“It’s about feeling so strong about something, Having a feeling, whatever it may be, whether it’s about a girl or a bottle or whatever it is that’s going to bring you happiness, even if it’s temporary or a shell of happiness,” said Matt Skiba. Skiba, singer, songwriter, guitarist, for the Alkaline Trio is reflecting on the band’s latest, its fourth, full-length album, entitled Good Mourning. He continued by walking the listener through the album’s first track, “This Could Be Love,” a horror story autobiography where Skiba is kidnapped and murdered, “the only thing in the world that would make you stop wanting it is a slit throat and dead on the floor.”
And that’s just the beginning.
The album is a perfect follow-up to 2001’s From Here To Infirmary, highlighting personal loss, death, emotional devastation, relationships ending, relationships beginning, and the Trio’s trademark power punk sound.
“It feels really good to write, for me to write, to get things off of my chest. I never want to sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself,” Skiba explained, talking about how his songs subject matter are mostly non-fiction and deeply personal.
Skiba splits singing duties with bassist Dan Andriano. Andriano’s smoother take to Skiba’s raspy death rattle provides a nice imbalance on the album between hope and despair, good and evil. “Dan and I are in pretty different places in our lives right now, hence the dichotomy,” Skiba noted.
The second track on the album, “We’ve Had Enough,” the album’s first single, is one of Skiba’s favorite songs off of Good Mourning. The song is a rampaging statement of dark indifference towards someone and their car radio. “I don’t ever really listen to the radio,” Skiba laughed. “The video should be pretty amazing, it’s being edited right now. I can’t tell you too much about it, because it’s a surprise. It’s fucking cool, though. Just think horror movies.”
Skiba’s other handpicked favorite off of the album is the eerily blasphemous “All On Black.” “That song is a vampire love song. It’s a true story in a way. In a sense, it’s kind of a fairy tale and in a lot of ways it’s non-fiction.” The song includes the lyric “What’s upside down/Coated in silver/This crucifix/My four-leaf clover.” Skiba explained, “That’s me saying my bad luck has become my good luck. Where people might look at something and it horrifies or disgusts them maybe someone who feels similar to how I do, they would see it as something beautiful. As more of a good omen then a bad one.”
“Expressing yourself feels really good, it’s therapeutic in a way, and it’s also really fun,” Skiba said, turning back to his songwriting approach. “I hope that people can identify with it. I hope people can enjoy it even if they don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. It’s kind of a win-win thing for me. It’s fun, and it’s also necessary in a lot of ways.”
The album, the first for the band in nearly two years, follows a split with Hot Water Music and solo efforts from Skiba and Andriano. “The solo stuff was kind of a side note. Dan and I had some time on our hands and some friends we wanted to work with label-wise, doing something different, something for fun outside of the band. The only difference is that it’s been longer since our last record. We had more time to write this record. When we did the Hot Water Music split, it was our first time in the studio with Derek (Grant, new drummer). This was our first time full-on recording, spending a bunch of time together, so that altered the process quite a bit in a good way.”
“There’s always something you could have done better, when I listen to it there’s things that don’t so much bother me but I just have to get over it, it’s done, it’s done. For the most part I would say 85 percent of me is really proud of it.”
Skiba, ever since he saw his first punk rock show—“It was a Social Distortion show. I was 12 or 13, I saw them and I was like “that’s what I want to do,”—is thriving on the opportunity to make the music they do for a living, no matter what the circumstances are behind it.
“You couldn’t ask for a better job. We pretty much get paid to have fun and do something we would do anyways, something we did when we were broke, and something we will do when we become broke again. Getting paid to play music, to me, is like getting paid to breathe.”
The release of Good Mourning on May 13 is set to coincide with a year-round world tour. “It’s something I haven’t really fully wrapped my head around. Not a day goes by that I’m not thankful to do what we’re doing,” Skiba said. “I think that coming from Chicago, coming from the people we grew up with, coming from the bands we grew up on, I think helps us keep a lot of things in perspective.
“Mike Park (Asian Man Records) was putting out records for us simply because he liked the band way before anybody knew who the fuck we were. Vagrant was in another place than where they are now, and we were a way smaller band than we are now. They were putting out our records because they loved our band. We’ve had really good luck with the people we’ve decided to work with, everyone’s turned out to just be amazing to us, and extremely supportive on every level we get to.
“There’s always ups and downs as far as the business aspect of it goes, and as far what you’re gambling to put in your ears when you turn on the radio has always been a gamble, but I think there’s some credible music that’s coming out right now, I also think there’s some terrible music but that’s the way its always been. The cool thing about it is music is always here, if you don’t like any of the new shit that’s coming out you’ve always got the other stuff that you’ve got that you like. I love music, I’m glad that it’s here, and I’m glad I have some part in it.”
