Matt Skiba: Alkaline Trio

I’m doing well.

I am watching [the 2009 Lars Von Trier film] Antichrist, drinking a Perrier and anxiously awaiting a phone call.

Yes! Your call.

No! Of course not!

Yeah, I’m in Los Angeles.

Actually it’s closer to seven. I was up in the [San Francisco] bay area for a few years but I’ve been down in Los Angeles for almost seven years now, I think.

Not bad! I never thought I’d say I live in L.A., but I really dig it now.

Not only because it gets a bad rap. I’ve stayed here a lot, I’d come down here and record and work. I didn’t know very many people and that’s one thing that’s key to L.A. I’m a bit of a loner anyway, but after awhile you want to go and have some fun and don’t really know where to go or who to go with. But in living down here I’ve made a small handful of really good friends and I’ve had friends move out here from San Francisco and Chicago, so it’s home now. And the weather’s always nice, there are oceans, there are mountains. There’s everything. And a lot of my work is in Los Angeles so that makes it a lot easier.

Yes.

In Malibu. All over the place. Wherever there are waves I go.

Yes.

It was an organic thing. We funded the recording ourselves. We’ve always had complete creative control, but there are times when, especially with a major label, things have to be OK’d. We never had to fight with anyone over it, but there is still that outside influence. It’s been a long time since we’ve done exactly what we wanted to do without radio in mind and without anything, quote unquote, working. When we were on tour we started to play a lot of the old stuff and some of the old ideas inspired some new ideas. So it just sort of happened. There was never a finite moment where we decided we’re going to make [Alkaline Trio’s first studio album] Goddamnit part two. There was just a time when we slowly started to realize that we were making a punk rock record which I don’t think we had done in a little while. It was really fun. We went back and recorded with the guy that did the first three records. It definitely brought us back to our roots.

It’s good [laughs]. I mean, we’ve never gotten ourselves into a position that we didn’t want to be in. There have been times, bumps in the road, but nothing major to speak of. We’ve been very fortunate. We did a lot of label-jumping. Right when we started with labels is when the industry took a nosedive and things started changing really fast. And so we just had to go with it and not really worry about it, and just keep growing up. We’ve never really had too much stress related to outside opinions or anything we’ve always been allowed to make our own decisions and we’ve always been supported in those decisions. Whether that is creatively or business-wise. But it is a good feeling to have something that is ours and have it be a partnership with people that we’re so fond of. Being with Epitaph is perfect for us. And having our imprint, we’ll see what happens with that, but it is a new chapter. So it’s not a relief or anything. It’s just something exciting and new. When we were writing we had no label ideas in mind. We just knew that we were going to try and put it out ourselves.

It is. We presented Epitaph with the finished product. And that’s what sealed the deal.

Usually I’m reading a bunch of different things. There was a book I highly recommend called Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA [by Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara]. There are people who will argue that Dark Mission is a fictional book. But it is a non-fiction book. It was written by two scientists who were with the NASA organization for over 40 years. They exposed some pretty sobering evidence about the mysteries of the universe. For me, I find that pretty exciting. The mysteries of the universe, I don’t think they’ll remain mysteries forever. But I think that there are a lot of things, if people knew, would be terrified. Myself, I find it exhilarating. The New York Times called it, I think, ‘one of the most dangerous books ever written.’ It’s pretty profound.

Yeah. I was reading Dark Mission and that led to me reading a lot about secret Nazi technology that NASA ended up using. There were Nazi scientists that were pardoned and cleared of their war crimes, brought over here to build rockets for NASA, which was originally a weapons program. I’m going off on a tangent, but there’s nothing about space men or mystery machines in this book. There is just actual proof. I’ll let people find it out for themselves because if I were to just say it they’d be like, ‘no way—that’s not true.’ But it is. So yeah, Dark Mission, that was my main read, from the Feral House publishing company, who also put out the SuicideGirls book!

When you have mathematical measurements and they’re broken down into laymen’s terms you’re like, ‘wow.’ I was interested in reading this stuff at first because I was skeptical. But I love it. I’ve read the book like three times to try and wrap my head around the concepts. I’m entirely convinced.

No way, this stuff is easy. People that have a lot of faith in religion…well, if religion is really making you happy then don’t read this book. I’ll put it that way [laughs].  

Religion has a lot to do with family and upbringing and I respect people with different faiths. My grandmother was Catholic. And she really believed it and I was very close with her and I respect people’s beliefs. I have friends who consider themselves Christians. I think it’s all a universal language all based on the same concepts. It all means the same thing. Science and religion can be synonymous if people are open-minded.

Yeah. It’s about fact. My religion is the truth. Without the questions and the mysteries that we have life would be boring.

I haven’t been. I’ve been moving. I just moved into a new house a few weeks ago so I’m waiting to get everything set up. We’ve been really busy with band stuff so I haven’t had the time to paint. But it’s definitely something I love to do when I have the time. And I’ll continue to do more of it.

It’s a replica of a postcard that Kurt wrote to a friend of mine and she kept it. He wrote it to her and it’s exactly what it looked like. The stamp is Buffalo Bill, everything on there is the same. I just projected the actual postcard onto the canvas and traced the handwriting so it’s exactly what the postcard looked like. That’s how he actually spelled his name, with the ‘d.’ You know, whenever Kurt Cobain would sign autographs he would ask people what their name was and he would just write down their name. He was a pretty funny, groovy guy and I have friends who were pretty good friends with. They were all, you know, doing a lot of drugs together, but they spent a lot of good years with him and have a lot of his personal belongings. I thought that postcard was pretty amazing.

I never met him, no. I did see Nirvana live though. I liked Nirvana when [their first album, 1989’s] Bleach came out and I was super excited when [1991’s] Nevermind came out, which is a great record. I felt like one of my favorite bands was taking over the world. There were people who were bummed, of course, but for me it’s great when great bands get big. You know? The world needs good music. And Nirvana stayed totally true to themselves. They kept cranking out great music.

In Utero is my favorite Nirvana record. I love it. Steve Albini, man!

[Drummer] Derek [Grant] lives in Chicago again but he was living in Indiana for Awhile. [Bassist and vocalist] Dan [Andriano] lives down in Florida with his wife and daughter.

Well we were on tour most of the time we were writing this record so we actually were together the whole time during the writing process. We wrote the record intentionally while we were on the road. I would write a song one night and then the next day at sound check we would run through it. It came together pretty quickly, we were all on the same page. They are fun songs to play and they were fun songs to write. But this was different. In the last couple of years, we did a lot of it digitally. I could send you an MP3 in the next minute.

Yeah, I was pretty angst-y and heartbroken when I wrote all of those songs. And I think that has a lot to do with the tone of the record because I hadn’t been in that sort of mind frame for a while. I think a lot of people feel angry and heartbroken about whatever it is they might be going through—politics, relationships, friendships, a cat dying—whatever the case may be. And I had some things go on in my life that just brought me back to that very drunk, very angry and sad young man that I was ten years ago. I never went completely off the deep end but I had some dark times and therefore there is some darkness. Not spooky dark, just sad and angry shit.

Taking drugs you usually feel pretty good! Not to be pro-drug guy or anything but I will say I’m not anti-drug. I don’t do anything and everything, I pick my poison, but I also think that you need to moderate and you also need to handle your shit. I’m a kid 99% of the time, but there are also times, like now, where you gotta man up and have it together. I think even when you’re partying you should have it together. Losing someone, having someone die on you, having someone leave you, is a terrible process. I had a good friend of mine pass away, just as my marriage started to fall apart. Death and divorce are very similar feelings. One almost worse because it’s out of your control. One almost as worse because it is in your control. It depends on the person. You can’t compare grief. But whenever I’m confronted with some opposing force I always try and use it to my advantage. I never let it bring me down too deep.

I’m good. I’m good now!

Nice, I’m a fan, she’s a sexy lady!

I think drinking beer in the movies by yourself a lot is good. I think doing fun, spontaneous things is good. Rather than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself take your new freedom and run with it. Go explore. Have fun. It’s hard to get out of bed sometimes, but you have to understand that there’s going to be a light at the end of the tunnel and rather than walking towards it you should start running towards. Enjoy your life while you have it. So alcohol at the movies, solo, is a good one. That worked good for me. I was there a lot. Beer bottles clanking and stuff. I have a couple of really good friends that were there for me when I was having a rough time. I was on tour and my band mates were always there to yank me out of my bunk and force me to gallivant with them. We were all going through weird things at a certain time and we were all there for each other. You just gotta find yourself again, on your own. I love spending time by myself. I never yell at myself, I never get mad at myself if I’m late. Well, if I miss the previews I might be a little pissed [laughs] but if you can learn to love being solo again, that’s the key. And I think moving on as quickly as you can is good, but definitely not jumping into something else real quick. Have fun and hang out with people but also hang out with yourself. With beer. At the movies.  

No! I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m going to do more of everything. If something’s affecting me negatively I just stop then and there. I don’t wait for the New Year to stop. But 2010 is going to be a good one. It’s going to be a party.

Thanks, love!
Alkaline Trio’s seventh studio album, This Addiction comes out February 23rd on Epitaph Records/Heart & Skull. A full U.S. tour with indie rockers Cursive begins on February 16th. Check Alkaline Trio’s official MySpace for dates.