Songfacts®:

• "Bad Time" explodes with raw emotion as frontman Matt Skiba belts out his love for a past flame amid life-threatening chaos.
  
  Thought you called me up that one time
  Thought that I heard gunfire
  I stepped outside
  Left a message saying "hi"
  I answered from a firefight
  Told you it's a bad time, but I can talk
  
  This isn't just fiction – it's straight from Skiba's wild life. "Bad Time" was sparked by a real-deal experience on tour in El Paso, Texas. The singer's friend and crush called him right in the middle of an active shooter situation that was unfolding just across from where the band were staying. "We could hear gunshots and sirens as the situation escalated," he recalled. "My friend asked if it was a bad time to talk, and I said no - I really wanted to speak with her. It was actually a terrible and terrifying time, but it was never a bad time to hear her voice."
• No, I really wanna talk to you
  I'm being stalked
  By Latin royalty and me and Bobby just ate shrooms
  It's a bad time
  
  The lyric goes back to a time in Chicago when Skipa and his roommate Bobby were caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. Mushroom-fueled and soaring high, they narrowly dodged death. "We lived in a neighborhood run by Latin Kings at the time of the shooting," said Skipa, "so I reference those facts as well as how nice it would have been to hear from the same girl back then."
• "Bad Time" is the second single from Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs, the band's final album with drummer Derek Grant before being replaced by Atom Willard. Alkaline Trio's drummer since 2001, Grant stepped down from the band for the sake of his mental health.
• Alkaline Trio began writing new material for Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs in early 2022. Recording officially began in 2023 at Dave Grohl's Studio 606 with producer Cameron Webb (Silverstein, Motorhead). Webb also produced the band's previous album, 2018's Is This Thing Cursed?
• Ravi Dhar (Awolnation, Lianne La Havas) directed the dreamy video: "We spent the short time we had to put this together, brainstorming and sending links, photos, and film references," said Skiba of the director. "It's not every day I meet someone who loves Dario Argento or Stanley Kubrick."
  
  Dhar also directed the zombie-infested visual for the title track of Blood, Hair and Eyeballs.