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job is to show people a good time . We ' re already having a good time . We ' re doing something we would do in the shadows with nobody watching . Luckily , that ' s not the case ; it ' s become a “ career ” now . It ’ s all about fun . Even if something is sad or disturbing , or tragic , it can still be fun . It can be something that people sing along and dance to .
IE : That darkness can be a unifying force for people . It ’ s something they can relate to . And speaking of darkness , it ’ s all over this record . We get into some really grim , gritty stuff ; you get it right from the album title , which you said you kind of took from your mom from her days of working in an ER during Vietnam . And you kick things off with the lead single , “ Bad Time ,” which references the phone call you took while there was an active shooter in the area . MS : Well , “ Bad Time ” was one of the songs I wrote while I was still in blink . The other was “ Broken Down in a Time Machine .” Those were
had nothing to do with . Some of them were very personal ; some were world-changing events . And that was one of them . I don ' t want to go through each song and tell you what they ' re all about , but that ' s how it works . It ' s just an accumulation of inspiration , however horrible it is . And however inspiring it is . That phone call was hugely inspiring . The love , strength , and courage in that woman ' s voice were very powerful . It wasn ' t just tragic . It was very moving .
IE : That ’ s some heavy shit . Yet , you were still able to pull something out of that . You found it empowering , which is hard because you hear something like that , and you just think of the horrible aftermath . MS : Yeah , it ' s all about life and that person ' s voice before it ' s erased , but the recording lived on . It definitely touched me somewhere very deeply . Like anybody who remembers that day – it ' s like when I would hear our parents talking about the JFK assassination , and this is obviously 3000 times worse . Not to compare our country ' s tragedies , but it was just one of those things that changed everything more so than the JFK assassination . It ' s yeah , it ' s something I think about daily . Those are things that inspired me that I just
22 illinoisentertainer . com february 2024 the last two songs we recorded for the album because we wanted to do something entirely new . I wrote “ Bad Time ” because of that day and the impact it had on me in realizing even when there ' s an active shooter and bullets flying , I still want to hear this girl ' s voice . So , you know , I didn ' t have the complete song written , but I had a journal . I was writing about that day and wrote down some little anecdotes and side notes that later became the lyrics for the song . But we ’ re always writing . Anytime I have an idea , I pick up a guitar . I didn ' t know if it was an Alkaline Trio song or if it was something else .
IE : How about the other songs on the album ? Where were you pulling inspiration from when it came to writing the rest of the album ? MS : Memory and from journal entries . Each song is about something specific ; each song is about something different . So , it ' s case sensitive to the song , like where I was and what I had written . It all came from ideas we were building . I was really inspired by this documentary series I saw called Turning Point about the 9 / 11 attacks . Things in that docuseries definitely made their way into the lyrics , at least my perceptions of them . There ' s a song in particular called “ Meet Me ,” the second song on the record , that was inspired by a call I heard on the 9 / 11 attack tapes where somebody was calling a loved one and saying goodbye before the plane hit the tower . That voice recording inspired the song . So , each song is about different things and occurrences I
happened to be listening to . The non-personal aspects of how world events have shaped us are definitely all over the world all over the record .
IE : You ’ re someone who isn ’ t afraid to get personal in your songs . You ’ ve written about your difficult moments and struggles . Thinking about those songs and where you are now in your life , do you find it challenging to access that part of your brain when it comes to writing songs ? MS : It isn ' t . I mean , it ’ s the only thing I know . Songwriting is easy . Writing a good song is hard , but writing songs , just write them until they ' re good . You flesh out the idea and then tailor it to fit whatever it is you ' re building and whatever kind of song it is . And that ' s a great deal of fun . It ' s challenging , but it ' s a blast . I ' m not really having fun unless I ' m being challenged .
IE : You spent the past seven years filling in for Tom DeLonge in blink-182 . You even made two albums with them , 2016 ’ s California and 2019 ’ s Nine . Was there anything you learned or took away from your time in blink that you brought over to Alkaline Trio ? MS : Yeah , the way we went about recording was the way blink recorded the two records I did with them . We almost had a whole other record of songs . We wrote a whole record when COVID was happening . We started to anyway , it was right before COVID happened , but we were doing it from separate studios . Who knows if continues on page 30