Like a plane crash that never hits the ground

As a songwriter, I’ve always been amazed at what comes out depending on what’s going on in my life.  When things were going well for me, my friend and bandmates would joke that things needed to get worse or the music would suffer.  They were more right than they might have thought.

Matt Skiba on Alkaline Trio’s new album, This Addiction:

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.

The rest of the interview can be found here.