Alkaline Trio has spent the past decade evolving from your basic hardcore outfit into the rare punk band capable of making music large enough to fill an arena. The Matt Skiba-led threesome's major-label debut, Agony & Irony, which Epic issued earlier this summer, is a majestic, mature pop-rock affair that recalls My Chemical Romance, minus the vocal histrionics and sophomoric lyrics.
The album deals with the big themes of life and death, especially death — but smartly, never to the point of wallowing in despair. Even the suicide meditation "Over and Out" manages to steer clear of melodrama. In it, a veteran presses a .45 to his head and says, "The war has taken everything from me." Skiba delivers the line with sensitivity but doesn't over-sing it, a crime many less seasoned punk-pop vocalists are guilty of.
Incidentally, "Over and Out" is the closest Alkaline Trio comes to being overtly political, something that has become almost mandatory in the punk community in light of the looming presidential election. "You know, I think current events inspire us but not in a way that comes out in music," Skiba says by phone. "There's a certain element of despair with our world today — we're in peril and that's definitely going to have an effect on the songwriting. But I wouldn't feel comfortable being political in a song.
"To be honest, I think it's boring. I want to do things that make me forget about how fucked up things are. Art should be an escape from that. Singing something like "Hitler is bad," it's like pointing out the obvious."
Skiba, 32, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He'd lie to his parents about his nocturnal whereabouts and tag along with older cousins to punk shows in the city. In 1988, he became a huge Sex Pistols fan after seeing Johnny Rotten's subsequent band Public Image Ltd. at Chicago's Riviera Theatre. For the 12-year-old Skiba, it was That Moment.
"'This is scary,' I thought, 'this is my calling, this is a very threatening environment,'" Skiba says. "I fell in love with it. We were in this totally shitty neighborhood back when punk rock was still dangerous. People got stabbed at shows — it was a huge skinhead scene. I'm not saying I was stoked that violence could happen, but it did, often, and wasn't the kind of thing that would make the newspaper the next morning. It was a more violent time, and the energy surrounding that was very attractive to me."
Ironically, Skiba is romanticizing about the blood-and-guts days of punk while lounging at his home in Los Angeles. He's relaxing prior to a tour that brings Alkaline Trio to St. Petersburg's Jannus Landing on Tues., Oct. 21. Skiba chills with his wife and their two cats. "I love what we do as a band," Skiba says, "But being away [from home] is always the hard part."
Alkaline Trio's Agony & Irony disc debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the band's greatest commercial achievement to date. The disc also produced the single "Help Me," which reached No. 14 on Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks tally. Such successes have allowed Skiba to live a life of leisure that contrasts with his punk ways (and the genre's original ethos) of yesteryear.
The frontman's typical off day is spent painting (myspace.com/mattskibaartwerk), recording in his home studio, hiking with a friend through a nearby canyon or strolling down to the beach to surf. "I try and do something physical, outdoor, everyday," he says.
It's a lifestyle far removed from high school days spent cutting lawns and working a hot-dog stand in between playing in a metal band that covered the likes of Motörhead and Guns 'N Roses. As a young adult in Chicago, Skiba spent his nights making music and his days as a bicycle messenger. "A beer never tastes better than after you've spent all day riding around in 20-below weather," Skiba says. "Actually, though, it was a great experience. I definitely learned a lot about work ethic."
Now that Skiba has "made it," as they say, he no longer is able to draw inspiration from the hardscrabble existence that informed early Alkaline Trio records such as 1998's Goddamnit! and 2000's Maybe I'll Catch Fire, both of which dealt with stuff like getting dumped, struggling to get by and seeking refuge in the bottle. Skiba finds stimulation these days in literature and the sad truth that misery is still very much a part of others' lives, if not his. "I do a lot of reading on extremely dark subject matter," Skiba says. "And I live in this world that's in extreme danger. In my life, personally, I'm already in heaven. I get to enjoy my life, and I'm very thankful for that freedom — but it could all go away. But the rest, a lot of people, are in big trouble and surrounded by darkness. Music is still a way to express myself, and even [successful] people still have their own demons."
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2008.