It’s not so much a miracle that Alkaline Trio are still a functioning unit, but still a bit of a wonder how they have overcome obstacles which easily would have sunk lesser bands. Between guitarist and singer Matt Skiba getting tapped to step in for Tom DeLonge in blink-182 from 2015 through 2022 and drummer Derek Grant departing the group due to mental health issues before their latest record was even finished, all the ingredients for disaster were in place.
Yet somehow the Chicago pop-punk band soldiers on, enlisting Atom Willard, ex-Rocket from the Crypt drummer who’s also sat behind the kit for The Offspring, Social Distortion, and half a dozen others throughout his career. And instead of barely keeping it together, Alkaline Trio are thriving, riding high on the buzz surrounding the January LP Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs – studio album number 10 – which they’re currently on the road supporting with a tour that comes to Citizens House of Blues this Sunday (March 11).
“We’re about, I don’t know, a quarter of the way into it, and it seems to be going really well,” Trio bassist and co-lead vocalist Dan Andriano told Vanyaland earlier this week. “We’ve just cut all the way across the South, and the shows have been amazing. People have been really receptive to the new stuff, and we’re trying to change up the set list a little as we go. We’re trying to play a lot of stuff that we haven’t played on former tours, but yeah, it’s really good. We’re out here, we’re getting to know a new crew. We’re out here having fun with Atom for the first time on a real headline tour, so it’s good.”
Andriano is no stranger to his own mental health battles, and therefore wasn’t surprised when Grant split the group. But he’s also not exactly shocked at Alkaline Trio’s durability despite the roadblocks thrown at them. When he sat down for a Vanyaland 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings), Andriano was upbeat about the current state of the band and where things stand. He also discussed his love for the floundering Chicago Bulls and talking trash about sports, how the punk community looks out for one another, and where he ranks some of the other trios out there.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
Michael Christopher: Was there ever a point, not even in just the last few years, but going back as far as Crimson (2005) or From Here to Infirmary (2001), where you thought making it to the band’s 10th album was a realistic goal?
Dan Andriano: I don’t think it’s anything we ever thought of as a goal. We just thought of longevity as a byproduct of continuing to have fun – if that makes sense. And I don’t know if this helps or not in terms of us being able to sustain this, but we hadn’t really thought about how many records we made until this one, and then it sort of became a milestone. But while we were making records, we were just like, we enjoy this as long as we are still having fun, we’re going to keep doing it, going on tour and saying “Hi” to people and all that. Then that paradigm shifted to like, “Okay, well wow, this is our 10th album. If we’re going to do this, let’s try to do something special in terms or just do something different in terms of the way we create the record and what we want to achieve.”
Between Matt ending his time with blink and Derek leaving the band during the mixing process, how would you describe the atmosphere and the journey itself surrounding Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs.
I think Matt not being involved with blink anymore, it plays a part in it, but not necessarily. When we made [2018 LP] Is This Thing Cursed?, Matt was there, we were still doing our thing, but I guess having someone’s complete attention is different. It wasn’t like he seemed unfocused when we made the last record, but this did feel a little different, like, Matt’s attention, Matt’s drive to be at the studio, Matt’s drive and intent to write everything in the studio together as a band. It was his idea and his concept that we stuck with because he was so heavily involved, very much almost like a co-production role. And not to take anything away from [producer Cameron Webb], but Matt definitely had a vision that we tried to adhere to.
As far as Derek leaving, it wasn’t necessarily unexpected or strange, it was just the timing of it was definitely a bit of a hiccup. It took a lot of the wind out of our sails, you know what I mean? As we were tracking and still putting the finishing touches on the record, just getting ready to start the mixing and everything to have him bow out after putting down such great tracks was tough, but we were like, “Well, in a way, he gave us this gift.” He gave us these great drum tracks. He crushed it. He could have quit before. We’re not going to recut anything. It was interesting timing, but we’re just so thankful for the time that he gave us there, the record that we ended up with.
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You were doing your own side projects at certain points over the past several years when Matt was with blink. Was there ever a fear that maybe you guys were spreading yourself a bit too thin?
Not necessarily. I feel like I’m not necessarily prolific enough. If I’m a professional songwriter, I feel like I should be writing more songs than I do, so I get inspired by other artists that just crank out records and songs… people like Elvis Costello or whatever that’s just this catalog is intimidating at this point, but it’s like he works with this person, then he goes to work with this producer, writes songs with Burt Bacharach. Obviously, he’s an extreme on the extreme end of that spectrum, but that’s where you got to draw inspiration from – it’s people that just never stop.
Definitely there’s been enough time in between Alkaline Trio records to justify doing some other stuff, and I personally don’t feel like I was going to be spread too thin, and I think Matt, not to speak for him, but he’s got such a crazy ability to just sit down and write a song. He would do it and it would be awesome. And that’s not how we operate, but that’s just what his ability is. It takes me a lot longer. I feel like he is pretty quick and I need to sit on things and go over him a little bit. But yeah, I don’t think so. I think we need to get our asses in gear and write even more songs. To be honest.
Recent years have seen yourself and obviously Derek talk about depression, anxiety, mental health, which as a whole has come more to the forefront of music and pop culture in general. I’m curious as to what your take is on the subject of mental health not being as taboo as it was in the past.
I had never necessarily understood a lot of what was going on out there until I was a little bit older in terms of mental health and other people’s mental health and how that affects day-to-day lives and whatnot. And so I don’t know that I ever knew it was taboo or just that because of my weird Midwestern Catholic upbringing or whatever. [laughs] It was hidden, so I didn’t know about it. It’s one hand sort of shakes the other in that regard. I don’t want that to be a thing, where people have to hide anything that they feel, but mainly because it’s something that generally requires help. It requires talking to someone, a friend, a therapist, a counselor – anyone – a teacher, anyone that can listen and just be understanding and empathetic. And sometimes that’s all it takes for some people, and sometimes it takes a lot more things and there’s more to it than that.
It’s a great thing to be able to ask for help, so you definitely should not feel ashamed about feeling strange or if you feel different or if you feel vulnerable or in any way sad. I mean, there’s a lot of weird shit going on in the world right now so that it’s understandable to feel these things, and it’s also very healthy to seek help.
What do you think has led to that shift? Even recently as 15 years ago, people would be looked at as weak for talking about their feelings because there was still a major a stigma attached to it.
Hard to say, but maybe it’s one of the positive aspects of social media. For me, I came from a pretty cool and empathetic group of friends from a young age, and that came from skateboarding and punk rock and things that I got into, like the kind of punk rock I got into was non-aggressive, and it was socially aware, you know what I mean? Operation Ivy, early Green Day, Propagandhi, the early stuff like that had a message. As a teenage kid, you’re very susceptible to taking these messages to extremes and whatever, but they are, for the most part, very healthy and positive and based in equality and based in, like I said, empathy.
That was something that me and my friends, and the theme we came from and the bands that we played with on the regular, that was something we all felt was important, and we were pretty open to that. If someone was having a hard time, I would like to think we would try to help, or at least let them know that they were in a, we didn’t have the term “safe space,” but that’s what we were trying to create, for sure.
I feel like that’s the inclusivity of the punk rock scene, whether it’s something as small as picking someone up who falls down in the pit to – cheesy as this might sound – picking them up in life, you’re seeing the same people at all the shows you go to, so it becomes that’s your circle, that’s your friend circle.
Oh yeah, 100 percent. It was very much a community, and every weekend we knew we were going to see a lot of the same people in a different hall at every suburb.
You are a big Chicago Bulls fan. When you’re on tour at this time of year, is it harder to be in certain rival cities, like Boston or Cleveland, for instance? Do you think, “Damn…the Celtics are killing us in the standings, Cavs are above us.” Or do you just take solace in the fact that the Pistons are in the basement?
I mean, I’ve never been a big Pistons guy, [laughs] as you can imagine from the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. I’m sorry to say it, I’m not a big Celtics guy either, but this team… Here’s the thing where I am with sports. I just love sports and obviously I love the Bulls. I’m a big Bulls fan, but they’re wallowing in mediocrity, barely. Until they make a change, that’s just how it’s going to be. They need to make a change. They keep sitting on the same guys, thinking Lonzo Ball is going to be the answer, and whenever the hell he comes back and it’s just not happening. So, I can be happy for the Cavs doing well without LeBron, you know what I mean? And I like the Celtics team, dude, I really do. It’s a lot of homegrown talent.
Mike Park from Asian Man Records, he’s one of my friends that I talk to the most about sports. He loves basketball, and we were actually talking about it yesterday after that beat down [the Celtics] put on Golden State. It was insane. But yeah, I mean, I like that Celtics team. It’s a lot of homegrown talent and they’re just, they’re balling right now. If someone starts talking shit or something, I might have some fun with ’em, but I don’t really have a leg to stand on.
With the Cubs being your baseball team, what was it like for you playing Wrigley Field last year?
Unbelievable. Dream come true. It was so nice of Fall Out Boy to ask us to be there, and it was pretty perfect. It was a little bit of surreal and a little bit of, this is our first show with our new drummer at Wrigley Field, so there was a lot going on, but it was all good, it was all positive. I didn’t really get to soak it in until a couple of days later, but… amazing. Just the coolest fucking thing.
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:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
Dan Andriano: If you haven’t seen Drug Church, they’re supporting our tour right now and they’re blowing my mind on a nightly basis. I wasn’t that tuned in to the group and now they’re like my favorite band. They have great songs. That’s my audio recommendation.
Side note, I just finished all three seasons of Slow Horses on Apple TV and it’s like my favorite spy show. Gary Oldman. London. Short seasons. It’s like a perfect show.
Sorry. That’s two.
:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
I’m going to give you seven famous trios and you tell me the first thing that comes to mind.
ZZ Top.
Oh, best blues rock band in America. Best blues rock band, maybe of all time.
I feel like they sometimes don’t get enough credit for their blues rock because a lot of people are focused on the ‘80s synthesized ZZ Top.
Yeah, when [Billy Gibbons] took all the drums out and replaced it with drum machines? What a lunatic. Unbelievable.
The Three Stooges.
Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim loves Three Stooges. Used to watch with Uncle Jim all the time when I was a kid. Then we would go bowling.
The Bee Gees.
Underrated as songwriters. Some of the greatest songs – amazing. I think they wrote “To Love Somebody?” It was a beautiful song. Gram Parsons’ version is fantastic. The Bee Gees, just some of the best songs, great songwriters.
Alvin and The Chipmunks.
Ooh, Christmas classic. Definitely spent some time with Alvin and the Chipmunks as a kid. Where do they rank? They’re probably seventh in your seven, but they’re up there.
Spinal Tap.
Ooh. Just genius. Is there really going to be a sequel? I don’t know. I don’t know if I care. Christopher Guest is maybe… if anyone can do it, I guess is what I’m trying to say, it’s him. I mean, just perfect. It’s a perfect movie, great band, hilarious lyrics, all kinds of double entendre. They’re up there – hey might be number one. And how is Spinal Tap a trio? Really? We’re forgetting all those drummers that have just vanished and died. But I hear you.
Once you say they’re a quartet, then another drummer just falls by the wayside inexplicably, and they become a trio again.
You’re true. It’s almost like self-fulfilling prophecy.
Charlie’s Angels. We’re talking the original: Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett.
Man, I wish I could say I watched more Charlie’s Angels when I was a kid, but I’m only aware of them really in the poster, the pose. But I mean, beautiful. I’m going to say I think it’s probably good for the women’s movement, but it was also probably very sexualizing of the women. So maybe not, but anytime there’s cool spy stuff happening, I’m into it. So yeah. Charlie’s Angels. Hell yeah.
Beastie Boys.
Oh, they supplant Spinal Tap for the top trio on your list. I fucking love the Beastie Boys. Literally a group that kind of changed my life and one of the best live concerts I’ve ever seen. I saw I got to catch ’em in Milwaukee with A Tribe Called Quest on Hello Nasty, and it was insane. It was insane. They were so good. The energy was so good. That’s special when three people like that find each other and they’re capable of almost becoming… they’re literally like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or like Ultraman. They combine to make this super force, and it’s unreal.
ALKALINE TRIO + DRUG CHURCH + WORRIERS :: Sunday, March 10 at Citizens House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St. in Boston, MA :: 6:30 p.m., all ages, $35 to $58 :: Event info :: Advance tickets