral energy of their early days is lost in their newfound maturity."

While many fans were upset with this sudden change of direction, the album was generally well received by mainstream publications. Entertainment Weekly was highly positive, writing that "This is the group at their best." In his review of the album, Rolling Stone writer Barry Walters wrote "On a Wire quivers with the anxieties that must have arisen as the Get Up Kids left behind what originally made them. Straining vocals, racing tempos and walls of distortion give way to softer singing, spacious guitars and prominent keyboards . . . The Get Up Kids dig deeper into themselves. What they find is often subtle, less visceral but far more tender."

The poor public reception of the album had a larger impact on the band's popularity as a whole. The band embarked on a tour to promote the album in the late spring soon after the album was released, only to find that they had far less support from both their fans and their record label. Using the financial and critical success of Something to Write Home About, Vagrant signed several other headlining emo bands such as Alkaline Trio, Dashboard Confessional, and Saves the Day. The Get Up Kids were no longer the label's top priority, and certainly not after the lukewarm reception of On a Wire. In an interview with Alternative Press, lead singer Matt Pryor considered the dramatic change in style on On a Wire seriously dented the momentum the band had built up since Something to Write Home About, allowing later bands such as Dashboard Confessional to take much of the fan base that The Get Up Kids had previously earned. In an interview, Pryor confessed that he did not think that "anyone, including Vagrant, gave that record a chance". Even though they had avoided the term since its inception, it was at this point the band actively began trying to shed the term "emo", a word that had defined them for years but had come to be associated with more pop-oriented acts. Pryor commented on the album, saying "We really didn't give two shits if anyone liked the record or not, we were really confident that we were going to kill this 'emo' stigma that we had and take the people with open minds with us and leave everyone else in the dust."

In 2021, speaking on their stubbornness, Pryor admitted "I think if anyone told us we were making a bad decision, we would have fired them."

 Guilt Show (2003–2004) 
In 2003 the band began recording their fourth studio album. The album would be the first recorded in Black Lodge Studios in Eudora, Kansas, a studio renovated and owned by the Pope brothers and producer Ed Rose. The writing process for the album was different from their past efforts, as most of the songs were written by only three of the band members. In the early stages of writing, Jim Suptic was on his honeymoon. James Dewees was involved in a difficult divorce, and much of his creative efforts inspired by those events went into the fourth Reggie and the Full Effect album Songs Not to Get Married To. While this led to a less collaborative effort than in the past, it gave the Pope brothers a more substantial role in writing than ever before. In an interview with Alternative Press, Pryor confirmed the song "Never Be Alone" was written by Rob Pope about his 2003 divorce from The Anniversary keyboardist Adrianne Verhoeven.

This fractured approach to the writing process began to strain relationships in the band, at one point leading Suptic to consider quitting the band. Pryor drew lyrical inspiration from the lives of friends and people he knew, extracting stories of abuse, betrayal and guilt. The album's lyrics also delve into incidents of adultery ("Wouldn't Believe It", "How Long Is Too Long") and the album's first single "The One You Want" is said to be about a woman who Pryor says "Sucks the soul out of people".

In March 2004, the band released their fourth studio album Guilt Show, produced by Ed Rose. Sonically, the album combined the more measured, sophisticated sound of On a Wire with the frenetic style of their earlier work. Guilt Show, which was titled after a misreading of a flier saying "Quilt show", was very well received both critically and commercially. The more pop-driven tone of the album reunited the band with many fans who were disenchanted after On a Wire, while also staying close enough to the evolution of the last album to interest newer fans and critics. However, their return was overshadowed by the booming popularity of other contemporary emo bands such as Dashboard Confessional, who invited the band to open for them on the 2004 Honda Civic Tour.

 Breakup and solo activity (2004–2008) 

Over the course of the tour with Dashboard Confessional, relationships between the band members continued to decline. The band's live shows had deteriorated, and Rob and Suptic had both threatened to quit multiple times. Matt Pryor's wife had recently given birth to their first child, and being away from his family had made him irritable and standoffish. After the Honda Civic tour ended, the band embarked on their world tour, including stops throughout Europe, Japan and Australia. However, their live performance hit an all-time low, with Pryor at times refusing to even sing large portions of songs.

At one tour date in England, the tensions came to a head when Ryan Pope confronted Pryor over his recent despondence, leading to a band meeting where Pryor confessed his desire to reduce his commitment to the rest of the group. After some discussion, the band agreed that their hearts were no longer in it and at the end of the tour they would quietly end the band. Once the tour ended, the band went on an unofficial hiatus, not playing as a group until the next January, when they played a show at the Granada Theater in Lawrence, Kansas to celebrate the band's tenth anniversary. The show was recorded and released the following May as the band's first live album, Live! @ The Granada Theater.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2005, The Get Up Kids announced that after ten years, they were disbanding. They embarked on a national farewell tour, ending the band after a sold-out show on July 2, 2005, in their hometown of Kansas City, Missouri at the Uptown Theater.

After the band's split, the Pope brothers took over management of Black Lodge Studios, the recording studio that the band formed with the recording of Guilt Show, alongside longtime producing partner Ed Rose. The brothers joined Koufax for a short stint, before splitting for different projects. Rob was a founding member of Lawrence, Kansas group White Whale, releasing the 2006 album WWI to moderate acclaim before becoming a full-time member of Spoon, while Ryan became the drummer for the Lawrence-based experimental rock band The Roman Numerals.

Matt Pryor continued as part of The New Amsterdams, an acoustic alt-country group he had formed in 2000, expanding its sound and solidifying its previously revolving-door lineup. In 2007 he formed The Terrible Twos, a children's band that has released two albums on Vagrant Records. Regarding the decision to make a children's album directly after the split, Pryor said "I wanted to do it anyway because I have kids and I want to write songs for them, but nobody is going to be like 'this isn't as good as the old stuff.' It's immune to punk criticism." In July 2008, he refocused his efforts on a solo career with the release of Confidence Man, an alt-country release similar in sound to The New Amsterdams. After his second album, May Day, Pryor announced that he would be formally disbanding The New Amsterdams in favor of his solo career, concluding the band's tenure with the release of Outroduction, a B-sides recording.

Jim Suptic went on to form Blackpool Lights with former members of Butterglory and The Creature Comforts. The band released their debut album This Town's Disaster in 2006, consisted largely of songs Suptic wrote for The Get Up Kids but never recorded. The album was released on Curb Appeal Records, an independent label Suptic founded with former Get Up Kids collaborator and local musician Alex Brahl. The label released albums by Smoking Popes and The New Amsterdams, but dissolved sometime in 2008. The exact reasons why were never revealed, but Suptic said only that it "blew up in [his] face." After the closure of the label, Suptic began working at Home Depot to support his family.

After the breakup of The Get Up Kids, James Dewees toured with New Found Glory as their touring keyboardist, having been featured on their 2003 album Catalyst. While he was touring, his ongoing struggles with alcohol and drug abuse worsened. After moving to New York City, he began to attend rehab, a process which would inspire the fifth Reggie and the Full Effect album, Last Stop: Crappy Town. After another brief tour opening for Hellogoodbye in 2006, he joined My Chemical Romance as their full-time touring keyboardist and later becoming a full time member.

 Reunion and new music (2008–present) 
In late August and September 2008, while Dewees was touring with Reggie and the Full Effect, he began making hints that The Get Up Kids would be reuniting to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the band's second album Something to Write Home About. The reunion was finally confirmed by a post on the official music blog of The Kansas City Star, confirming rumors that the band would be playing a surprise reunion show at The Record Bar in Kansas City on November 16, 2008. According to the article, the band had made the decision over the summer and had Dewees intentionally leak the information to gauge fan interest.

The reunion show was officially announced on Friday, November 14, along with the official confirmation of the album re-release and a 2009 national tour. The tenth anniversary edition of the album includes a code to download bonus demo tracks from the original recording of Something To Write Home About from the Vagrant Records website, and a DVD containing a band retrospective and other content, including archive footage, and their live performance from March 13, 2009, at Liberty Hall in Lawrence. The show took place Sunday, November 16, 2008, at the record bar in Kansas City. The band played their album Something To Write Home About from beginning to end, as well as a six-song encore.

In the summer of 2009, they returned to Black Lodge studios to record their first new material in five years, recording twelve tracks intended to be released as three EPs over the course of a year. The band's reunion tour took place in Europe, followed by the US between mid-August and early October. On April 13, 2010, the band released the first EP Simple Science on Flyover Records. Despite their reformation, obligations to other projects limited the amount of time the band could spend together. On their 2010 tour, fun. bassist Nate Harold filled in for Rob Pope, who was already committed to touring with Spoon. In 2011 while James Dewees was on a world tour with My Chemical Romance, New Amsterdams regular Dustin Kinsey filled in on keyboards.

After the release of Simple Science, the band decided to combine the remaining tracks—along with three more newly recorded songs—into a new full-length album, There Are Rules. They also confirmed that the album would not be released on Vagrant Records, who had released their previous three albums, but on their own Quality Hill Records. The album was produced by Ed Rose and mixed by Bob Weston, who produced the band's debut album. There Are Rules was released on January 25, 2011, and was supported by a co-headlining tour with Saves The Day.

In 2017, the band went on tour in Latin America for the first time and played six concerts in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

On March 29, 2018, Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters announced on their Instagram account that they had signed the band and that new music will be coming soon. The band released a thirteen-minute, four song EP entitled Kicker on June 8, 2018. This was followed by Problems on May 10, 2019, the group's first album in eight years. A review of Problems published by Exclaim! said "It sounds just as great as some of their older albums, reminding us why this band are still one of the greatest emo/alternative acts to come out of the '90s."

The Get Up Kids played Slam Dunk Festival in the UK on May 25–26, 2019.

On September 7, 2019, The Get Up Kids posted on their Instagram page that "James Dewees is no longer a member of The Get Up Kids."

 Influence 

The Get Up Kids have had a lasting impact on the music scene, having been cited as inspirations to several prominent bands and artists. Blink-182 bassist and singer Mark Hoppus is a vocal fan, having proposed to his wife to The Get Up Kids song "I'll Catch You." They were also a major influence on the rest of the band, even at their peak popularity around the release of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. The members of Fall Out Boy cite The Get Up Kids' influence, particularly their album Four Minute Mile. In a 2005 interview with Alternative Press, Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz stated that the band had a huge influence on him and the other members of Fall Out Boy. "There should be a How To Be a Pop-Punk Kid starter kit with bands like Get Up Kids, so kids would know whose shoulders bands like us are standing on. Fall Out Boy would not be a band if it were not for The Get Up Kids."

New Jersey based act Midtown has stated in interviews that they were heavily influenced by The Get Up Kids, among other groups. The Early November band members were all fans of, and influenced by, The Get Up Kids. The Early November song "Baby Blue" includes the line "I don't want you to love me anymore", a direct reference to the Get Up Kids song "No Love" both lyrically and melodically. The band Hellogoodbye have been vocal fans of the band and while on tour with Reggie and the Full Effect in 2007, two years after the breakup of The Get Up Kids, Hellogoodbye invited James Dewees and Matt Pryor onstage with them, and proceeded to back them in a cover of The Get Up Kids' song "Action & Action". The Canadian post-hardcore band Silverstein has cited the Get Up Kids as a major influence, and covered their song Coming Clean for a split 7" with August Burns Red in 2013. Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria cited Something to Write Home About as one of the albums that the band listened to and during the recording of their breakout album In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3.

Despite their lasting influence on modern music, the band has attempted to disassociate themselves with many of the bands they inspired. Following the band's reformation, guitarist Jim Suptic undertook an interview with website Drowned in Sound, in which he said, "The punk scene we came out of and the punk scene now are completely different. It's like glam rock now. We played the Bamboozle fests this year and we felt really out of place... If this is the world we helped create, then I apologise." He went on to say they were grateful for the acknowledgements they have received, though explaining "the problem is most of [the bands they inspired] aren't very good."

 Band members 

Current members
 Matt Pryor – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2005; 2008–present)
 Jim Suptic – lead guitar, backing vocals (1995–2005; 2008–present)
 Rob Pope – bass, backing vocals (1995–2005; 2008–present)
 Ryan Pope – drums, percussion (1996–2005; 2008–present)

Current touring members
 Dustin Kinsey – keyboards (2011, 2019–present)

Former members
 Thomas Becker – drums, percussion (1995)
 Nathan Shay – drums, percussion (1996)
 James Dewees – keyboards, backing vocals (1999–2005; 2008–2019)

Former touring members
 Nate Harold – bass (2010)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albumsFour Minute Mile (1997)Something to Write Home About (1999)On a Wire (2002)Guilt Show (2004)There Are Rules (2011)Problems'' (2019)

References

External links 
 

 
Alternative rock groups from Missouri
American emo musical groups
American pop punk groups
Indie rock musical groups from Missouri
Hassle Records artists
Musical groups disestablished in 2005
Musical groups established in 1995
Musical groups from Kansas City, Missouri
Musical groups reestablished in 2008
Polyvinyl Record Co. artists
Vagrant Records artists
Doghouse Records artists
A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1.6 km) in four minutes or less.

Four Minute Mile may also refer to:
 4 Minute Mile, a 2014 American drama film
 Four Minute Mile, a 1997 album by American rock band The Get Up Kids
 The Four Minute Mile, a 1988 Australian miniseries A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1609.34m) in four minutes or less. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister, at age 25, in 3:59.4. As of April 2021, the "four-minute barrier" has been broken by 1,663 athletes, and is now a standard of professional middle distance runners in several cultures. In the 65 years since, the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds, and currently stands at 3:43.13, by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, at age 24, in 1999. Running a mile in four minutes translates to a speed of 15 miles per hour (24 km/h).

Record holders

Breaking the four-minute barrier was first achieved on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track, by British athlete Roger Bannister, with the help of fellow-runners Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher as pacemakers.

Two months later, during the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games hosted in Vancouver, B.C., two competing runners, Australia's John Landy and Bannister, ran the distance of one mile in under four minutes. The race's end is memorialised in a photo, and later a statue, of the two, with Landy looking over his left shoulder, just as Bannister is passing him on the right. Landy thus lost the race. The statue was placed in front of the Pacific National Exhibition entrance plaza.

New Zealand's John Walker, who with a 3:49.4 performance in August 1975 became the first man to run the mile under 3:50, ran 135 sub-four-minute miles during his career (during which he was the first person to run over 100 sub-four-minute miles), and American Steve Scott has run the most sub-four-minute miles, with 136. Algeria's Noureddine Morceli was the first under 3:45. Currently, the mile record is held by Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran a time of 3:43.13 in Rome in 1999.

In 1964, America's Jim Ryun became the first high-school runner to break four minutes for the mile, running 3:59.0 as a junior and a then American record 3:55.3 as a senior in 1965. Tim Danielson (1966) and Marty Liquori (1967) also came in under four minutes, but Ryun's high-school record stood until Alan Webb ran 3:53.43 in 2001. Ten years later, in 2011, Lukas Verzbicas became the fifth high-schooler under four minutes. In 2015, Matthew Maton and Grant Fisher became the sixth and seventh high-schoolers to break four minutes, both running 3:59.38 about a month apart. Webb was the first high schooler to run sub-4 indoors, running 3:59.86 in early 2001. On 6 February 2016, Andrew Hunter significantly improved upon Webb's mark, running 3:58.25 on the same New York Armory track and 3:57.81 two weeks later. Hunter achieved the 4-minute mile mark outdoors later in the season at the Prefontaine Classic. At that same meet Michael Slagowski ran his second sub-4-minute of the season. Reed Brown dipped under the barrier on 1 June 2017, running the 4th fastest high school mile time ever recorded in a race: 3:59.30. In 2020, Leo Daschbach clocked 3:59.54 during the Quarantine Clasico, moving to ninth on the all time list. 

Another illustration of the progression of performance in the men's mile is that, in 1994, forty years after Bannister's breaking of the barrier, the Irish runner Eamonn Coghlan became the first man over the age of 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile. Because Coghlan surpassed the mark indoors and before the IAAF validated indoor performances as being eligible for outdoor records, World Masters Athletics still had not recognised a sub-4-minute-mile performance as a record in the M40 division. Many elite athletes made the attempts to extend their careers beyond age 40 to challenge that mark. Over 18 years after Coghlan, that was finally achieved by UK's Anthony Whiteman, running 3:58.79 on 2 June 2012.

In 1997, Daniel Komen of Kenya ran two miles in less than eight minutes, doubling up on Bannister's accomplishment. He did it again in February 1998, falling just 0.3 seconds behind his previous performance of 7:58.61. He is still the only individual to accomplish the feat.

The youngest runner to ever run a four-minute mile is Norwegian runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who ran 3:58.07 at the Prefontaine Classic in May 2017, when he was 16 years and 250 days old. However, indoor world champion Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia, born August 1st of 1997, ran 4:57.74 in an indoor 2000 m race on February 28, 2014, at age 16 years and 212 days. The run averages to a pace of 3:59.58 per mile for the 1.24-mile race.

Women

No woman has yet run a four-minute mile.

The women's world record is currently at 4:12.33, set by Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco on 12 July 2019. The previous women's world record, 4:12.56 set by Svetlana Masterkova of Russia on 14 August 1996 at Zürich, stood for almost 23 years: Masterkova became the first woman to run the mile in less than 4 minutes and 15 seconds.

Possible other claims 
A number of people have claimed to have beaten the four-minute mile before Bannister.

James Parrott (1770)
Some (notably Olympic medallist Peter Radford) contend the first successful four-minute mile was run by James Parrott on 9 May 1770. He ran the 1-mile, west-to-east, length of Old Street to finish somewhere within the grounds/building of Shoreditch Church. Timing methods at this time were—after the invention of the chronometer by John Harrison—accurate enough to measure the four minutes correctly, and sporting authorities of the time accepted the claim as genuine. Old Street has a  11 foot downward fall, with intermittent gentle undulations. Neal Bascomb notes in The Perfect Mile that "even nineteenth-century historians cast a skeptical eye on the account."

Weller Run (1796) 
On 10 October 1796, The Sporting Magazine reported that a young man called Weller, who was one of three brothers, "undertook for a wager of three guineas to run one mile on the Banbury Road, in four minutes, which he performed two seconds within the time." This is  yet about 5 months' worth of typical rural labourer pay at the time. By the late 1700s, a mile could be routinely measured to within a few inches; watches, thanks to John Harrison, could measure 4 minutes to within 0.0009 sec (i.e. gain or lose 10 seconds a month), and after about 1750 the mass production of highly accurate watches was well underway.

Glenn Cunningham (1920s)
It is also reputed that Glenn Cunningham achieved a four-minute mile in a workout in the 1920s. In addition to being unsubstantiated, a workout run would not count as a record.

In popular culture

In 1955, Putnam & Co. Ltd. published Roger Bannister's account of the events in The First Four Minutes. This was later adapted as "The Four-Minute Mile" by The Reader's Digest Association, Ltd. in 1958.

In the 17 November 1956 Season 2 Episode 26 Whole No. 65 of Science Fiction Theatre entitled "Three Minute Mile", a scientist (Marshall Thompson) attempts to create a super athlete (Martin Milner).

In the 1971 film The Omega Man, protagonist Robert Neville, as played by Charlton Heston, claims to have run a mile in 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

In 1988, the ABC and the BBC co-produced The Four Minute Mile, a miniseries dramatization of the race to the four-minute mile, featuring Richard Huw as Bannister and Nique Needles as John Landy (who was simultaneously pursuing the milestone). It was written by David Williamson and directed by Jim Goddard.

In 2004, Neal Bascomb wrote a book entitled The Perfect Mile about Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee, portraying their individual attempts to break the four-minute mile and the context of the sport of mile racing. A second film version (entitled Four Minutes) was made in 2005, starring Jamie Maclachlan as Bannister.

In June 2011, the watch used to time the original event was donated by Jeffrey Archer to a charity auction for Oxford University Athletics Club; it sold for £97,250.

In July 2016, the BBC broadcast the documentary Bannister: Everest on the Track, The Roger Bannister Story with firsthand interviews from Bannister and various other figures on the first sub-4-minute mile.

See also
 Mile run
 Mile run world record progression
 Dream Mile
 10-second barrier
 The two-hour marathon, a similar barrier that was broken in 2019 by Eliud Kipchoge as part of the Ineos 1:59 Challenge

References

Further reading

External links

 Roger Bannister and the Four-Minute Mile Original reports from The Times
 Forbes magazine declared four-minute mile as "greatest athletic achievement"
 
 
 Official website for documentary – Franz Stampfl: The Man Behind the Miracle Mile – a film about the coach behind Bannister's successful mile record attempt 

Middle-distance running
Sport in Oxford
1954 in athletics (track and field)
History of Oxford