Matt Skiba talked with NME about Alkaline Trio and Blink-182:

While ‘Is This Thing Cursed?’ was written about “having such a disgraceful thing in The White House”, Skiba said that he was at least thankful that it felt like “Trump against the world, not Trump’s America. The whole world realised that by-and-large, most Americans were not pleased that that thing was president.”

He continued: “I’m not writing about the Biden Administration. He might be half-drunk and sleep through almost everything but at least he’s not stoking the flames of hatred and division. There’s always a girl to write about though.”

As for the sound of the new material, Skiba said: “Recently started to take inspiration from The Strokes.

“There’s a lot of really cool stuff on that latest record (2020’s ‘The New Abnormal’) and when I’m just tinkering around the guitar, I catch myself referencing it. There’s some mid-tempo songs that may or may not be on the new Trio record that were definitely inspired by The Strokes.”

And, regarding writing for Blink:

“In the beginning, I would come in with song ideas but we all soon realised they just sounded like Alkaline Trio songs,” he said. “It’s my songwriting, so of course it was going to sound like Trio. Occasionally, I’ll now come in with a guitar part or a bunch of lyrics but never a complete idea. Songs become Blink when it’s the three of us writing together.”