With his gracious exit from Blink-182 to make way for Tom DeLonge's return, Matt Skiba has been especially vocal in recent weeks — and as such, recently landed a tell-all with Vulture where he shared some hidden tidbits about the band, and more presciently, the emo-nostalgia-romp that is this weekend's inaugural When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas.
According to Skiba, the event is something of a "Fyre Festival kind of stunt that worked," organized by the "Lex Luther of promoters" who didn't bother to get the okay from bands on the lineup before advertising the bill.
"Whether I'm supposed to, or not supposed to say anything, I guess, is immaterial," he told Vulture's Justin Curto. "It makes the conversation more fun. But that festival — initially, they announced all those bands playing before anybody said yes."
He continued:
It was a Fyre Festival kind of stunt that worked. And I only know that because my band was on that initial flyer, with every other band from our whole ilk. And they almost expertly started advertising it before they had a single band on the bill. And somehow, all the bands agreed to do it. I'm not making this up. Somebody may correct me, but I know that Alkaline Trio, we hadn't confirmed anything. And when we read that, we called other bands that were playing, and nobody knew about it.
The interviewer went on to suggest that we may have witnessed a lemmings-over-a-cliff scenario, in that bands saw their contemporaries signing on to the bill and saw that as a sign to join, to which Skiba responded:
If that's an accident or a fluke, then it's like two particles of sand meeting each other in space. It had to have been planned. And they weren't wrong. Whoever did that, I'm not even mad. You took a shit in the fridge and ate the whole wheel of cheese? I'm not even mad. It's like, holy shit, dude. Congratulations to whoever masterminded that, the Lex Luther of promoters. And I think everybody, including us, is really pumped about it. It's going to be a great time.
Whether or not the festival goes the way of Fyre will be determined this weekend (October 22 and 23), when the Trio, alongside My Chemical Romance, Paramore, the Used, AFI, Avril Lavigne and many others, are due to descend on Las Vegas Festival Grounds for the first round of festivities. The bands will return on October 29 for Day 3 of the fest, which has already confirmed plans for its 2023 edition.
According to Skiba, the event is something of a "Fyre Festival kind of stunt that worked," organized by the "Lex Luther of promoters" who didn't bother to get the okay from bands on the lineup before advertising the bill.
"Whether I'm supposed to, or not supposed to say anything, I guess, is immaterial," he told Vulture's Justin Curto. "It makes the conversation more fun. But that festival — initially, they announced all those bands playing before anybody said yes."
He continued:
It was a Fyre Festival kind of stunt that worked. And I only know that because my band was on that initial flyer, with every other band from our whole ilk. And they almost expertly started advertising it before they had a single band on the bill. And somehow, all the bands agreed to do it. I'm not making this up. Somebody may correct me, but I know that Alkaline Trio, we hadn't confirmed anything. And when we read that, we called other bands that were playing, and nobody knew about it.
The interviewer went on to suggest that we may have witnessed a lemmings-over-a-cliff scenario, in that bands saw their contemporaries signing on to the bill and saw that as a sign to join, to which Skiba responded:
If that's an accident or a fluke, then it's like two particles of sand meeting each other in space. It had to have been planned. And they weren't wrong. Whoever did that, I'm not even mad. You took a shit in the fridge and ate the whole wheel of cheese? I'm not even mad. It's like, holy shit, dude. Congratulations to whoever masterminded that, the Lex Luther of promoters. And I think everybody, including us, is really pumped about it. It's going to be a great time.
Whether or not the festival goes the way of Fyre will be determined this weekend (October 22 and 23), when the Trio, alongside My Chemical Romance, Paramore, the Used, AFI, Avril Lavigne and many others, are due to descend on Las Vegas Festival Grounds for the first round of festivities. The bands will return on October 29 for Day 3 of the fest, which has already confirmed plans for its 2023 edition.
