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Sunday’s performance at Pittsburgh’s Four Chord Music Festival will be the Get Up Kids’ first show in three months, but guitarist Jim Suptic wasn’t worried about getting rusty.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, laughing. “Some of these songs we’ve played literally tens of thousands of times, so I think we’ll be fine.”

Formed in 1995, The Get Up Kids are kicking off their tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Something to Write Home About, considered one of emo’s most important albums. They will play the album in full at Four Chord, where both national and local bands celebrate punk rock and pop punk. This year’s festival, which has moved to Carrie Furnace in Rankin, has A Day To Remember and The Story So Far headlining on Saturday, while The All-American Rejects, Something Corporate and The Get Up Kids will be the main stage acts on Sunday.

Suptic said last week in a phone call from Overland Park, Kansas, that the band will fly in late Saturday night. Despite the late arrival, he plans to catch shows like those of his last year’s tour mates Motion City Soundtrack and The All-American Rejects. Staying focused when their time to perform will not be a problem.

“We’re not that professional,” he said, laughing. “I always listen to bands. It’s fun, you know? You play for about 30 minutes. It’s not like the real thing.”

The festival experience is “a completely different thing” than a normal concert, says Suptic.

“You have to remember that half the audience doesn’t know who you are or isn’t interested, but we just have to have fun,” he said. “It’s like playing in front of 15,000 people instead of 1,500. The attitude is a little different.”

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Normally a festival appearance includes a setlist of their biggest hits, but The Get Up Kids are playing “Something to Write Home About” in its entirety to officially kick off their tour. So what is it about this album that still resonates?

“I think it was just the right album at the right time, if that makes sense,” Suptic said. “There was a lot going on in that scene, a lot of good records coming out at that time. I think Jimmy Eat World’s ‘Clarity’ came out the same year, Promise Ring put out a good record that year. Just bands of our ilk, basically the scene was about to explode.

“I think when you’re young, things stick with you, albums become important.”

However, playing songs written 25 years ago can require a certain amount of mental gymnastics.

“Sometimes you have to focus on it because you’ve played these songs so many times,” he said. “Some of these songs I wrote when I was 19. Ryan (Pope), our drummer, was still in high school. So of course you have to go back to it. Obviously we’ve grown emotionally.”

Suptic added that he and the band have matured “just a little bit” since those days.

“Our emotions are a little more subtle,” he said. “When you’re that young, every breakup is the worst breakup, every argument is the worst argument. The emotions are heightened.”

These emotions form the basis of emo music, which is simply a shortened version of emotional hardcore music. What emo actually means has changed drastically over the years, and Suptic now rejects the label.

“It is what it is. I think the problem with the emo label is that the average person today, if someone says, ‘The Get Up Kids, what do they sound like?’ they think, ‘Oh, that’s an emo band.’ People would think we wear eyeliner and dress all black, almost goth. It’s just changed,” he said. “For us, it was always more indie rock, rock ‘n’ roll, but there was definitely a scene. We came out of the hardcore scene, and the word just evolved.

“So it’s hard when you say it to someone who has nothing to do with it, because when you say it, it has these weird connotations that don’t really fit with us, I guess. But somehow it all ties together, the rock’n’roll spider web.”

The ever-evolving meaning of “emo” today may not paint a true picture of one of the genre’s early pioneers.

“I just think if I’m at a bar drinking a beer and someone sits down next to me, we start talking, like, ‘What do you do?’ ‘Oh, I’m in a band.’ ‘What kind of music do you play?’ I said, ‘Oh, it’s like an emo band.’ I feel like that just gives the wrong interpretation to someone who has no idea who we are or what they think of our band. The average person doesn’t know what The Promise Ring or even Sunny Day Real Estate are. But they know who My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy are, right?”

Suptic does not believe that the early days of the emo scene have overshadowed the current development of the band, which has existed for almost 30 years.

“The good old days are right now,” he said, laughing. “It’s always the good old days; you just realize it when they’re over. And it was what it was. It’s kind of crazy to look back now, at the scene and what, even if it’s a footnote in music history, I guess I’m proud to at least be a footnote.”

When he’s not making music, Suptic is the director of operations for a nonprofit organization, the Steps of Faith Foundation in Kansas City. The group helps amputees who have no or inadequate insurance. Their major annual fundraiser, Thundergong!, is hosted by actor Jason Sudeikis and raised over $900,000 last year. Actor Will Forte is a constant presence, and “Ted Lasso” actress Hannah Waddingham and Sudeikis went viral last year with their duet “Shallow.”

“(The foundation) was kind of co-founded with a buddy of mine, Billy Brimblecom, who was the drummer in my band Blackpool Lights and lost his leg to cancer,” Suptic said. “He’s our CEO and it started as a part-time thing. Now it’s a full-time job. I’m very lucky because I get to tour and work on the road and we don’t normally tour much, so it works out.”