Among many of their hardcore fans, The Alkaline Trio logo ranks above "mom" as the tattoo of choice, and it's easy to see why. Unlike many of their punk rock peers, who pontificate on grand issues, The Trio's lyrics reflect the politics of personal experience: cops, booze, and relationships. Since their near-perfect debut Goddamnit in 1998, they've kept their fan base stoked with constant touring and the release of an album or EP every year. The Trio: guitarist Matt Skiba, bassist Dan Andriano, along with new member Derek Grant on the drums, make pop-punk that doesn't suck. With all this in mind, I sat down to talk to Matt about skateboarding, growing up, and Katie's marriage proposal:
Keith Daniels:
I've got some member questions here. Do you know the suicidegirl Katie?
Matt Skiba: Well... I've been to the site a whole bunch of times... what about her?
KD: Her question is: "Mr. Matt Skiba, will you marry me?"
MS: I can't really say no, but maybe we should meet first.
KD: And also she asks: "Is it better to have loved and lost, or never loved at all?"
MS: I would say that it's probably better to have loved and lost. Never loving at all, that could get kindof boring. Even if it makes you wish that you hadn't met that person before, it's probably more interesting than not. It's probably better to have loved than not.
KD: A lot of the band's lyrics are about personal politics, instead of say, world issues. Is that just the way they turn out, or a conscious decision?
MS: It's just the way it turned out, really. We just write what comes naturally to us, and I don't know how comfortable we would be trying to teach anybody any world lessons, or any lessons for that matter. We just write what we know.
KD: Another member question: "Why does your music make me want to drink insane amounts of liquor and shoot myself in the face, in a good way?"
MS: [laughs] In a good way. I don't know, I guess some of the songs have a "drink a lot of liquor and shoot yourself in the face" kindof theme, but hopefully nobody does that. In a good way, I hope that means he'll never actually do that. I'm not sure why we give someone that feeling, but if it's in a good way I guess that's a good thing.
KD: Now a lot of your songs reference drugs and alcohol. Is that something that you guys have had any problems with?
MS: Yeah, I don't know how much it's been so much of a problem. It's just something that I think we've all grown up with. Just growing up, and even now we like a drink now and again. It's definitely been a pretty big part of our lives as far as, y'know, the growing up process. We've all done our share of partying. So naturally, it'll influence things I think.
KD: You're what, 27 now?
MS: Yeah.
KD: Do you find that, getting older, you slow down a little bit as far as the partying goes?
MS: Absolutely. I mean... I think I'm doing alright. I definitely, the older I get, can't go the way that I used to. That's for sure. My body can't handle a lot of things liked it used to be able to, like falling on my skateboard hurts a lot more than it used to. So naturally, drinking too much hurts a lot more than it used to.
KD: How good of a skateboarder are you?
MS: I wouldn't say that I'm very good. I've been doing it for a long time. I just do it for fun. I wouldn't enter any competition; I'd probably lose.
KD: How old were you when you started skating?
MS: I was like 10, or 11, I think.
KD: Do you follow professional skating at all? Are you a big fan?
MS: Yeah. One of my best friends, my neighbor Wally, is the first one to have whatever new video comes out. Magazines, like Thrash, if I'm at the airport or something I'll buy it. I don't follow it as closely as, say, my buddy Wally does, but I stay current through him I guess.
KD: Your last album, From Here To Infirmary, was more, I dunno, "produced". Is that something that you would've done at an earlier point if you'd just had enough money?
MS: I think it just came through experience. We had more time and more money to work on the last record. It just sounded a bit better, but we didn't intentionally make a more produced record. We didn't ever intentionally make a more unproduced record. I think it was just kindof the natural progression of things. Hopefully it was seen or heard as an improvement.
KD: Several bands that you've toured with have achieved massive popularity. Do you think a band can still be punk while they're selling a million records?
MS: I guess everybody has their own definition of what punk is. To me it's representative of individuality, and being your own God and making your own decisions. I think that somebody could still do that and sell a million records. I dunno, what's punk to somebody might be the most un-punk thing in the world to somebody else. It's hard to generalize, but punk to me is more in your heart than in your hairstyle, or how many records you sell.
KD: It's a philosophy.
MS: Yeah, it's a philosophy, not a fashion statement. That means, in my opinion, no matter how many records you sell you can still be punk.
KD: The Ramones have sold a shitload of records.
MS: Exactly.
KD: There were a lot of fans that were very possessive of you when you switched labels. Does that purist segment of the audience frustrate you at all?
MS: Not necessarily. I think, if anything, if somebody cares about us it's really flattering. Whether or not they agree with what we do isn't really frustrating to me. I think we run our band the way that we see fit, and we make our decisions for a reason. We think everything through really thoroughly. So someone that doesn't agree with what we decide to do as a band doesn't really bother me. This is our decision and our band. It's there for other people to share, but not to make the decisions for.
KD: From everything I've read, it seems like you made the move for your fans, to help them find the records.
MS: You can't make everybody happy. When we were on Asian Man a lot of people were saying "Oh this sucks, we can't find the records anywhere. We have to order 'em or go searching for 'em." and I think a lot of the same people were calling us "sellouts" when we went to a bigger, more available, place where our records would be more available. I mean, we make our decisions with our fans in mind and we want to keep everybody happy, but it's just impossible. We basically have to make ourselves happy, and hopefully everyone will understand. If they don't, too bad.
KD: You've always been fairly prolific in your releases: an album or a seven-inch every year. How many songs would you say you've written in your life?
MS: I wouldn't say hundreds, I'd say somewhere around a hundred would be a good estimate.
KD: How long does it usually take you to write a song?
MS: Well, me or Dan will come up with an idea. On this record, our newest record, Derek, our drummer, and I, collaborated on some ideas. Usually an idea for a song, like a verse and a chorus, will come out pretty quickly, in less than a day. As far as working with it with the band, sometimes it'll take weeks, months. We've had songs that we've had for months that we recorded on this new record that we've changed like five times. So, it's not really that cut and dry. It varies.
KD: The new record is called Good Mourning. Was that title just a play on words, or was there a significance to it?
MS: Yeah, it's a play on words, but it's also a title that makes sense with the theme of a lot of the songs on the record. There's an undertone of death. The artwork and everything also kindof goes together. So, y'know, it's a play on words, but we didn't decide on that title just because of that. I think it follows the theme of the record.
KD: There's a lot of death going on in the world right now.
MS: There sure is.
KD: What do you think of the war in Iraq? Is it something that troubled you?
MS: I think anything that's out of your hands and that out of control is something that would be troublesome to anyone. What's going on with the Bush administration... they're like Nazis. They will not listen to reason. They won't listen to anyone. They've decided what they think is right and they're gonna do it. Y'know, they're talking about locating Saddam Hussein, and when they recently started this "campaign" they were talking about bring [him] down. Now they don't even care if he's dead or alive. They're just blowing things up and killing people for the benefit of the Bush family and the oil industry. It's fucking terrible. Obviously, the voting process is now out of our hands as well as the current situation.
KD: I've heard the oil argument myself, but I was thinking that if they were just doing it for the oil it would've been a lot cheaper to make a deal with Saddam.
MS: Well his father also has a lot of money wrapped up in war companies. They're manufacturing all these weapons they're using, and obviously, Bush isn't buying them for himself. They have to buy 'em off his father's companies to make this war happen. So, y'know, for them it's like win/win. I think it's just some old bad blood that his daddy's still mad about. I guess for the same reason that we don't write political songs, I can't go into this huge thing like I know what I'm talking about, because I only know what I hear. How much of that is true? I don't really know. You never really know what's going on with these people. I don't find it that acceptable that he's looking out for the benefit of the Iraqi people. I don't think that's entirely true, if at all. What can you say about it? It's disgraceful.
KD: Have you had any problems touring outside the United States recently?
MS: We haven't really been on the road for the past few months. We haven't been traveling around here, or abroad, so no. I don't think this has anything to do with what's going on now, but after September 11th there was definitely a pause in plans. We had overseas stuff booked, and some of it we went. Other bands were canceling left and right, so tours that we were a part of got cancelled. If we had shows booked now we would go do 'em.
KD: Getting off of politics, who among your genre do you think should get more attention than they're getting? Who's the most under-rated?
MS: I dunno, I think there are a lot of bands that have gotten really popular. There are a lot of bands that aren't popular, compared to Blink 182 or Green Day. I guess we wouldn't fit in to that category. Most of the bands that I know of and dig are pretty appreciated by the people that know about 'em and I don't know how much they would want to be rated any higher, or become any more popular than they are. So I don't really have an answer to that question.
KD: You don't want to wish that on somebody that...
MS: ...maybe doesn't want it. [laughs]
KD: You said you've been to the suicidegirls site several times. How did you hear about it?
MS: Just from friends. My computer geek friends. I remember when the site first came about he was talking about it, so I checked it out for my own curiosity. I'm a regular visitor.
KD: You know I sent your manager a free membership for you guys to the site?
MS: No I didn't know about that!
KD: He probably tried to steal it! [laughs]
MS: He probably did! [laughs] I'm gonna call him afterwards "I want my membership."
KD: What is it that you like about alternative porn, and suicidegirls in particular?
MS: The women on that site are the kind of women that I find attractive. So I guess, it's just definitely easy on the eyes. Beyond that, it's just interesting to hear about people that are into, for lack of a better term, "alternative" culture and alternative lifestyles, and that have similar interests as myself as far as music and whatever they do with their friends. Different fetishes and whatever people have, it's just interesting and exciting to read about.
KD: Well when you get on there, the girl that wanted you to marry her is Katie. She used to be called Chloe.
MS: Oh I know who you're talking about it. I'll get back to her about the marriage thing.
The Alkaline Trio's new record, Good Mourning, drops on May 13th. For more information on The Alkaline Trio, visit alkalinetrio.com
Keith Daniels:
I've got some member questions here. Do you know the suicidegirl Katie?
Matt Skiba: Well... I've been to the site a whole bunch of times... what about her?
KD: Her question is: "Mr. Matt Skiba, will you marry me?"
MS: I can't really say no, but maybe we should meet first.
KD: And also she asks: "Is it better to have loved and lost, or never loved at all?"
MS: I would say that it's probably better to have loved and lost. Never loving at all, that could get kindof boring. Even if it makes you wish that you hadn't met that person before, it's probably more interesting than not. It's probably better to have loved than not.
KD: A lot of the band's lyrics are about personal politics, instead of say, world issues. Is that just the way they turn out, or a conscious decision?
MS: It's just the way it turned out, really. We just write what comes naturally to us, and I don't know how comfortable we would be trying to teach anybody any world lessons, or any lessons for that matter. We just write what we know.
KD: Another member question: "Why does your music make me want to drink insane amounts of liquor and shoot myself in the face, in a good way?"
MS: [laughs] In a good way. I don't know, I guess some of the songs have a "drink a lot of liquor and shoot yourself in the face" kindof theme, but hopefully nobody does that. In a good way, I hope that means he'll never actually do that. I'm not sure why we give someone that feeling, but if it's in a good way I guess that's a good thing.
KD: Now a lot of your songs reference drugs and alcohol. Is that something that you guys have had any problems with?
MS: Yeah, I don't know how much it's been so much of a problem. It's just something that I think we've all grown up with. Just growing up, and even now we like a drink now and again. It's definitely been a pretty big part of our lives as far as, y'know, the growing up process. We've all done our share of partying. So naturally, it'll influence things I think.
KD: You're what, 27 now?
MS: Yeah.
KD: Do you find that, getting older, you slow down a little bit as far as the partying goes?
MS: Absolutely. I mean... I think I'm doing alright. I definitely, the older I get, can't go the way that I used to. That's for sure. My body can't handle a lot of things liked it used to be able to, like falling on my skateboard hurts a lot more than it used to. So naturally, drinking too much hurts a lot more than it used to.
KD: How good of a skateboarder are you?
MS: I wouldn't say that I'm very good. I've been doing it for a long time. I just do it for fun. I wouldn't enter any competition; I'd probably lose.
KD: How old were you when you started skating?
MS: I was like 10, or 11, I think.
KD: Do you follow professional skating at all? Are you a big fan?
MS: Yeah. One of my best friends, my neighbor Wally, is the first one to have whatever new video comes out. Magazines, like Thrash, if I'm at the airport or something I'll buy it. I don't follow it as closely as, say, my buddy Wally does, but I stay current through him I guess.
KD: Your last album, From Here To Infirmary, was more, I dunno, "produced". Is that something that you would've done at an earlier point if you'd just had enough money?
MS: I think it just came through experience. We had more time and more money to work on the last record. It just sounded a bit better, but we didn't intentionally make a more produced record. We didn't ever intentionally make a more unproduced record. I think it was just kindof the natural progression of things. Hopefully it was seen or heard as an improvement.
KD: Several bands that you've toured with have achieved massive popularity. Do you think a band can still be punk while they're selling a million records?
MS: I guess everybody has their own definition of what punk is. To me it's representative of individuality, and being your own God and making your own decisions. I think that somebody could still do that and sell a million records. I dunno, what's punk to somebody might be the most un-punk thing in the world to somebody else. It's hard to generalize, but punk to me is more in your heart than in your hairstyle, or how many records you sell.
KD: It's a philosophy.
MS: Yeah, it's a philosophy, not a fashion statement. That means, in my opinion, no matter how many records you sell you can still be punk.
KD: The Ramones have sold a shitload of records.
MS: Exactly.
KD: There were a lot of fans that were very possessive of you when you switched labels. Does that purist segment of the audience frustrate you at all?
MS: Not necessarily. I think, if anything, if somebody cares about us it's really flattering. Whether or not they agree with what we do isn't really frustrating to me. I think we run our band the way that we see fit, and we make our decisions for a reason. We think everything through really thoroughly. So someone that doesn't agree with what we decide to do as a band doesn't really bother me. This is our decision and our band. It's there for other people to share, but not to make the decisions for.
KD: From everything I've read, it seems like you made the move for your fans, to help them find the records.
MS: You can't make everybody happy. When we were on Asian Man a lot of people were saying "Oh this sucks, we can't find the records anywhere. We have to order 'em or go searching for 'em." and I think a lot of the same people were calling us "sellouts" when we went to a bigger, more available, place where our records would be more available. I mean, we make our decisions with our fans in mind and we want to keep everybody happy, but it's just impossible. We basically have to make ourselves happy, and hopefully everyone will understand. If they don't, too bad.
KD: You've always been fairly prolific in your releases: an album or a seven-inch every year. How many songs would you say you've written in your life?
MS: I wouldn't say hundreds, I'd say somewhere around a hundred would be a good estimate.
KD: How long does it usually take you to write a song?
MS: Well, me or Dan will come up with an idea. On this record, our newest record, Derek, our drummer, and I, collaborated on some ideas. Usually an idea for a song, like a verse and a chorus, will come out pretty quickly, in less than a day. As far as working with it with the band, sometimes it'll take weeks, months. We've had songs that we've had for months that we recorded on this new record that we've changed like five times. So, it's not really that cut and dry. It varies.
KD: The new record is called Good Mourning. Was that title just a play on words, or was there a significance to it?
MS: Yeah, it's a play on words, but it's also a title that makes sense with the theme of a lot of the songs on the record. There's an undertone of death. The artwork and everything also kindof goes together. So, y'know, it's a play on words, but we didn't decide on that title just because of that. I think it follows the theme of the record.
KD: There's a lot of death going on in the world right now.
MS: There sure is.
KD: What do you think of the war in Iraq? Is it something that troubled you?
MS: I think anything that's out of your hands and that out of control is something that would be troublesome to anyone. What's going on with the Bush administration... they're like Nazis. They will not listen to reason. They won't listen to anyone. They've decided what they think is right and they're gonna do it. Y'know, they're talking about locating Saddam Hussein, and when they recently started this "campaign" they were talking about bring [him] down. Now they don't even care if he's dead or alive. They're just blowing things up and killing people for the benefit of the Bush family and the oil industry. It's fucking terrible. Obviously, the voting process is now out of our hands as well as the current situation.
KD: I've heard the oil argument myself, but I was thinking that if they were just doing it for the oil it would've been a lot cheaper to make a deal with Saddam.
MS: Well his father also has a lot of money wrapped up in war companies. They're manufacturing all these weapons they're using, and obviously, Bush isn't buying them for himself. They have to buy 'em off his father's companies to make this war happen. So, y'know, for them it's like win/win. I think it's just some old bad blood that his daddy's still mad about. I guess for the same reason that we don't write political songs, I can't go into this huge thing like I know what I'm talking about, because I only know what I hear. How much of that is true? I don't really know. You never really know what's going on with these people. I don't find it that acceptable that he's looking out for the benefit of the Iraqi people. I don't think that's entirely true, if at all. What can you say about it? It's disgraceful.
KD: Have you had any problems touring outside the United States recently?
MS: We haven't really been on the road for the past few months. We haven't been traveling around here, or abroad, so no. I don't think this has anything to do with what's going on now, but after September 11th there was definitely a pause in plans. We had overseas stuff booked, and some of it we went. Other bands were canceling left and right, so tours that we were a part of got cancelled. If we had shows booked now we would go do 'em.
KD: Getting off of politics, who among your genre do you think should get more attention than they're getting? Who's the most under-rated?
MS: I dunno, I think there are a lot of bands that have gotten really popular. There are a lot of bands that aren't popular, compared to Blink 182 or Green Day. I guess we wouldn't fit in to that category. Most of the bands that I know of and dig are pretty appreciated by the people that know about 'em and I don't know how much they would want to be rated any higher, or become any more popular than they are. So I don't really have an answer to that question.
KD: You don't want to wish that on somebody that...
MS: ...maybe doesn't want it. [laughs]
KD: You said you've been to the suicidegirls site several times. How did you hear about it?
MS: Just from friends. My computer geek friends. I remember when the site first came about he was talking about it, so I checked it out for my own curiosity. I'm a regular visitor.
KD: You know I sent your manager a free membership for you guys to the site?
MS: No I didn't know about that!
KD: He probably tried to steal it! [laughs]
MS: He probably did! [laughs] I'm gonna call him afterwards "I want my membership."
KD: What is it that you like about alternative porn, and suicidegirls in particular?
MS: The women on that site are the kind of women that I find attractive. So I guess, it's just definitely easy on the eyes. Beyond that, it's just interesting to hear about people that are into, for lack of a better term, "alternative" culture and alternative lifestyles, and that have similar interests as myself as far as music and whatever they do with their friends. Different fetishes and whatever people have, it's just interesting and exciting to read about.
KD: Well when you get on there, the girl that wanted you to marry her is Katie. She used to be called Chloe.
MS: Oh I know who you're talking about it. I'll get back to her about the marriage thing.
The Alkaline Trio's new record, Good Mourning, drops on May 13th. For more information on The Alkaline Trio, visit alkalinetrio.com
VIEW 25 of 34 COMMENTS
afipunk84:
Me too! They are in my top 5 all time fav list for sure. I love the imagery and metaphors they use in their writting. And i also love their voices. Cant wait til they're in LA in a few weeks!
myfriendphillip:
late to the party, but just wanted to say the alkaline logo was my first tattoo