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"EVERYTHING ABOUT this band is like we went back in time to high school," says Kathy Foster, so it's fitting that I'm talking to Hurry Up inside a former classroom at the former Washington High School building. Foster (drums), Westin Glass (guitar), Maggie Vail (bass), and Vail's dog Johnny (dog) are settled around an indoor picnic table at the new offices for CASH Music, where Vail works as executive director.

But there's one big difference between Hurry Up and high school. "There are no rules in this band," says Foster.

The idea for Hurry Up started when Foster and Glass—both members of the Thermals—ran into Vail at a Thermals gig while all three were in New York City in 2010.

"We said we were gonna make a hardcore band," says Glass.

"We were talking about how everyone thinks we're the nice people," says Vail. "So we wanted to bring out our weirder, darker personalities."

The band's first practice was within weeks of that, and proved to be a prolific meeting of the minds, with the trio writing five songs right out of the gate. But as Foster jokingly explains, that was their only prolific period. The next four and a half years would be a very slow-moving process of putting out a record, despite playing numerous live shows in the city.

"It took us a year to get around to recording them, another year before we mixed, another year before we put the vocals on there," says Glass. "Every step of the process has taken like a year. Hence the band name!"

Hurry Up was also the name of a weird candy bar that Foster and Glass came across in Germany. Candy, it is soon revealed, plays a big part in Hurry Up's history.

"We've been a sugar-fueled band from the beginning, so it's appropriate we're named after candy," says Glass. "We eat so much candy when we practice."

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