Andy had a few words with Alkaline Trio at Reading on Saturday.
PT: Welcome back to Reading guys, how is the weekend going so far for you all?
Matt Skiba: It’s good, we just got here. So far, so good! It’s going to be nice to see old friends. I love Reading, it’s very noisy and it’s a lot of fun!.
PT: Who are you most looking forward to seeing this weekend?
Dan Adriano: I’ve never seen Gallows before but I love their record, so I’m looking forward to them. We’re really good friends with the guys from Thrice so we’ll be watching them too.
PT: This is the fourth time you’ve played the festivals I believe. What are your best memories of being here?
Matt Skiba: We played one year with Echo and the Bunnymen and Billy Bragg and we got to meet some of our heroes so that was awesome.
Derek Grant: Last time we played here we got to play with Turbonegro too, and we’re all big fans of them too.
PT: You’ve played both the Main Stage and in the tents in past years. Which do you prefer to play and why?
Derek Grant: It’s an honour to be on the Main Stage but there’s so much more intimacy back there in the Lock Up Tent. We feel more at home there. It’s more like a really big club show!
PT: Are you airing a lot of tracks off the new record live at the moment?
Matt Skiba: We haven’t really talked about what we’re going to play this evening, but on the tour that we’ve been doing, we play about 4 or 5 new songs.
PT: What are your favourite tracks from ‘Agony and Irony’?
Dan Adriano: I really do like them all. When we wrote the record, we tried to write it as an album as opposed to a bunch of disjointed songs. On the other hand, when we play, I’m still really enjoying playing ‘Calling All Skeletons’.
PT: You’ve hinted before that ‘Help Me’ is based on Joy Division frontman, Ian Curtis. What can you tell me about that?
We’re big Joy Division fans. Ian Curtis inspired it and it’s kind of an ode to him. At the same time, it’s also inspired by people like Kurt Cobain and Joey Ramone who were heroes of ours that are no longer with us, although their voices are still carried through their music.