Alkaline Trio

A basement band from December 1996

Alkaline Trio started in Chicago in December 1996 as a three-piece built around Matt Skiba on guitar and vocals, with Rob Doran on bass and Glenn Porter on drums. Doran lasted less than a year; when he left in 1997 the bass and the second voice went to Dan Andriano, and that pairing — Skiba's sharper, more theatrical writing against Andriano's plainer melodic instinct — has been the constant ever since. Everything else about the band has been replaceable.

The early records came out on Asian Man, the California label run by Mike Park: Goddamnit in 1998 and Maybe I'll Catch Fire in 2000. They were cheap, fast and recognisably Chicago, and they established the band's habit of writing about drink, death and bad decisions with enough tunefulness that the songs travelled well beyond the scene that produced them.

Ten albums, four labels

The move to Vagrant Records produced the run most listeners know: From Here to Infirmary in 2001, Good Mourning in 2003 and Crimson in 2005. Agony & Irony followed on Epic in 2008, the band's only major-label album, before they settled at Epitaph — This Addiction in 2010 through the Heart & Skull imprint, My Shame Is True in 2013 and Is This Thing Cursed? in 2018.

Then nothing for nearly six years, the longest gap of their career. Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs arrived on 26 January 2024 through Rise Records, recorded at Studio 606 in Los Angeles with Cameron Webb producing, as he had on Is This Thing Cursed?. Three singles set it up: the title track on 17 October 2023, 'Bad Time' on 30 November and 'Versions of You' on 5 January 2024.

It did better with critics than with the charts. Metacritic aggregated eight reviews to a score of 81 out of 100; AllMusic and Kerrang! both gave it four stars out of five. It reached number 188 on the Billboard 200 and number 64 on the UK albums chart, though it hit number three on the UK rock and metal chart. For a band a quarter of a century into its career on an independent label, that is roughly where the ceiling sits.

The drum stool nobody can keep

Derek Grant played drums for twenty-two years before announcing in June 2023 that he was leaving, citing mental health and a wish to concentrate on production and graphic design. His exit was announced before the tenth album was, which made Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs a closing chapter and an opening one at once.

Atom Willard, whose CV runs through Rocket from the Crypt, The Offspring and Angels & Airwaves, was named as the replacement the same month. He lasted under three years. On 2 February 2026 he posted that he had parted ways with the band — 'Thanks to everyone who made my time there so awesome, very thankful for the experience' — and said he would weigh up touring, collaboration and studio work before deciding what came next.

In March 2026 the band announced Tosh Peterson as the new drummer. Peterson is Lady Gaga's live drummer and has played with Fall Out Boy, Machine Gun Kelly and Troye Sivan — a session player's résumé rather than a punk lifer's, which is a change of type for a band that had one drummer for two decades.

Three singles instead of an eleventh album

Rather than follow the album with another album, the band spent 2025 releasing standalone songs produced by Travis Barker: 'Oblivion' in July, 'Bleeding Out' in September and 'Surprise Surprise' on 1 November, all through Rise Records. They were the first studio sessions with the Skiba, Andriano and Willard line-up.

Skiba said 'Surprise Surprise' was written for a friend who 'grew up poor and entrenched in gang life only to become a Navy SEAL and eventually an astronaut', and described it as more of a studio creation than the two songs before it, with the bridge built during the sessions. Barker's own account was shorter: 'Recording with Alkaline Trio was such a treat. The studio never feels like work, just a magical place to create.'

Releasing three songs and stopping is a reasonable way for a band of this vintage to work — it keeps material in circulation without committing to an album cycle — but it also means the current line-up has no full-length of its own to tour behind.

July 2026: the tour that ended before Birmingham

The year was planned properly. On 17 March 2026, Rise Against announced a US tour running 22 September to 23 October with Alkaline Trio supporting, opening at South Side Ballroom in Dallas, framed by both camps as a reunion of two bands out of the same Chicago basements. On 1 April, European headline dates were announced: Stuttgart, Berlin and Hamburg at the end of June, then Birmingham, London, Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester across the first week of July, with a headline slot at 2000trees in Gloucestershire on 9 July.

The German shows happened. The English ones did not. Hours before the band were due on stage at the O2 Institute in Birmingham on 3 July, they cancelled the remaining dates and the festival headline: 'We are immensely sorry, but we must cancel our dates in England… due to medical issues Matt has been suffering from that have worsened.' Skiba, they said, needed treating in the United States as soon as possible, and the band would 'be back healthier and stronger'.

Skiba, 50, had been injured in a motorcycle accident before flying to Europe. He said he had lost feeling in his hands and feet and was struggling with his voice. On 10 July he posted an update alongside a photograph of a B12 injection, saying doctors were investigating a possible blood disorder 'as rare as it is treatable', that he was 'getting loads of tests done and staying positive', and that his doctor expected him to heal quickly. No diagnosis has been made public since.

Where they stand in September 2026

The recovery held. Alkaline Trio returned to a stage on 22 August 2026 at the Vans Stage at Parc Jean-Drapeau for Warped Tour's Montreal date, playing a festival-length set with Peterson behind the kit.

From there the autumn is dense. Warped Tour reaches Mexico City on 12 and 13 September, followed by Louder Than Life in Louisville on 17 September and Riot Fest in their home city on the weekend of 18 September, with a headline show of their own at Metro in Chicago on 19 September — the club where the band has played more often than anywhere else. The Rise Against support run then picks up from 26 September into October, taking in Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison and The Masonic in San Francisco. Twenty-six dates are currently on the books, all of them in North America.

No UK make-up dates have been announced. Until they are, the cancelled week in July remains the unfinished piece of the year.