We caught up with Dan Adriano from Alkaline Trio for a quick chat at the Birmingham Academy before the band took to the stage for the last show of there 2005 UK tour.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions…
So, this is the last night of your UK tour… has it all gone well?
Yeah, it’s been amazing. We love coming over here, like every show has been sold out. It’s been crazy! It’s been good.

How did it feel to have sold out all those huge venues?
It feels good. Yeah! It’s pretty amazing. Last time we were here, we were playing in a room over there [points towards small auditorium], it’s like, a lot smaller than this room. So it’s crazy to be back in this place!

We heard a couple of items got stolen. What happened there?
We were playing at a cafeteria at a University in Leeds and someone walked into our dressing room and stole a bunch of our shit. A computer, jacket, iPod. Stole a bunch of shit from Sunshine as well. That really sucks. People suck.

Now, you released ‘Crimson’ back in May and there will be a special edition released pretty soon with some videos and demos. Were you expecting to get such an awesome response to this album, as many people are saying it’s the best album you’ve ever made?
Um, that’s really nice of people. We just, kind of do whatever comes naturally and hope that it goes well, you know what I mean? We felt good about the fact that, we all feel like we made the best record that we could have made. That’s pretty much the first time any of us had felt that way, so… At that point we were ready for anything anybody was going to say, you know what I mean? We’re glad that people liked it, but I think if people rejected the album, or weren’t too into it, I think we were all at a pretty happy point with it, regardless. We made an album we really wanted to make and that’s pretty much all you can do. The rest is really great to hear. We were happy with it.

There were a lot of different subjects touched upon in ‘Crimson’. Subjects such as Sadie Mae Glutz and the West Memphis Three. What made you want to write songs about those two subjects?
Well, those are pretty much, well at least ‘Sadie’ in a way, is pretty much a “Matt” song. I’ve never read Helter Skelter, it was a book that he was pretty moved by. We’re always fans of trying to look at all the angles of a situation before making an assessment of it. I think the song was just, ‘Sadie’ was inspired by, kind of questioning what might have happened to this poor girl, to make her want to go out to the desert and hang out with Charles Manson. You know what I mean? Kind of let herself be brainwashed basically, by this man, into becoming a murderer. She wasn’t born like that. It’s interesting to think about what makes people do things and what has affected people along the way to make them do the things they do. The West Memphis Three, that’s a terrible situation that we all feel pretty strongly about. I think it was cool of Matt to write a tune about it. You guys are familiar with the situation…

We know that you actively support the West Memphis Three, (as you just mentioned and) because of the track ‘Prevent This Tragedy’. This song has got people interested in the case. How does it feel to have helped out such a good cause?
It doesn’t really matter how I feel. It wasn’t anything about us, I mean, I would hope we raise awareness, that’s all we can try and do. The most important thing is for people to get that case re-opened and have things go a little better for the young men.

What is your favourite track on Crimson to play live?
[Nolan comes over with a hot drink for Dan] Thanks, dude, you’re a prince! [Smells the drink] Ah peppermint! [Laughs] Um, my favourite song… from Crimson, to play live… Um, I don’t know! It’s always changing. Probably… I really like ‘Dethbed’. That’s been a lot of fun to play. We just started playing it recently. That’s a fun one to play.

How about a song from any other albums?
I don’t know. That’s a hard question. You know it’s like asking me to pick a favourite kid, or something!? [I’m sorry!] You don’t play favourites. Yeah, I know it’s hard to say… I still like playing ‘Crawl’ a lot. That’s a good one to play.

You don’t often play Stupid Kid live. From previous interviews, we know that you’d prefer to play something else, but why, since it’s so popular?
I don’t really know. We weren’t necessarily that happy with the way the song turned out in the studio. There was a time where that song wasn’t even intended to be on the album, but some people that we work with who really thought it would be a good idea to have that song on the album; they thought it could possibly be a single. We were like; “nah!”. Obviously we liked the song, we wrote it, it really wasn’t fitting on the album as we had envisioned it in it’s entirety, but I think we ended up finding a good place for it on the record. A lot of people reacted well to the song. We play it live. When we do play it live, we do a couple of things differently in the song, a couple of things we would have done in the studio had we tried to nurture the song a little bit more. It’s just a lot of songs, and we want to play the songs that make us have the most fun, and then if we’re having the most fun we feel like the show is better for everybody.

A couple of months back, you played the Reading and Leeds Festivals. What was is like playing in front of such a huge crowd, since you played in the Concrete Jungle Tent the last time you were there?
That was crazy! It was fucking nuts! It felt really awesome too, to play in front of that many people. It was mind blowing. It was surreal in a way, but later that night I went to the Radio One tent to watch Bloc Party, they played last, and there was still the same amount of people, like ten thousand people watching. And it was fucking, hot, sweaty, it felt like a club. That was fun. Was awesome. The different vibes. I mean, it was amazing playing in front of 40,000 people on the Main Stage, but those tents! We had just as much fun when we played in the Concrete Jungle stages in one of those tents. You can’t really beat that kind of atmosphere. It’s fucking hot and you’re dancing and it’s tight. That was one of the best shows I saw this year, that Bloc Party show

A lot of people couldn’t actually get into the tent last time you played at Reading. I remember trying to get in, and failing, because there were people standing about 10 metres outside the tent listening. What do you think makes you such a popular band?
I don’t know. It’s the songs, I hope. People want to hear the songs. That’s why we write them. That’s really nice of you to say.

You have some really hardcore fans. Most have the heart skull tattoo somewhere on their body. Why do you think this is such a popular tattoo choice?
I think it’s a cool design first of all. It’s very identifiable. It doesn’t have any letters or words, so you might have to explain. It is what it is. It’s a cool symbol.

You have a fan club called The Blood Pact. What made you want to set that up, and how many members do you currently have?
I don’t know how many members there are, I feel bad like I should know. There’s quite a few. The reason why we wanted to set it us was, we know, we realise there’s quite a lot of people out there that are into our band, but there are a lot of people that make this connection with us. We have very dedicated fans and they write on message boards and we think that’s awesome. It’s hard for us, every night after the shows to want to come out and we try to do the best we can. So we wanted to set up something for the really dedicated fans. Like today, we’re going to sound check, half way through, once we get everything sorted on stage and it’s better than shitty, then people will be able to come in, that signed up for the meet and greet, and they can check out the sound check. We like to come and say hello and meet the people that appreciate what we do, because we really appreciate them. It doesn’t go unnoticed that we have the best fans in the World. That’s what’s kept us doing this for almost ten years.

How could someone go about joining The Blood Pact?
I guess you could go to blood hyphen pact dot com. [www.blood-pact.com]

What are some of your favourite gifts you have received from your fans and do you keep them all?
We keep them so long as they don’t get broken or anything like that, or unless they get eaten. We get a lot of snacks from people on the road. That’s awesome. Matt got a gift on our last tour, on one of the last days. It was this kick ass clock, that someone made out of the Godammit CD. It’s so crazy ‘cause it’s so ornate, it’s like on a tomb stone and it’s a clock and it actually works! There’s all these little headstones and it’s this weird little model. It’s really well made. It looks like someone’s spent a lot of time on it. Something I couldn’t do in a hundred hours!

What is the strangest request you’ve ever had from a fan?
Um, I don’t know.. That’s weird! I’m not really sure! Yeah! I can’t think of anything.

What do you usually get up to on the tour bus in between shows?
Watch movies. We usually watch a movie every night. This tour we’ve been watching some scary movies. Trying to think. Some funny shit too. We watched Devil’s Rejects which is the Rob Zombie movie, which is fucking awesome. A movie called Old Boy; it’s a Korean movie. That’s really awesome! [Yeah we’ve seen that… it’s twisted!] It’s amazing, fucking weird!

If you could live in someone’s shoes (dead or alive) for one day only, who would it be and why?
Oh! That’s crazy! Um! I don’t know! Michael Jordan? I would be Michael Jordan maybe! I don’t know! We’ll say Michael Jordan for now and if I come up with anything later, I’ll phone you!

What message would you like to give to all the fans reading now?
I would just love to say thanks for checking us out and being supportive!

Thank you!
No problem!