You've been playing a hectic tour across the UK. How’s it been going? It’s been going great. We're just excited to be back over here playing cities like Norwich here. And I think we're covering everything, you know. Or at least close to everything. We were in Nottingham, Leeds, Southampton, London, Scotland. At Brixton, you were supported by Test Icicles. I take it that wasn’t your decision? Uh, no. We just heard that they added a band to the show. Were you happy about it? They were practically booed off stage. I mean, I guess that's what I heard. But while they were playing I was getting ready for our show and I’m not really… I met them, and they all seem like really nice people. And so, I don’t know. We heard that this band got added to the show, that they were really big in London and maybe they’re just really big with different people. Why did you decide to re-release Crimson with a second CD of demos and acoustic tracks? We wanted to do some kind of deluxe edition or whatever. It’s something we’ve never really done with a record and there were a lot of different versions of the songs and as the album was becoming a record and nearing completion we realised that we did more pre-production and more re-arranging of the songs for this album than we ever did before. So we talked, even a year ago, about doing some kind of thing where we put out all the demos and then it came down to, I think, a pretty cool decision to put the whole record in order, with either a demo or an acoustic version. Wasn’t there a bit of trouble with some demos being leaked on the internet before the album came out? Your voice has changed dramatically from the raw vocals on Godamnit into a Costello-esque croon. Have you had vocal training? Yeah. That shit always happens. Somebody got their hands on them and put them up. But they weren’t all out there, there's some different versions right now. Your voice has changed dramatically from the raw vocals on Godamnit into a Costello-esque croon. Have you had vocal training?  | | Dan shows off his changing voice |
No, but I’ve always been conscious of it. I never really cared for the way my voice sounded, so I think I was always just trying to find a comfortable range and write songs that I’m comfortable singing and I’ll deal with the way my voice sounds. And over the years it’s gotten a little less offensive. Both you and Matt have written and released solo material. Is your approach to writing it different from the process of penning Trio songs? Not really. I never really set out to write a certain kind of song. I just write whatever and there happened to be a time when there was a lot of spare time from the band and I had a few songs I’d written that came out fairly easily and I really liked the songs. I just didn’t ever see them becoming Alkaline Trio songs. It seems Alkaline Trio are much happier than they used to be. Your songs, in particular, are filled with much more hope than they ever used to be. How does that happiness affect your songwriting? Being the kind of writers that I think both Matt and myself are – fairly introspective, you know, we generally tend to write about ourselves or relationships we’re in, whether they’re with family or a significant other, friends, whatever. We generally tend to write about things like that, so obviously it might change the kind of mood of the stuff a little bit here or there, but I think that we're still very capable and unfortunately there’s still a whole lot of subject matter out there that we can tackle. Because all the songs, they weren’t necessarily always about girlfriends or wives or whatever in the first place. It was always more of a metaphor. I think what a lot of people don’t understand about our songs is that, like, writing about a relationship is the easiest metaphor for something else that you can write about, so that’s kind of always where we took that angle. That said, it’s a lot easier to be inspired and write when you’re heartbroken and suffering, right? Unfortunately, yeah. That kind of situation lends itself to a creative… it becomes almost a creative goldmine, but it's not necessarily fun, you know what I mean? It kind of enables you to have a lot of shit to write down and you’re thinking about a lot of stuff, but it’s never a good time and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I never want to go through that kind of shit again. But I don’t feel any less inspired. It’s kind of like what I was saying before – there’s still all sorts of… if I wanted to keep writing about stuff that, in a way, makes me unhappy or stay fairly cathartic within what I do, there are still worlds of subject matter out there that I could be tackling. All three of you live far away from each other. Does that make things difficult? No, we actually do pretty well with that. It’s very much more important for us to stress the quality of life that we live, and it’s important for us, when we’re not on tour or working or whatever, that we’re all as happy as we can be. Matt’s obviously happier in California, and Derek’s in Indianapolis, and I don’t really want to leave Chicago until I’m dragged, kicking and screaming. How has the experience of touring changed over the years? It’s far more enjoyable to be on the road. We're playing decent places, we bring all the crew, and they're all friends of ours and family and they help us out. So all these convenience factors make it way easier, but at the same time it’s harder to be on the road because I get homesick. You're not planning to give it up and settle down just yet, are you? No. This is still what I love. This is what I wanted to do when I was a kid. This is what I love doing, what I’ve loved doing for the past 12 or 13 years of my life with various different bands, and I don’t think I’m ever not going to want to go out and play shows. It just gets a little harder and it takes a little more dedication on my part. It used to be easy. It used to be all there was. And that was great. Four or five years ago I would tell you that I would be on tour every day of every year and it would not bother me, because I love it. I love playing shows. But now, a huge part of me wants to be home and it’s funny how that balance has shifted. Photo credits: Anthony Reed. | 
