“I think I’m a man about the things I need to be a man about, but I get paid to play, pretty much. I do what I love for a living, and I also get to build BMX bikes in my spare time.”
― Matt Skiba
“Pennywise are legends and gentlemen and maniacs.”
― Matt Skiba
“The Devil is fun.”
― Matt Skiba
“I loved anything spooky, mysterious, or frightening.”
― Matt Skiba
“People think we’re always dark and gloomy, and we’re not.”
― Matt Skiba
“As far as, like, the moon landing… did we go there? I believe so. Is it everything that we’re told? I don’t think so.”
― Matt Skiba
“We were fans of Green Day and Nirvana or whatever, but the bands we really loved were Chicago bands that didn’t really sound anything like Alkaline Trio.”
― Matt Skiba
“Orange County encompasses a large area that has a lot of Alkaline Trio fans.”
― Matt Skiba
“I feel like everything happens for a reason.”
― Matt Skiba
“There was some real bad alternative – ‘alternative’ – stuff that came out in the ’90s that’s completely cringe-worthy.”
― Matt Skiba
“The Ramones all hate each other, and they did it for decades. I wouldn’t be able to do that. That would be like working at the bank or something.”
― Matt Skiba
“With Alkaline Trio, we are who we are. We never really feel too confined, but when we get together, there is an Alkaline Trio sound, and when I go off and do something on my own, there is an element of freedom that I don’t have with the Trio.”
― Matt Skiba
“I love being in Blink!”
― Matt Skiba
“I’ve been to the Bahamas before, and it’s so crass. You land in Nassau, and the whole island is replete with beauty and culture, but there’s a lot of poverty. It is a largely black population; then they build these places like Atlantis and The Cove that are walled off.”
― Matt Skiba
“Jesus was not born on December 25th. There’s carbon evidence of it. That freaks people out.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think for us – and for a lot of people in the Church of Satan – we definitely like ruffling people’s feathers and poking fun at organized religion a little bit.”
― Matt Skiba
“They’re great players. I’m not a Blues Traveler fan, though. I get it, but it’s not for me.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think people hear the words ‘transcendental meditation’ and ‘paganism,’ and that’s almost worse because it’s real. Those are real things. Those are absolute energies. Satanism is like Halloween. Transcendental meditation and having a realization of how we really are – whether we want to be or not – we live in a pagan culture.”
― Matt Skiba
“I go with what I know and what I see, and I believe in reality.”
― Matt Skiba
“The very first show I ever saw was The Judds, and that influenced me to not play country music.”
― Matt Skiba
“A cousin of mine was a graphic designer, and he took me as a kid to see Flesh for Lulu and Social Distortion in 1988 in Chicago.”
― Matt Skiba
“They are one of my favorite bands and one of my first musical loves: Devo.”
― Matt Skiba
“For me, it’s about eating a bunch of fruit and exercising, which opens up the creativity, makes it easier to give ideas a chance and bubble to the surface. I’m no angel, but it helps me, as does hiking, heading to the ocean to catch some waves – for me, sweating it out is definitely good for the creative process.”
― Matt Skiba
“We definitely like to write songs about darker things, but we like to think of it as a celebration of the evil ideas that run through everybody’s head.”
― Matt Skiba
“While I was in Chicago, I rode my bike everywhere.”
― Matt Skiba
“To worship the devil, you have to believe in it first.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’ve written songs about love or about a relationship, but never just, ‘I love you.’”
― Matt Skiba
“The Sekrets record is very much me, and Dan’s Emergency Room is very much him. And then Alkaline Trio is very much ours.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m in Alkaline Trio; I guess I get to rip off myself. I give myself permission.”
― Matt Skiba
“My parents have always been very supportive. But now that I play in Blink, all of my parents’ friends are so jazzed that it makes my folks excited.”
― Matt Skiba
“Dallas is a good town. I spent a lot of time there as a kid. It always nice to come back.”
― Matt Skiba
“I have never played in a ska band.”
― Matt Skiba
“Never had a mullet.”
― Matt Skiba
“I really like a lot of the old 2-tone ska. I definitely went through a phase where I was into The Specials and The Busters. But a lot of the ska revival – I never really have had an interest in that.”
― Matt Skiba
“In this day and age, though, no matter how many people you play for, if you’re playing with a band like Blink, millions of people will see it thanks to YouTube and everything recording it.”
― Matt Skiba
“All of my HH Jags have Ducati stickers on ’em.”
― Matt Skiba
“When I agreed to do the Blink shows, I said that I’d do it as long as they were willing to practise every day.”
― Matt Skiba
“My attraction to the Church of Satan… is the same thing that initially attracted me to punk rock. It was something that wasn’t very entirely popular, and it was sort of like the adversary to mainstream culture and beliefs.”
― Matt Skiba
“The Church of Satan was something, aesthetically, that we were always really fascinated with and wanted to emulate. I think it’s a good look.”
― Matt Skiba
“We’ve had kids come to our shows and ask us why we hate Jesus. It’s like, ‘Well, we don’t hate Jesus at all. We just think religion is silly, and it’s a really popular thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree with it.’”
― Matt Skiba
“I went through some pretty rough patches in my life, and I’ve come out of them a stronger, more inspired, and energetic person.”
― Matt Skiba
“The first line of the song is always the hardest thing to write. And then after that, the song should – unless it sucks – it should write itself.”
― Matt Skiba
“The feeling that you want the listener to get, you should get yourself when you first hit that chord, and that melody comes to mind.”
― Matt Skiba
“I don’t personally feel that I’ve lost my fire.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’ve done some stuff with Glenn Danzig before, and while I can’t really say that we’re friends, we’re friendly acquaintances.”
― Matt Skiba
“Rock n’ roll is the Devil’s music.”
― Matt Skiba
“I was a bicycle messenger when Alkaline Trio was formed as a way to make ends meet before the band became a career, and I’ve just always been a cyclist – I BMX’d, and then I got really into – through messengering – I got really into road bikes and fixed gears, which I still have.”
― Matt Skiba
“There is sort of an unspoken ‘no skateboarding’ clause on tour that I break pretty often.”
― Matt Skiba
“At an early age I told myself I would never quit skating; I would never quit riding BMX and being a motorcycle junkie. I just can’t stop doing those things.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think that the more that you play and the more instruments you play and the better you get at them, then you will be better off for it as a guitarist.”
― Matt Skiba
“As a kid, I took piano lessons, and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t cool. I was into Duran Duran and rock music. I didn’t have any interest in piano. I did it for three years, and because of piano, I learned percussion. I learned scales. I learned how to sing. Piano gives you all of the basics of those things.”
― Matt Skiba
“Being a drummer definitely influences how I play guitar. And then piano influences drumming and vice versa.”
― Matt Skiba
“I collect motorcycles and art.”
― Matt Skiba
“Being on Epic, it wasn’t like we got signed to a multi-million-dollar deal.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m thankful for everything good and bad that happened to our band.”
― Matt Skiba
“It’s never been about what we want others to see: it’s about what we want to see; it’s about what we want to do. We only have a career because of our fans, but we have to keep making music for the reason we started making music.”
― Matt Skiba
“The really smart conspiracies are the ones that explain, ‘This is why this is plausible,’ not, ‘This is what happened.’ If it makes sense and if it’s possible, I’d investigate it.”
― Matt Skiba
“For Alkaline Trio, Chicago is our hometown. The band started there. Even though we all live in different cities now, we still call Chicago home, and it’s always really exciting to come back and play for our best crowd.”
― Matt Skiba
“When you’re 20, you think you know a lot more than you do.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m really thankful for the time that I grew up in that we didn’t have cell phones, and we made a lot of our own fun.”
― Matt Skiba
“I consider myself a pagan and a witch.”
― Matt Skiba
“With every inch of my energy, I wanted Fyre not to happen. I put all the electricity and energy in my body against that thing happening.”
― Matt Skiba
“Glasgow is one of my favourite cities.”
― Matt Skiba
“When George W. Bush was up for re-election, we took part in Rock Against Bush.”
― Matt Skiba
“My parents are both war veterans; they met in Vietnam. They were involved in a war that they absolutely disagreed with.”
― Matt Skiba
“There are things about this country that are horrible; there’s things about this country that are beautiful. I’ve been almost everywhere, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather live.”
― Matt Skiba
“I dropped out of arts school because I didn’t wanna stare at a computer all day – I get headaches.”
― Matt Skiba
“I was always a punk rock skate kid from a very young age.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m a bookworm, so I read about a book a month.”
― Matt Skiba
“Fear is sort of like jealousy. It’s an unnecessary emotion.”
― Matt Skiba
“Touring with Blink helped introduce people to Alkaline Trio who otherwise wouldn’t have ever heard of us.”
― Matt Skiba
“It feels really good to be doing Blink justice. Stepping on stage for the first show was pretty crazy. I’ve been skydiving several times, and that’s the closest thing I can compare it to. Such a beautiful rush.”
― Matt Skiba
“I honestly couldn’t have asked for or expected the amount of love and support I’ve received from a large majority of Blink’s fans.”
― Matt Skiba
“To be in touch with death, and the darker side of life, makes the lighter side more enjoyable.”
― Matt Skiba
“I don’t think we’re any more preoccupied by life and death or heaven and hell than anyone else, but it’s fun to write about the inevitable – you’re alive, and you’re going to die.”
― Matt Skiba
“Heaven and hell are something that people create to make some people feel guilty and other people like myself laugh.”
― Matt Skiba
“When we’re on tour, we try to keep our voices sharp. We get up there and put on the best show we can.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m from the MTV generation.”
― Matt Skiba
“I grew up on Michael Jackson, Pat Benetar, and Van Halen – all the things coming out of the television.”
― Matt Skiba
“Death isn’t something that should necessarily be glorified, but I also don’t think it’s something that people need to be afraid of. It’s just the way it is. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
― Matt Skiba
“I like even numbers.”
― Matt Skiba
“I love working with my band-mates in Alkaline Trio, but to make a rock record that was just mine was something that I wanted to do.”
― Matt Skiba
“Creating a record on my own and deciding who plays and how the songs were structured, it was fun to do.”
― Matt Skiba
“Everyone who signed us to Epic, all of the people we trusted there, were let go.”
― Matt Skiba
“There are just as many dirt bags in independent music as there are in major labels.”
― Matt Skiba
“I first heard of Ulver reading the ‘Lords of Chaos’ book.”
― Matt Skiba
“We certainly are proud of our punk-rock heritage, but when people who like other kinds of music are into your band, it’s flattering.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think who I am as a person on and off the stage is always kind of the same thing, but I don’t take a lot of things very seriously.”
― Matt Skiba
“I see kids in Cradle of Filth shirts at our shows, which is awesome.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m the die-hard that still goes out to buy records.”
― Matt Skiba
“We have this song called ‘Radio,’ and I wrote that song when we needed one more song for a record. So I went back into the other room and wrote it in 20 minutes.”
― Matt Skiba
“I want recording to be fun.”
― Matt Skiba
“Long before punk entered my life, I loved scary films and stories.”
― Matt Skiba
“I grew up on Edgar Allen Poe, and I loved Alfred Hitchcock’s movies.”
― Matt Skiba
“I haven’t eaten an animal in over twenty years!”
― Matt Skiba
“I miss the videos that are short films, back when MTV played videos all day.”
― Matt Skiba
“Meditation has really done wonders for me personally and artistically.”
― Matt Skiba
“We have the best fans in the world. A lot of artists say that, but in this case, it’s actually fact.”
― Matt Skiba
“Making your band your career just seems like a pipe dream when it’s not happening, and when it does, it seems so surreal.”
― Matt Skiba“I think I’m a man about the things I need to be a man about, but I get paid to play, pretty much. I do what I love for a living, and I also get to build BMX bikes in my spare time.”
― Matt Skiba
“Pennywise are legends and gentlemen and maniacs.”
― Matt Skiba
“The Devil is fun.”
― Matt Skiba
“I loved anything spooky, mysterious, or frightening.”
― Matt Skiba
“People think we’re always dark and gloomy, and we’re not.”
― Matt Skiba
“As far as, like, the moon landing… did we go there? I believe so. Is it everything that we’re told? I don’t think so.”
― Matt Skiba
“We were fans of Green Day and Nirvana or whatever, but the bands we really loved were Chicago bands that didn’t really sound anything like Alkaline Trio.”
― Matt Skiba
“Orange County encompasses a large area that has a lot of Alkaline Trio fans.”
― Matt Skiba
“I feel like everything happens for a reason.”
― Matt Skiba
“There was some real bad alternative – ‘alternative’ – stuff that came out in the ’90s that’s completely cringe-worthy.”
― Matt Skiba
“The Ramones all hate each other, and they did it for decades. I wouldn’t be able to do that. That would be like working at the bank or something.”
― Matt Skiba
“With Alkaline Trio, we are who we are. We never really feel too confined, but when we get together, there is an Alkaline Trio sound, and when I go off and do something on my own, there is an element of freedom that I don’t have with the Trio.”
― Matt Skiba
“I love being in Blink!”
― Matt Skiba
“I’ve been to the Bahamas before, and it’s so crass. You land in Nassau, and the whole island is replete with beauty and culture, but there’s a lot of poverty. It is a largely black population; then they build these places like Atlantis and The Cove that are walled off.”
― Matt Skiba
“Jesus was not born on December 25th. There’s carbon evidence of it. That freaks people out.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think for us – and for a lot of people in the Church of Satan – we definitely like ruffling people’s feathers and poking fun at organized religion a little bit.”
― Matt Skiba
“They’re great players. I’m not a Blues Traveler fan, though. I get it, but it’s not for me.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think people hear the words ‘transcendental meditation’ and ‘paganism,’ and that’s almost worse because it’s real. Those are real things. Those are absolute energies. Satanism is like Halloween. Transcendental meditation and having a realization of how we really are – whether we want to be or not – we live in a pagan culture.”
― Matt Skiba
“I go with what I know and what I see, and I believe in reality.”
― Matt Skiba
“The very first show I ever saw was The Judds, and that influenced me to not play country music.”
― Matt Skiba
“A cousin of mine was a graphic designer, and he took me as a kid to see Flesh for Lulu and Social Distortion in 1988 in Chicago.”
― Matt Skiba
“They are one of my favorite bands and one of my first musical loves: Devo.”
― Matt Skiba
“For me, it’s about eating a bunch of fruit and exercising, which opens up the creativity, makes it easier to give ideas a chance and bubble to the surface. I’m no angel, but it helps me, as does hiking, heading to the ocean to catch some waves – for me, sweating it out is definitely good for the creative process.”
― Matt Skiba
“We definitely like to write songs about darker things, but we like to think of it as a celebration of the evil ideas that run through everybody’s head.”
― Matt Skiba
“While I was in Chicago, I rode my bike everywhere.”
― Matt Skiba
“To worship the devil, you have to believe in it first.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’ve written songs about love or about a relationship, but never just, ‘I love you.’”
― Matt Skiba
“The Sekrets record is very much me, and Dan’s Emergency Room is very much him. And then Alkaline Trio is very much ours.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m in Alkaline Trio; I guess I get to rip off myself. I give myself permission.”
― Matt Skiba
“My parents have always been very supportive. But now that I play in Blink, all of my parents’ friends are so jazzed that it makes my folks excited.”
― Matt Skiba
“Dallas is a good town. I spent a lot of time there as a kid. It always nice to come back.”
― Matt Skiba
“I have never played in a ska band.”
― Matt Skiba
“Never had a mullet.”
― Matt Skiba
“I really like a lot of the old 2-tone ska. I definitely went through a phase where I was into The Specials and The Busters. But a lot of the ska revival – I never really have had an interest in that.”
― Matt Skiba
“In this day and age, though, no matter how many people you play for, if you’re playing with a band like Blink, millions of people will see it thanks to YouTube and everything recording it.”
― Matt Skiba
“All of my HH Jags have Ducati stickers on ’em.”
― Matt Skiba
“When I agreed to do the Blink shows, I said that I’d do it as long as they were willing to practise every day.”
― Matt Skiba
“My attraction to the Church of Satan… is the same thing that initially attracted me to punk rock. It was something that wasn’t very entirely popular, and it was sort of like the adversary to mainstream culture and beliefs.”
― Matt Skiba
“The Church of Satan was something, aesthetically, that we were always really fascinated with and wanted to emulate. I think it’s a good look.”
― Matt Skiba
“We’ve had kids come to our shows and ask us why we hate Jesus. It’s like, ‘Well, we don’t hate Jesus at all. We just think religion is silly, and it’s a really popular thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to agree with it.’”
― Matt Skiba
“I went through some pretty rough patches in my life, and I’ve come out of them a stronger, more inspired, and energetic person.”
― Matt Skiba
“The first line of the song is always the hardest thing to write. And then after that, the song should – unless it sucks – it should write itself.”
― Matt Skiba
“The feeling that you want the listener to get, you should get yourself when you first hit that chord, and that melody comes to mind.”
― Matt Skiba
“I don’t personally feel that I’ve lost my fire.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’ve done some stuff with Glenn Danzig before, and while I can’t really say that we’re friends, we’re friendly acquaintances.”
― Matt Skiba
“Rock n’ roll is the Devil’s music.”
― Matt Skiba
“I was a bicycle messenger when Alkaline Trio was formed as a way to make ends meet before the band became a career, and I’ve just always been a cyclist – I BMX’d, and then I got really into – through messengering – I got really into road bikes and fixed gears, which I still have.”
― Matt Skiba
“There is sort of an unspoken ‘no skateboarding’ clause on tour that I break pretty often.”
― Matt Skiba
“At an early age I told myself I would never quit skating; I would never quit riding BMX and being a motorcycle junkie. I just can’t stop doing those things.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think that the more that you play and the more instruments you play and the better you get at them, then you will be better off for it as a guitarist.”
― Matt Skiba
“As a kid, I took piano lessons, and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t cool. I was into Duran Duran and rock music. I didn’t have any interest in piano. I did it for three years, and because of piano, I learned percussion. I learned scales. I learned how to sing. Piano gives you all of the basics of those things.”
― Matt Skiba
“Being a drummer definitely influences how I play guitar. And then piano influences drumming and vice versa.”
― Matt Skiba
“I collect motorcycles and art.”
― Matt Skiba
“Being on Epic, it wasn’t like we got signed to a multi-million-dollar deal.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m thankful for everything good and bad that happened to our band.”
― Matt Skiba
“It’s never been about what we want others to see: it’s about what we want to see; it’s about what we want to do. We only have a career because of our fans, but we have to keep making music for the reason we started making music.”
― Matt Skiba
“The really smart conspiracies are the ones that explain, ‘This is why this is plausible,’ not, ‘This is what happened.’ If it makes sense and if it’s possible, I’d investigate it.”
― Matt Skiba
“For Alkaline Trio, Chicago is our hometown. The band started there. Even though we all live in different cities now, we still call Chicago home, and it’s always really exciting to come back and play for our best crowd.”
― Matt Skiba
“When you’re 20, you think you know a lot more than you do.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m really thankful for the time that I grew up in that we didn’t have cell phones, and we made a lot of our own fun.”
― Matt Skiba
“I consider myself a pagan and a witch.”
― Matt Skiba
“With every inch of my energy, I wanted Fyre not to happen. I put all the electricity and energy in my body against that thing happening.”
― Matt Skiba
“Glasgow is one of my favourite cities.”
― Matt Skiba
“When George W. Bush was up for re-election, we took part in Rock Against Bush.”
― Matt Skiba
“My parents are both war veterans; they met in Vietnam. They were involved in a war that they absolutely disagreed with.”
― Matt Skiba
“There are things about this country that are horrible; there’s things about this country that are beautiful. I’ve been almost everywhere, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather live.”
― Matt Skiba
“I dropped out of arts school because I didn’t wanna stare at a computer all day – I get headaches.”
― Matt Skiba
“I was always a punk rock skate kid from a very young age.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m a bookworm, so I read about a book a month.”
― Matt Skiba
“Fear is sort of like jealousy. It’s an unnecessary emotion.”
― Matt Skiba
“Touring with Blink helped introduce people to Alkaline Trio who otherwise wouldn’t have ever heard of us.”
― Matt Skiba
“It feels really good to be doing Blink justice. Stepping on stage for the first show was pretty crazy. I’ve been skydiving several times, and that’s the closest thing I can compare it to. Such a beautiful rush.”
― Matt Skiba
“I honestly couldn’t have asked for or expected the amount of love and support I’ve received from a large majority of Blink’s fans.”
― Matt Skiba
“To be in touch with death, and the darker side of life, makes the lighter side more enjoyable.”
― Matt Skiba
“I don’t think we’re any more preoccupied by life and death or heaven and hell than anyone else, but it’s fun to write about the inevitable – you’re alive, and you’re going to die.”
― Matt Skiba
“Heaven and hell are something that people create to make some people feel guilty and other people like myself laugh.”
― Matt Skiba
“When we’re on tour, we try to keep our voices sharp. We get up there and put on the best show we can.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m from the MTV generation.”
― Matt Skiba
“I grew up on Michael Jackson, Pat Benetar, and Van Halen – all the things coming out of the television.”
― Matt Skiba
“Death isn’t something that should necessarily be glorified, but I also don’t think it’s something that people need to be afraid of. It’s just the way it is. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
― Matt Skiba
“I like even numbers.”
― Matt Skiba
“I love working with my band-mates in Alkaline Trio, but to make a rock record that was just mine was something that I wanted to do.”
― Matt Skiba
“Creating a record on my own and deciding who plays and how the songs were structured, it was fun to do.”
― Matt Skiba
“Everyone who signed us to Epic, all of the people we trusted there, were let go.”
― Matt Skiba
“There are just as many dirt bags in independent music as there are in major labels.”
― Matt Skiba
“I first heard of Ulver reading the ‘Lords of Chaos’ book.”
― Matt Skiba
“We certainly are proud of our punk-rock heritage, but when people who like other kinds of music are into your band, it’s flattering.”
― Matt Skiba
“I think who I am as a person on and off the stage is always kind of the same thing, but I don’t take a lot of things very seriously.”
― Matt Skiba
“I see kids in Cradle of Filth shirts at our shows, which is awesome.”
― Matt Skiba
“I’m the die-hard that still goes out to buy records.”
― Matt Skiba
“We have this song called ‘Radio,’ and I wrote that song when we needed one more song for a record. So I went back into the other room and wrote it in 20 minutes.”
― Matt Skiba
“I want recording to be fun.”
― Matt Skiba
“Long before punk entered my life, I loved scary films and stories.”
― Matt Skiba
“I grew up on Edgar Allen Poe, and I loved Alfred Hitchcock’s movies.”
― Matt Skiba
“I haven’t eaten an animal in over twenty years!”
― Matt Skiba
“I miss the videos that are short films, back when MTV played videos all day.”
― Matt Skiba
“Meditation has really done wonders for me personally and artistically.”
― Matt Skiba
“We have the best fans in the world. A lot of artists say that, but in this case, it’s actually fact.”
― Matt Skiba
“Making your band your career just seems like a pipe dream when it’s not happening, and when it does, it seems so surreal.”
― Matt Skiba
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