Alkaline Trio - Derek Grant:

It’s been fun. We’re not used to opening for bands. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve done that so that takes a lot of the pressure off and we get done early early. It’s been a good time.

I’m a horror aficionado and I had heard that the series was going to happen, but I didn’t realize they were trying to find rock bands or whatever for the soundtrack. It was just a coincidence that their people contacted our people and we were more than happy to do it.

I was told that it was going to be in the episode directed by Tobe Hooper [Dance of the Dead]. We were in the dark about the whole project. Some friends of ours in Death By Stereo had a little bit more information about the episode that they were going to be a part of because they wrote a song that was tailored to the storyline. But they apparently requested one song in particular from us, called We Can Never Break Up, that they thought would be suitable for the episode.

Danny wrote it so it’s hard for me to speculate. It comes off as a song about your typical relationship or whatever but I think it also pertains to relationships that bands have. It’s a fairly positive forward-thinking song so it can apply to a bunch of different situations. I’d like to think it has a little bit to do with the three of us as individuals and how we relate to each other and also how we relate to our significant others and whatnot.

Absolutely. I’ve been obsessed with horror movies ever since I worked in a stockroom at a lingerie store. It was my first job ever. It was in Michigan and it happened to be owned by Sam Raimi’s parents. Sam would come in maybe once a year and say hello. That was the first time that I had met anybody from Michigan that had made it out and actually did something with their lives. That was very encouraging to me as a musician. I felt like there was some hope because I had a pretty small scope at that time. I was just looking forward to playing a show in Ohio or something. Meeting the three Raimi brothers Sam, Ted and Ivan was definitely the seed. Then I went out and rented the Evil Dead movies and really caught the bug.

I was I guess 13 or 14.

It was through family members that I ended up as part time help to make a little bit of money and learn some responsibility. Obviously putting a 13 year old boy in a lingerie store is a bizarre setting but it was great. There were a lot of transvestites that would come in there and that was very eye opening experience for me. Now I’m a transvestite [laughs]. No.

I wear makeup and I’m not afraid to wear women’s clothes so I guess that definitely had an impact on me.

We were in New York when he was filming the first Spider-Man and somebody was trying to prod me to go over there and say hello. I actually ran into his brother Ted at a restaurant in Hollywood. I hadn’t seen him in at least ten years and he remembered me. I sat down, had dinner with him and we did some catching up.

Also Bruce Campbell would come into the store on occasion and I’ve seen him quite a few times since then.

Absolutely. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a hugely influential film for us. It was violent, real gritty and dirty. I think it changed the face of cinema so being a part of his episode is a huge honor. The list of directors working on Masters of Horror is pretty amazing in general. Dario Argento is one of my personal favorites and so is Takashi Miike. It’s great that people are signing on for this thing because there’s been a pretty strong resurgence in the genre. A lot of those directors made the films that put them on the map in the ‘70s and ‘80s and didn’t really gain much respect from the movie industry. It’s great they’re getting some sort of recognition now. I was extremely happy when George Romero got to make his fourth Dead film.

I thought it was great. It had all the elements that I love of Romero films. It had sociopolitical commentary, plenty of blood, guts and Asia Argento.

Definitely. On our last album there are two songs that were inspired by true crime such as the one about the Manson family and the West Memphis Three. That was pretty fun for Matt who wrote both of those songs. I think he would have a good time trying to wrap that around something fictional.

It’s something we wanted to do right off the bat but due to politics and with the finances of the whole situation it just wasn’t possible at the time. We’re very grateful that we’re able to do this far down the line. I’m a huge fan of tracking down my favorite band’s demos, outtakes and anything I can get my hands on. We really wanted to show people what went into making this album and I feel that the demos for the album were really good. I think a lot of people are under the impression that Jerry Finn, who produced the album, took everything and tried to manipulate it to make it a more commercial product. But the songs were pretty much complete by the time we got into the studio. I think it’ll be interesting for people to see what existed before we went to the studio.

Right now I’ve got too many DVDs. It’s my biggest problem on tour. Right now we have Land of the Dead, the director’s cut of Saw, Todd Solondz's last film Palindromes, the original Psycho and the DVD sets of Arrested Development.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck