I have always been a huge fan of podcasts, I have listened to podcasts as far back at 2008 I think it was although I never really listened to them until a few years later. My first real introduction to the world of podcasts was when I was in my last year of university and had to spend hours in the classroom with two of my friends working on our coursework into the very early hours of the morning. It would just be the three of us, myself, Matt and Tom and whilst we were working, the podcasts of The Ricky Gervais show was blasting out into the room. It was in the moment I realised that podcasts can create so much comedy and can really sort of act like a ‘best friend.’ It also sort of created a special bonding moment between the three of us and I am still very much close friends with them today.

Over the years, I have learnt that podcasts can really be so much more then the ‘laugh’ and whilst I do listen to a lot of podcasts to help get me through the tough days, the good days and the times I have to work through the night, I also have found that it can be so much more.

Over the years, the idea of what a podcast is has obviously developed, especially with the pandemic and so many more have arisen and so much more content is now available and in a saturated market it can be hard to find really good shows. I have learnt that sometimes episodes of certain podcasts can really have an effect and over time I have shown my appreciation for these episodes on my social media channels.

I have previously spoken about the podcast episode that inspired me to start writing this feature, and you can read more about it here. This week we are talking about a podcast that I found incredibly fascinating about music.

Podcast Episodes That Changed My Life –
Episode: Matt Skiba
Podcast: One Life One Chance

Music has always been a huge part of my life, I always remember it being there and some of my earliest memories are based around music from the ages three and up. I have always had headphones in my ears and since getting my first personal cassette player when I was a kid, I have constantly allowed music to be always in my life and be there for me whatever happens. I think music has been there sometimes even more then friends have. Music has always allowed me to develop inspirations, help express emotions and just get lost in stereo!

Music is very personal to me and when I start to like a band or a musician I will listen to them a lot as some become a sort of comfort blanket. When I was a kid and into pop music (before I discovered rock) it was bands like Blue and 5ive that I would listen to on repeat when I was travelling or going to bed. When I discovered rock music bands Blink-182 became my ultimate comfort blanket and I would listen to their music on repeat none stop. I would record their music off the radio, I would get SO excited when it was pocket money day so I could buy another album of theirs ( I only bought Simple Plans debut album because Mark Hoppus featured on a track….I had never heard any of their music but I wanted that Mark Hoppus track and luckily the album was amazing.)

As time goes by and as situations change, we end up finding ‘new’ comfort blanket bands or musicians that you will listen to on repeat none stop to get you through the good, the bad and everything else in between. Two of my newer ‘comfort blanket’ bands / musicians ended up that way in very different reasons. It was 2019 and I was lining up for a Yungblud gig (before he was known and I just went so I had something to before a night shift at work) and the fans in the crowd were telling me about how amazing Waterparks were live the week before. I ended up listening to them on Sportify and ended up really liking their unique sound and their music got me through lockdown. The second musician is a bit of a long story so let’s start it in a new paragraph.

I used to be an avid buyer of Kerrang! Magazine when I was a kid and the great thing about the early noughties is that you used to get free CDs ever so often – this is how I discovered the band Alkaline Trio. Time To Waste was the first track of one of the albums and I really liked it. I loved the piano melody at the beginning and became and instant fan of the song.

“…this episode is so fantastic is because it is so raw and it feels like a conversation between two friends – which actually is basically what it is...”

I don’t know whether it was due to lack of internet, life or just not finding the time to, I never made the effort to listen to anymore of their music. They were always one of those bands that I would think ‘one day I will make the effort to listen to them’ but never did.

Let’s jump forward to the whole Blink-182 line up change. Tom Delonge has been a hero of mine since I was a kid, I don’t know why but I have always been addicted to any music that he has released and I taught myself guitar by learning his tabs. When he left Blink I followed my fandom over to Angels and Airwaves (and then had a HUGE inner fight with myself because I ended up loving +44 a lot more ( I wish there was more then one album) .

Then he returned to Blink….which even though it gave me an opportunity to finally see them live (we missed out in 2004 as it sold out), it also meant that deep down, I felt they should of just left it alone because the album Neighbourhoods sounded like an AVA album with +44 fighting against it. I knew they were going to break up again, it felt like it just wasn’t working. Saying that I loved the concert it was pretty spectacular.

We are now going to move onto the next part o the Blink saga and the part that is relevant to my second ‘comfort blanket’ musician. When Matt Skiba joined Blink-182 I was not happy because it felt weird having a member that was not Tom. As soon as I heard Bored To Death I loved it but then I couldn’t click with the rest of the California album, I wanted to but I just wasn’t a fan until the extended version came out and there was harder tracks such as 6/8 that I instantly loved.

Saying that I was incredibly excited to hear the second album because if that was the sort of music that was on the extended cut I was intrigued to see what was going to be on the new album Nine. Cut a long story short, Nine blew me away, I ended up getting to meet Matt at work and he was such a nice person and that night at their small concert he recognised me and gave me his plectrum he played the whole show with.

I loved Nine because it FINALLY felt like an album where Matt’s musical influences were allowed to come through where as I felt California was trying to be an album that Tom could of been a part of. I found myself addicted to the album and I wanted more Matt.

So I listened to all Alkaline Trios albums and even discovered bands like Matt Skiba and The Sekrets, Heavens (highly underrated), theHELL, collaborations with artists like Andy Black and more recently the new band Lektron. I just found that the songwriting talents and music production and voice of Skiba was so good that it instantly became a sort of comfort blanket that I listen to none stop when I travel for work (I have a playlist called Matt Skiba Mix and another one called Alkaline Trio Acoustic I listen to a hell of a lot), when I am tired (Angel of Deaf and Leave are two of my faves when I sleep) or even when I want to feel inspired ( Remember To Forget Me has an amazing ending, Voices is just so uplifting). It has got me through a lot.

Now let’s talk about the podcast One Life One Chance With Toby Morse. I initially came across this podcast by accident and it was not because of this Matt Skiba episode, instead I think I was looking for something new to listen to and ended up skimming from the beginning episodes to see who I would find interesting to listen to. Since I was a fan of bands like Rancid and The Transplants, I thought it would be fun to listen to Tim Armstrong and then I followed that up with skater Steve Caballero (who I used to play as on Tony Hawks ever so often when I was a kid) I then came across Matt Skiba’s episode and loved it.

The reason why this episode is so fantastic is because it is so raw and it feels like a conversation between two friends – which actually is basically what it is. The conversation goes straight in and then the whole hour and twenty is just a fascinating talk. It is such an inspiring episode and I walked away knowing a lot more about the band and also learning a lot more about the darker side of one of my favourite cities, Chicago.

The episode is full of so many interesting facts such as finding out the name Alkaline Trio came out of a dictionary, about his mother being one of the most decorated war nurses in US History and was even portrayed in a show and how he got into music.

If you want a really good episode then I highly recommend this show. This was released in 2019 and it was around the time when Blink-182 were doing a lot of interviews to promote music and it was always the same questions – about the music, about Tom whether he will return and about the older songs. It got repetitive and you can tell in a few of these that Matt feels a little out of place when these questions get posed.

This interview is fantastic because you actually find out a lot about the musician. In regardless to whether Toby and Matt are friends, Mr Morse is a fantastic interviewer and you can gain so much insight from his chats and I think it is this episode that led me to want to listen to more music by Skiba.