Born Matthew Thomas Skiba, Matt Skiba was originally born in Chicago but relocated to a suburb at the age of three. Playing drums at an early age, Skiba's first concert was Public Image Ltd.; shows by Social Distortion also heavily influenced the musician. An original member of Alkaline Trio, Skiba cited Joey Ramone as a huge musical influence growing up. While known mostly for his work with the aforementioned punk rock trio, Skiba had been part of various punk rock bands including Jerkwater, Blunt, and the Traitors. A brief time spent at art college resulted in Skiba dropping out, and while working as a bike messenger in Chicago, Skiba became involved in a punk trio. Starting in 1996, Skiba's involvement in Alkaline Trio (playing guitar and splitting vocals with Dan Andriano) resulted in several full-length releases and numerous tours in North America and Europe. In 2002, after taking a break from his main priority, Skiba recorded a split acoustic EP with Kevin Seconds (of 7 Seconds fame). The EP, titled Split, was released on Asian Man Records. He has also contributed to albums released by Hubcap and the Atari Star. In 2005, still between commitments with the Trio and after relocating to Los Angeles, Skiba hooked with Josiah Steinbrick of F-Minus to begin work on another side project, Heavens, in which he sang and Steinbrick wrote the music. Their first album, Patent Pending, appeared in fall 2006 on Epitaph.