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[LOW-FI] [HI-FI] Interview done on 9-9-01 with Matt Skiba on his acoustic stretch of the Plea For Peace Tour.



2:08 min

[LOW-FI] [HI-FI]

How long have you been doing Alkaline Trio?

Since 1996.

Did you do anything before that?

Yea I went to grade school, middle school, high school. I played in punk bands through grade school and high school. I played in a band called the Traders, I played in a band called Jerkwater with a bunch of high school friends of mine, I just played punk music with my friends.

Did you always play guitar?

No, I always played drums. I started playing guitar when we started Alkaline Trio.

What made you want to switch from drums to guitar?

I was just writing a lot of songs and I wanted to sing the songs I was writing. Some of the bands that I was in prior I was writing music for other people to sing and I was just playing drums and I just felt like it was probably a more accurate approach if I sang the things that I wrote, if I expressed myself for lack of a better term. So I felt like it was kind of time that I learned how to play guitar and sang my own tunes.

What was your childhood dream?

To be in a rock band.

So you fulfilled it?

I have, yea. When I was a kid I just... traveling and I loved rock and roll when I was growing up, my parents loved rock and roll music and they turned me on to a lot of shit. At a young age I remember thinking I wanted to be in a rock band but I didn't want to have to travel all the time and then the older I got and the more I loved to travel I realized that it was like the perfect job for me like expressing myself and being able to travel and meeting really nice people and whatever or really awful people or whatever the travelling brings is exciting to me. This is kind of what I've always wanted to do.





3:10 min

[LOW-FI] [HI-FI]

What made you chose to do an acoustic set?

Uh the fact that the band couldn't do the rest of the tour. Like we had our drummer problems when we agreed to do the tour we didn't have a drummer, our friend Pete was filling in for us, he plays in Face To Face, and he could only do two weeks of the tour so that's what we commited to. I had told Mike Park who set up this tour that we were going to be on all of it so I felt that just between me and him I would keep my word and do the rest of the tour. I was really nervous to do it, I had never done it before, but now that I am doing it I am happy that I kind of forced myself to do it, and I am enjoying it. It is different, I get like nervous again before I play. I always get like amped to play but with the band I feel more like energized to play. With this I'm more like almost scared to play and it's a cool feeling that I haven't had in a while.

What's the reaction been like?

Um this is the third night so I don't know, I don't really have much to take it from but it's been awesome, people have been really nice. Tonight people were really nice. We had the speaker talking about losing her sister and like to me it was really semi-apalling to hear all these people talking while she was trying to talk. And it took her a lot of courage to get on the stage, she has never talked in front of people before, not like regularly so she was nervous and did a really good job and people were talking over her and stuff and I felt really good getting up after her and supporting her and I felt like she was supporting me like we talked earlier and every show that we play I meet the people that are doing the hopeline and god bless them like I've lost friends to suicide, a lot of people here have lost friends to suicide, a lot of people haven't and think it's a fuckin joke and like I feel sorry for them. Last night everybody in the room in Gainesville was attentive, a young guy got up and spoke about the hopeline network and everyone was applauding him and very quiet when he talked, it was like the best thing in the world. So it like reaches people and I know it reached a lot of people tonight and I'm honored to be a part of it and I wish the band was here and they wish they were here but I'm definitely grateful to be here with good friends and supporting what I think is a really good cause.



4:49 min

[LOW-FI] [HI-FI]

What did you listen to growing up?

I remember the first time that I was really touched by like rock and roll like the first song I can remember was when I heard "Survivor", the song on the Rocky soundtrack, "Eye of the Tiger". I remember when I first heard that song it totally gave me chills and that was like the first thing I remember about rock and roll. Like hearing and it was just magical to me, I was like 6 or whatever so like I didn't have a fuckin' taste at all. But the older I got, I got really into The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Clash, and like I had some cousins that got me into punk rock music and when I was younger I got picked on and shit and felt outside of everything and I found this movement of music that was like "we're outside of everything, we're proud of it and fuck everyone else" and it like made sense to me. So all those bands that quote unquote invented punk rock like were huge influences to me and were the first time where I felt like being weird and being a freak was kind of like a good thing, ya know? like encouragement to be different and encouragement to be not accepted was very positive to me.

If you weren't in Alkaline Trio what do you think you'd be doing?

I dropped out. I was in art school for about a year, I was studying graphic design so if I wasn't doing this I'd probably be doing that. I figured being in a band was kind of a pipe dream or whatever so I went to art school and started to learn about just design or whatever and it was interesting to me but even then going to classes I was making flyers for the band I was in and like not paying attention in class. Had I like completely lost hope in playing rock and roll I'd probably be laying out peoples records or hopefully or wishing I was and being miserable.

What inspires you to write music?

I think just being alive, friends of mine, and experiences I've had. I dont really have the intention to just sit down and write down things that I've been through in like a journal or whatever, it's just easier to write about in songs. So being a music fan from the first I went to a punk show like it just sang to me, it just made sense, so the punk rock movement is a huge influence to me. My friends are a huge influence to me, my family, and like losing friends and family and gaining friends and family is like my biggest influence. For sure.





1:43 min

[LOW-FI] [HI-FI]

How do you feel about the mainstream music industry?

It depends, I think it's different for every person, it's different for every band. A lot of people are like "fuck major labels" that's just naive, it works for some people. Look at Blink, look at Green Day, look at bands that have become really successful that have just stuck to their guns and if anything have gotten to be a better band. So it's like it works for some, it fails for others ya know? For us, personally, we just take it as it comes. I'm not gonna sit here and say "fuck major labels" because I'm sure there are, here and there, good people working for great bands we just haven't met those people and we're just not comfortable working for people we don't trust. And if we did come into a situation where we met people we trusted, we got to be friends, like what happened with us and Vagrant. We never thought we'd leave Asian Man but when our records weren't readily available to everyone that wanted them, ya know, it had nothing to do personally it was just like we wanted our shit to get to people and it wasn't so we made the jump. I can't say one way or another, you just have to take it as it comes, it's a personal decision but to me I'm just comfortable with working with people I trust and it just so happens that thus far it's been through independent measures.