If getting a band back together is much like rekindling a failed relationship, Blink 182 had “the talk” outside of their L.A. studio four years after going on an extended hiatus.
Singer and guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker had been hanging out as friends again and it was just time.
“I said, ‘I personally think we should go back out and do what we’ve done for the past 15 years,’” recalled Hoppus of the chat that led to a reunion announcement at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in February.
Five months later, Blink 182 is back.
They’ve begun work on a new album and have spent three months preparing for a 52-date reunion tour that kicks off on Thursday with back-to-back nights at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Over the phone, bassist Mark Hoppus talked about relearning old songs, Blink’s biggest light show to date, and the difference (or lack thereof) between work and play.
Shows have been selling out and you guys have been booking second dates some cities. When you decided to do a reunion did you realize the demand would be that strong?
Naw, it’s really crazy. It’s really humbling and amazing the response that the tour is getting right now. We had no idea. To have these shows sell out and sell out so quickly is really phenomenal and we’re kind of blown away by it all.
Was Travis Barker’s crash (on September 20) part of the catalyst for you guys getting back in touch and hanging out again?
I think that it was. And I think that even before Travis’ crash we were all probably in a position where we were wanted to let the past be the past and at least come back together and reconnect as friends.
From previous tours, are there any Blink 182 antics or traditions that you think will be coming back?
I’m interested to see what kind of hijinks there will be, because we’re all in our 30s now, so you would expect that we’d have grown up, but that’s not really the case. I’m kind of ashamed/delighted to know that I’m 37 and still laughing at stuff that I did when I was in high school.
Is there anything you’re nervous about in regards to the tour?
Obviously, there’s a lot of…not pressure…but we really want to put on the best shows that we possibly can, and having these shows be as huge and sold out as they are ups the ante. I just want to get out there and get into the routine of playing shows a week into it so it feels comfortable, rather than this thing that has been out there for the past five years. There’s no way we can live up to people’s expectations.
You guys have been rehearsing now for about three or four months. What was it like the first time running through your old songs?
Some songs were totally like right back on it, like we never stopped playing. Some songs we’d have to stop and be like, “What do we do at this point?” and go listen to the CDs and try to figure out how the songs went. But for the most part it was really easy and really natural.
Is Blink 182 recording a new album right now?
We’re not. We started recording a new album and we plan on recording a new album, but we are in tour mode right now. So, we’ll be writing it on the road and we’ll be bringing stuff on the road, but we’re not actually in the recording process anymore. We stopped down the recording process to get ready for tour.
You’ve been doing a lot of producing over the last few years. Has that changed the way you look at your own band?
I enjoy doing both of them for different reasons. I love being on the producing side, because it’s dealing with other people’s ideas, almost like a director does for a movie. You have all these talented people and they have their visions and they have all these songs they bring in. You help them craft it into something that they want and you want. It’s a real collaborative process and something I get a lot of inspiration from. I obviously love writing and performing music in my own band, so I think they go well together.
When you’re putting together the set list for this tour is it primarily your biggest hits or are you mixing new stuff in there?
We were going to mix in a new song; I don’t know if we are anymore. I think we’re really going to concentrate on the songs people know already and get back in the studio when we get back home and start working on new stuff again. This tour is really about us coming back together as a band. Then when we get back home we’ll take the next step forward. We’re not going to hit people with a bunch of new songs they don’t know. I hate that when I go to concerts.
What are the production elements we’ll see from this tour?
We’ve been working with a designer named Martin Phillips who was the guy who designed the Daft Punk pyramid set and Kanye West’s tour, and he’s worked with Nine Inch Nails, so he’s a ridiculously talented production designer. It’s the biggest light show that Blink has ever had by far.
And you’re taking it with you all over the country…
It’s amazing what these guys are going to have to do. They started on Monday of last week [July 13] loading it and figuring out how the stage was going to be built. They had the design, but they had to figure out how all the pieces were going to fit together. And they’re still putting it together right now [July 20], a week later. Starting [July 22] they’re going to have to be building it all and taking it all down every single day.
When you’re up on stage, do you ever get distracted by the lights?
Definitely. I’m looking at all these lights flashing and all these amazing images flashing across these screens that we have and the smoke and the different patterns of lights, and all of a sudden I realize I’ve missed the bridge and gone on to the second chorus instead.
You guys also have some interesting merch…
Our merchandise guy is really creative and really talented. We made a bunch of limited edition items for the tour, like a limited edition T-shirt for each show that just is available at that show. There are only 182 T-shirts for each show of that special design and they’ll never be made again. We made these little rabbit toys that we’re selling. This Blink bunny has kind of been our mascot for years, and years and years…And limited edition posters…We wanted to do something kind of special for this tour.
What’s the dynamic when Blink 182 gets together? Is it more work or play?
It’s totally play. Absolutely. It’s totally just having fun. It’s not work at all. When I say I’m going to work, it’s just going to hang out with my friends and doing something I love. Work is a very loose term in my world.
Q and A – Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus
Mark Hoppus Is Featured Artist On Fender.com
Most people choose the instrument they play but in Mark Hoppus’ case, the bass chose him. Although he writes most songs using a guitar and can find his away around a keyboard, becoming a bassist was his calling. He sees the bass as the ultimate connector – a bridge between the drums and the guitar. “The bass sets a foundation for all the melodies laid on top of it – it requires a lot of taste,” he says.
A native of Ridgecrest, CA, Mark experimented with music in his childhood but it wasn’t until he heard the music of The Cure that he knew he wanted to be involved in the industry. It helped him develop his musical taste which presently includes everything from Kayne West to The Beach Boys.
Mark made his claim to fame as one third of the infamous trio that made up multi-platinum selling punk band Blink 182 that released the acclaimed album “Enema of the State” which produced hit singles such as “All the Small Things,” “What’s my Age Again?” and the controversial “Adam’s Song.” Mark, Travis Barker and Tom DeLonge used the popularity of these songs to spearhead their “anti-boy band movement” in the late 90s, recruiting millions of youth that became devout fans. Unlike most bands that broke up in their heyday, the members of Blink 182 went on to take part in critically successful side projects thanks to unwavering fans.
During their hiatus, Mark and Travis went on to create + 44 and Tom started Angels & Airwaves. While both bands made reputable impressions on the charts both endeavors were put on the backburner to focus on even more personal projects, with Mark concentrating on music production.
An avid supporter of new bands/artists in music whose styles are both similar and vastly different than his own, Mark has found time to produce a number of albums throughout the years such as New Found Glory’s “Not Without a Fight,” Socratic’s “Spread the Rumors,” Koopa’s “Lies Tell Stories,” Something For Rocket’s “One Track Mind,” The Matches’ “Decomposer” and co-produced Idiot Pilot’s “Wolves” with Ross Robinson. He’s also written tracks including Less Than Jake’s “The Rest of My Life,” MXPX’s “Wrecking Hotel Rooms” and “Until the Stars Fall” from the Fired Up! Soundtrack with Richard Gibbs.
Most recently, Mark has been in the studio with the band Motion City Soundtrack, producing their fourth album for Columbia Records. Hoppus last worked with the group on their 2005 sophomore release, “Commit This to Memory.” He also recently remixed the Fall Out Boy hit, “America’s Suitehearts” that peaked at # 5 on the Top Songs list on iTunes.
Mark takes his job as a producer very seriously while finding a sincere gratification in helping other artists. “I enjoy finding bands that have a lot of talent and helping them direct their music in the best way I can. I love being in studio, having an idea and being able to evolve their idea. The moment an idea they had becomes an actual song – that’s an amazing thing to witness,” he says. And even though he produces and writes music for other artists in his same genre, Mark insists he doesn’t see them as competition. “Music is music, bands don’t compete with each other, they inspire one another.”
After being immersed in the music industry for about a decade Mark knows he hasn’t done it all. Above and beyond all the successes Blink 182 has helped Mark accomplish, it has only inspired him to do more. “Every step feels like the best thing. From our first club date where we felt like we were on top of world, when we finished our first album, when we got signed to label, to our first platinum record, I’m always surprised at what we’ve achieved and I’m humbled. I hope truly hope that I haven’t reached my greatest achievement yet.”
As an artist himself with a hand in the work of so many others, Mark has been juggling the hat of musician and producer for quite some time. He notes, “It’s a balance between the two, but first comes being in a band and playing our songs on stage,” which is part of why he’s so passionate about his role in Blink 182.
On February 8, 2009, Blink 182 announced their reunion at the 2009 Grammy Awards, leaving a lot of pondering minds asking, why now? Mark answers this simply, “A lot of things led to this…time for us to talk to each other, but mostly because it felt natural. We all had time to do our own thing, work on our own projects to bring us back together as a better band.”
Once again united, Blink 182 continues to be a band that hopes to push themselves artistically more so now due to the space and new influences they’ve all been exposed to. “All we wanted to do is play as loud and fast as we could – we still love doing that but now we’re open to trying different ideas and instrumentations.”
In the process of trying new approaches, Mark has been enjoying spending time with his bandmates. “It’s great to be back in the studio with the band bouncing ideas off one another. It’s the collaborative effect,” he says, “That’s where the magic really happens.”
As for this latest project with Blink 182 Mark assures his fans, “We’re going to record an amazing album, have a great tour this summer and we’re going to continue doing what we do best, write the best songs, have a great time and invite everyone to come along with us.”
Mark lives in Los Angeles with his wife Skye and their son, Jack.
Angels & Airwaves’ Prog Rock ‘Love’ Album, Film To Be Released For Free
Even as he prepares for blink-182’s summer reunion tour, guitarist Tom DeLonge is deeply ensconced in the next project by his other band, Angels & Airwaves — an album and film project called “Love” that should be out before the end of the year.
DeLonge tells Billboard.com that “Love” — which will be released for free thanks to corporate underwriting — is “the biggest release of my life, the pinnacle of my creativity” and likens it to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” in the scope of its ambition. “It’s super conceptual and highbrow in many ways, very artistic, very Stanley Kubrick,” he says. “But it’s not a rock opera. It’s a very modern version of what could happen when you blend the film industry and the music industry together in a very, very arty, kind of cool way with professionals involved all along the path.”
DeLonge says the “Love” movie — which began life as a documentary about Angels & Airwaves recording its 2006 debut album, “We Don’t Need to Whisper,” and expanded from there — “blurs the line between full-fledged live action and documentary with these epic kind of…meditative sequences where the sound design and the music and the picture all bend together to create a sonic experience as much as a visual one.” The script, meanwhile, “tells a story of human life and destiny but at the same time really makes usual moments of life extraordinary. It’s a circular narrative in many ways, where it kind of sums up the human race in a time capsule.”
The music of “Love,” DeLonge says, will have a prog-rock kind of flavor. “It’s like blending Radiohead and U2 together with these kind of Pink Floyd movements,” he explains. “Things happen unpredictably and take you to these epic soundscapes. It’s very much in the spirit of Angels & Airwaves, but it sounds way, way more thought-out and way more ambitious.”
DeLonge says the group is still figuring out mechanisms for delivering the film and album and are also planning a tour to support the project. All of this, of course, is going on while he rehearses for the blink-182 tour, which begins July 23 in Las Vegas.
“It’s gonna be a really busy time — It’s fucking crazy, actually. I don’t know what I’m doing,” DeLonge says with a laugh. “But I’m totally down and excited to figure out how to make it all happen, ’cause in my life both of these (bands) can be a very necessary thing.”
DeLonge tells Billboard.com that “Love” — which will be released for free thanks to corporate underwriting — is “the biggest release of my life, the pinnacle of my creativity” and likens it to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” in the scope of its ambition. “It’s super conceptual and highbrow in many ways, very artistic, very Stanley Kubrick,” he says. “But it’s not a rock opera. It’s a very modern version of what could happen when you blend the film industry and the music industry together in a very, very arty, kind of cool way with professionals involved all along the path.”
DeLonge says the “Love” movie — which began life as a documentary about Angels & Airwaves recording its 2006 debut album, “We Don’t Need to Whisper,” and expanded from there — “blurs the line between full-fledged live action and documentary with these epic kind of…meditative sequences where the sound design and the music and the picture all bend together to create a sonic experience as much as a visual one.” The script, meanwhile, “tells a story of human life and destiny but at the same time really makes usual moments of life extraordinary. It’s a circular narrative in many ways, where it kind of sums up the human race in a time capsule.”
The music of “Love,” DeLonge says, will have a prog-rock kind of flavor. “It’s like blending Radiohead and U2 together with these kind of Pink Floyd movements,” he explains. “Things happen unpredictably and take you to these epic soundscapes. It’s very much in the spirit of Angels & Airwaves, but it sounds way, way more thought-out and way more ambitious.”
DeLonge says the group is still figuring out mechanisms for delivering the film and album and are also planning a tour to support the project. All of this, of course, is going on while he rehearses for the blink-182 tour, which begins July 23 in Las Vegas.
“It’s gonna be a really busy time — It’s fucking crazy, actually. I don’t know what I’m doing,” DeLonge says with a laugh. “But I’m totally down and excited to figure out how to make it all happen, ’cause in my life both of these (bands) can be a very necessary thing.”
Tom Interviewed By ARTISTdirect.com
The Southern California punk rockers are bringing "fun" back to rock music this summer with their highly anticipated reunion tour. Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker are officially back. It's a momentous occasion for so many twenty-somethings who fondly asked "What's My Age Again?" while watching American Pie in 1999. There are a lot of them too! They'll be filling up venues to see Blink-182 rock all summer, and there's no doubt that San Diego's finest will deliver the goods.
In many ways, Blink-182 are the perfect American rock band. Their songs are infectious, fast, hilarious and party-ready. What's a better cure for all of the U.S.'s problems right now? Nothing, really.
Vocalist/guitarist Tom DeLonge spoke to ARTISTdirect.com in this exclusive interview about Blink's comeback, the summer tour, the future, swearing a lot and why their stage show will be the perfect cross between George Carlin and Iron Maiden.
Are you ready to hit the road?
I think…I'm not packed [Laughs].
How does it feel to be back with Blink-182?
It's awesome. It's kind of tripping me out a little bit. I'm completely blown away by the size and the enormity of this tour. We're doing 30,000 people in multiple cities; it's insane.
Blink-182 really captured a crucial period in a lot of fans' lives. You're going to have fans in their late '20s at the shows that were super into you in high school. Does that trip you out?
Yeah, it does. Maybe they're bringing younger brothers or something too—packing it down. It's not like the band has been on the radio and really present over the past few years [Laughs]. I think it's going to be amazing, and I hope the fans get what they're looking for. I will be there to see if we're good too [Laughs].
What do you plan on giving them?
I think it's going to be the most amount of rock production that you can do with the most amount of bad words mixed together in a beautiful soup.
So George Carlin meets Iron Maiden?
Yes! That's a really, really great way to look at it [Laughs]. I think so.
What sparked the urge for you guys to get back together and hit the road?
I think there's no real secret that after Travis' accident the band was able to very quickly brush aside all of the old bullshit that we had. Inevitably the conversation comes up like, "What are we going to do? Are we going to jam again?" No one had any objections to it. I'm in the middle of recording an Angels & Airwaves album and finishing up the motion picture we've been doing for three years, so I have a lot of other things going on as well. Those guys are producing. Travis is playing with DJ AM. I think we all said, "Well shit, maybe we could do a tour?" The next thing you know all of the agents and managers got fired up and, bam, we have the biggest tour of our career. As slow as we were going, everyone else was running, and here we are. It's catching us by surprise. I think it's really going to be an electric experience for the fans. This is going to be a brilliant tour.
When you guys first got back into the rehearsal room was the chemistry instantly there again?
We didn't start playing at first. We just started hanging and then we started bouncing ideas from studio to studio. In many ways, it was! There's a crude sense of humor that never went away. There were some big conversations in the beginning obviously about how we got to where we are now and who we are. Also we talked about where we were over the past few years. It was a little awkward at the beginning, but it wasn't that big of a deal considering what Travis went through. We were able to brush all of that shit aside really quickly.
You guys grew up together and you have a bond that you can't ever really break.
That's exactly what it is. Things that are great inevitably hurt bands. When you grow up, get married and have kids, then your priorities have to be directed towards your family, you know? It's not simply you and your buddies traveling in a van, doing whatever you want and leaving the city the next morning. Once you have families involved, it's really not about that. You have to make all these plans and put in all these controls that safeguard that element of your life. I think that's what starts to pull at bands and make things more difficult as you go on. With Blink, we spent so many years together that there was definitely so much history. This tour seems like we're reliving the good parts—which was a lot of it. It's going to come across really well.
Do you feel like your different as men and musicians now? What's the general consensus?
Yeah, we are different. Mark does a lot of producing, mostly in the scene which we came out of. Travis has been doing all of these hip hop things, producing and doing collaborations. I've been producing. God, with Angels & Airwaves, we've produced all of our own records, there's the feature film and we've done crazy epic documentaries. There's a lot of experience after Blink. So to come back into this, it's interesting. I remember thinking in one way we were going to pull a lot of these elements in and in the other way, it works just the way it is. It's funny because I think about when I went to see The Police play. I was imagining and asking, "What are they going to do?" Sting was taking all of these people on stage with him and he was doing all of these crazy New Age type songs and shit. Then all of a sudden, you see The Police play and they had an epic stage show but the songs and the way they played them were very stripped down and how they always were. I think that's what people want to hear. It's a long-winded answer, but I'm basically saying we have a lot of experience and we've changed a lot and we want to pull in some of those elements, but at the same time, Blink works in a very specific way. That's with me really drunk saying a lot of bad words.
Your setup with LiveNation for the $20 tickets is really encouraging for fans too.
Yeah, I think that, in many ways, Blink was the sum of modern suburban America. The tour is going to have this sense of nostalgia. It is what it is and you don't need to tamper with it too much. People are coming there for a very specific reason, and they're going to get it.
You guys were the summer of '99 for a lot of people, and there's going to be a real happy vibe all around.
We're a very summertime band. That's one of the great things about coming out of San Diego. We played really fast. I grew up skateboarding my entire life. I know to a degree, it was for Travis, we grew up worshipping the band The Descendents—another Southern California punk band singing about girls, friends and food. That pretty much sums up your early high school career for a lot of people. The cool thing was, we never took ourselves too seriously. We took we did very seriously and we tried to write the best songs that we could, but we never got so full of ourselves that if we fucked up we'd get pissed. If we ever fucked up on stage, it always made the show better. We'd play the show three more times, sometimes in the dark to prove we could play it. I think the spontanaeity of it is what really gave the people the feeling that they could do it too [Laughs]. They'd see us doing it, and they'd be like, "Oh my God, we could do that!" That's the beauty of punk rock music! That's what U2 said about The Ramones. They saw The Ramones play and said, "We could do that too!" I think that's what Blink is.
You guys gave kids a different kind of release. You came out at the end of grunge and existed throug Korn's era. Whereas Korn gave kids a raw catharsis, you provided a different catharsis. It was fun and more about the party.
I think that's a really good take. Obviously all of the Nirvanas of the world and the Korns and Limp Bizkits were going on at the time. However, Green Day and Offspring were very different from Blink even though we were all in the punk scene. I think we were the first band that was probably full of as much personality as we were of hooks—maybe even to our detriment [Laughs]. I think people related to us three. We were all so different. Mark is like the more relatable mainstream guy. Travis really is that hip hop, grew-up-in-a-bad-neighborhood kind of kid. I'm very much the snotty indie rocker art guy or something [Laughs]. To be honest, I don't really like indie rock that much though [Laughs]. I don't know how to describe it because I listen to Arcade Fire, Mark listens to Motion City Soundtrack and Travis listens to The Game [Laughs].
With Blink, kids could have their own favorite member. That was missing throughout the '90s because bands became more and more singular in terms of identity. You three were all so different.
Yeah, we really were. It was great. With Blink, everybody related to a very specific person. That's funny that you say that. I've truly come to sense that over the years. Actually, I saw it massively when the band broke up because there were waves of people spitting venom at each other depending on which band they liked [Laughs].
It's a testament to everything coming together and working the way it did. You were more like a classic rock band in the sense that each band member was extremely different, like Led Zeppelin. They even had their own symbols.
It's true, and I agree. There are so many conversations to this day about who was really responsible for the better part of Pink Floyd, which singer [Laughs]. I grew up hearing all of that stuff. People would ask, "Who was your favorite guy in The Beatles?" Blink always aspired to have that healthy challenge at least as far in the sense of songwriting. We loved the idea that Lennon and McCartney were always trying to push each other to be better. Mark and I always tried. I don't think anyone would put Blink and Beatles in the same sentence, but I will because, fuck, I can [Laughs].
Well you captured a time for a lot of fans, so that makes a lot of sense. You were their Beatles.
Maybe we were like the semi-retarded Beatles to them [Laughs]. I'm going to repeat one of the coolest quotes I've ever heard. Pete Townshend came to San Diego speaking and doing a solo thing in front of a large audience. I had the story relayed back to me that Pete was telling the audience that his kid asked him how to play a Blink song. Some of the older people in the audience were chuckling and he was like, "No, you don't understand. To my kid, Blink is The Who." That, to me, was such a validation obviously. That's beyond. I don't really believe anybody would want to repeat that except those kids, but it makes sense. The kids that grew up with our band weren't going to grow up listening to The Who, The Beatles or Led Zeppelin. They needed their own band to relate to. It's like that with every generation. We were a modern rock band—just like The Who was for their time. I think it's really important for critics not to give new bands shit because there might be an old band that did it better. That's not the point. Every generation needs their own band to do what it is they do for them.
You had a certain spirit that permeated everything. There was time where your fun vibe so important and necessary right around the turn of the century.
How bad do people want that now? The economy is in ruins. We've had a couple wars. It seems like it's not getting any better. So why don't we all get together and make at least a one-evening revolution. That's why I grew up listening to punk rock music. That's why slam-dancing was an important thing for kids. You've got to get your aggression out some way. You've got to go out and vent. I think it's great however people do it. Whether they join these weird dance clubs in East L.A. or they go and slam around in a circle to a punk rock band, they need to express themselves.
What's after this tour? Are you going to do an album or are you right back to Angels?
Well, that's the big debate—how do we fit it all in, how's the tour going to go and how are we going to get along. Right now, everything's amazing. None of us expect that anything is going to go past this. There's so much success already permeating around this tour. For me, the big issue is I'm dropping a motion picture and an album for free right after the first of the year with Angels. It's the biggest, most massive release of my entire career and probably the greatest work of my life to this date, so I'm going to be a little busy with that. But, we're getting offers for Blink to headline the biggest shows in the entire world. So it's like, "What are we going to do? Can we get out there?" It's not an easy thing to have two bands that are doing really well, so I don't know! I'm open to whatever. Blink's going to release a song, we started working on some great music. It comes so natural to Blink. The new song is so good. It sounds like us, but it's got an element of Rush in it. I think people are going to love it. It's like Rush, Floyd and Blink all in the same song. It'll make people excited for what comes next. We've just got to figure out the schedule, I guess.
Be prepared for a long show...
Mark tweetted:
"Tried to pare down the set list. Couldn't find any songs to cut. Ended up adding more. Be prepared for a long show..."
