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.

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