Photo: WENN
Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba made his first appearance alongside Blink-182 last week, following the departure of Tom DeLonge. Speaking of the LA gig, Travis Barker said, "It went off just like I thought it would."
The band parted acrimoniously with DeLonge earlier this year, and there followed a series of passive-aggressive public statements and interviews. On Wednesday though, the band looked to the future as they were joined for the first time by Matt Skiba.
Speaking to Billboard of the gig, which took place at the Roxy in LA, Barker said, "Oh, it was so fun 'cause you're in a practice room for four weeks and I know how dope it sounds and I know how good the vibe is going, but no one else does. So it's finally like, 'Okay, we've heard Trav talk about it, we've heard Mark talk about it, we just witnessed it.' Fans pretty much feel the same way.
"In San Diego during our encore, kids were chanting 'Skiba, Skiba.' It was awesome. I'm glad we did them too because this is a lot of people just to walk out in front of for the first time."
Watch Blink-182 and Matt Skiba perform 'Reckless Abandon' below
He continued, "It went off just like I thought it would. It was definitely a great feeling to see what I was feeling was reassured by the crowd response and by feedback via the Internet and social media."
You don't need to worry too much about Tom DeLonge during all this by the way - he's just announced that he'll be publishing no less than 15 novels with accompanying EP soundtracks, as well as releasing a solo album To The Stars.That should keep him busy.
As for the band's future, Barker admitted, "We don't know -- there are talks of all sorts of things. There's talk of maybe recording an album, there are talks of doing a tour with A Day To Remember, so we'll see what happens." Read Barker's full interview with Billboard here.
