Alkaline Trio and NOFX will be performing a quartet of UK shows together this summer. The bands will make stops in Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds and London, and Gigwise predicts that one or both will play a set at Sonisphere 2015.
Frontman Matt Skiba sat down with the Chicagoist this past fall to discuss life on the road and the album creation process. Answering a question about whether the band caters their new music to a live audience or a new generation of fans, he responded:
"We initially did it just for ourselves. We didn't think anyone else was going to hear it so that's what we still have to do. Of course, now that we have our fans in mind, we don't want to make something that just doesn't make any sense. The band has its sound.
"But we're all into a bunch of different kinds of music and could very easily go out to left field. I don't think that people would appreciate that though. We do it for ourselves but it's gotten to the point that we do it with the fans in mind for sure."
The group caught flak in the mid to late 2000s after bands such as Green Day and My Chemical Romance began ripping off Alkaine's black color scheme at shows. Becaust AT wasn't as popular, punk fans assumed that Skiba and co. were stealing the look.
"Of course, since we're not, I guess, as popular or whatever and we're not as much of a household name as those bands, it would appear that we're ripping them off," Skiba said. "Billie Joe [Armstrong, Green Day] and Gerard [Way, My Chemical Romance] have always been supportive of our band in the press and have admitted that their look has been influenced by us-which is rad-but I just think that everything has a shelf life. It's flattering but it was something we were doing for awhile and then other people started doing it so we kind of let them have it."
Here are the official dates (with tickets available beginning Fri., Jan. 9.)
06/27 - Birmingham, UK @ O2 Academy Birmingham
06/30 - Newcastle, UK @ O2 Academy Newcastle
07/03 - Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy Leeds
07/04 - London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
Happy New Year and we'll be seeing our friends in the UK + US very soon! pic.twitter.com/hQuSebmsZ9
— Alkaline Trio (@Alkaline_Trio) January 2, 2015
