Blink-182 has come a long way since going from ruling skate parks to becoming the SoCal kings of pop-punk. After Green Day and the Rancid/Epitaph Records explosion carried punk rock back to the mainstream in 1994, blink-182's 1999 release, Enema of the State, introduced a new wave of youth to catchy, angst-driven music.
On Enema, the band - Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker - embraced the pop side of pop-punk, scoring its biggest hits and becoming a household name outside the Warped Tour crowd.
In 2004, at the height of the band's popularity and artistic execution, guitarist DeLonge quit the band, claiming he was burned out. After Barker survived a 2008 plane crash, DeLonge reached out to his estranged bandmates. The rest is reunion history. Following five years of being apart as a band and friends, the three have begun to mend their relationship.
"It has been easy ... organic," DeLonge said. "I think we had initial conversations and right away put everything in perspective, and everyone was instantly fine with the years that have passed. The best thing for us to do was to get on our instruments and start playing because that is where we felt the chemistry (would) come right back out again."
Numerous rehearsal sessions and high-profile late-night TV gigs have the power trio gearing up for a return to being a fully functional band. While initial performances appeared off, the band is slowly hitting its stride as a live act once again.
"I think that, to be honest, in many ways, it comes so naturally. ... Getting us in front of an audience is the truest way to get the band firing on all cylinders," DeLonge said.
The highly anticipated reunion tour spans more than 50 North American dates and features an elaborate stage setup, put together by the same team that worked on Kanye West's acclaimed Glow in the Dark tour. The band hopes to release new single Up All Night sometime after the tour.
"(Up All Night) sounds like the missing track of our last 'untitled' album," DeLonge said. "It has elements of Pink Floyd, Rush and even Boxcar Racer and Quicksand all in the same song. I think people are going to love it."
DeLonge's post-blink endeavor, the ambitious arena-rock opus, Angels and Airwaves, will still function as a band even though blink-182 is the priority.
"(Angels and Airwaves) is my life; blink is being written into it," DeLonge said. "(Angels and Airwaves) will pick up full speed after the blink tour. I mean, there is still a whole future to be written with blink, we just don't know exactly what it is and how it works yet. I'm just trying to get this blink tour to be the best it can be first."
After the blink-182 tour, DeLonge plans to release a new Angels and Airwaves album, Love, to coincide with the documentary/movie of the same name, which will all be released for free on Valentine's Day 2010.
"It is the work of my life, absolutely, and I think people are going to freak out when they see the film and what it is all about, and it is definitely worth the wait," DeLonge said. "No band does this. No band has ever done this; I think it is very revolutionary. I'm excited."
In his time off the stage, DeLonge formed Modlife, an online subscription service that allows bands and other multi-media artists their own user sites to connect with fans, stream live concerts and post their own music. DeLonge's shoe company, Macbeth footwear, has also grown its line of artist-inspired vegan-friendly shoes.
"We just released a shoe from Mike Dirnt of Green Day, we having stuff coming up from Davey Havok of AFI, Frankie from My Chemical Romance, a special shoe from Muse and a lot of rad stuff," DeLonge said. "It has taken a few years for people to realize Macbeth is a really good shoe company, and we are trying to work with the coolest bands possible. The shoes are awesome, and I think people are finally catching on, and it is doing better than it has ever done. We are securing a place in shoe history."
The tour stops at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and fans can expect a setlist rich in the band's catalog.
"We have so many singles, we are going to power through those," said DeLonge.
As the blink-182 matures to even more of a power trio, the band still looks forward to playing the older songs like Carousel and Josie that made them staples in the SoCal punk scene.
"It super brings back memories and sounds really good, like power-pop punk," said DeLonge. "It's rad, really powerful, and it just brings back all the memories you have of being young and wanting to break something."
DeLonge has his hands full with two functioning bands, a family, Macbeth, Modlife and the ongoing blink-182 tour. Taking on such a huge undertaking would be a daunting task for DeLonge circa-2004, but the guitarist is ready to take on the challenge.
"Fifty dates is a lot, and no matter how bored or burned out you get it all changes for that period we are on stage," DeLonge said. "The biggest thing that would hurt a tour is if tickets aren't selling and you feel like you are stuck and you don't know what you did wrong. But this isn't the case with this tour; it is the biggest tour of my life."
Blink 182 played Hershey Stadium in Hershey, PA on 08-13-2009 to a soaked and very patient audience. After much delay, the band finally hit the wet and slippery stage with no stage lighting because of the intense rain hovering over Hershey, PA. No stage lights made this photo shoot a very difficult task. It was very dark in the front of the stage where Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus were and there were intense white lights on drummer, Travis Barker. It made for very high contrast concert lighting and of course the rain was no help in the matter. It is amazing how far Blink 182 has come since the beginnings and proof how influential they have become to the younger generation, all of the members have their own signature instrument from major companies (that hope to cash in on the youngster fans). Tom DeLonge came out on stage with his signature Gibson guitar complete with racing stripes, Travis Barker walked out to his sprawling Orange County Percussion drum kit, and Mark Hoppus came out with his signature Fender Jazz Bass. Tom and Mark swap places frequently on stage as they run from side to side along the stage front with a lot of energy and assume the responsibility of entertaining the crowd since it is only 3 of them on stage.
for full article from MoeMoePhoto go to http://www.moemoephoto.com/?p=514
Blink 182 played Hershey Stadium in Hershey, PA on 08-13-2009 to a soaked and very patient audience. After much delay, the band finally hit the wet and slippery stage with no stage lighting because of the intense rain hovering over Hershey, PA. No stage lights made this photo shoot a very difficult task. It was very dark in the front of the stage where Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus were and there were intense white lights on drummer, Travis Barker. It made for very high contrast concert lighting and of course the rain was no help in the matter. It is amazing how far Blink 182 has come since the beginnings and proof how influential they have become to the younger generation, all of the members have their own signature instrument from major companies (that hope to cash in on the youngster fans). Tom DeLonge came out on stage with his signature Gibson guitar complete with racing stripes, Travis Barker walked out to his sprawling Orange County Percussion drum kit, and Mark Hoppus came out with his signature Fender Jazz Bass. Tom and Mark swap places frequently on stage as they run from side to side along the stage front with a lot of energy and assume the responsibility of entertaining the crowd since it is only 3 of them on stage.
for full article from MoeMoePhoto go to http://www.moemoephoto.com/?p=514
Reunited and it feels so good. Sure, Peaches & Herb sang the line first, but it equally applies to the members of Blink-182. After a five-year, somewhat acrimonious, hiatus, the perpetually adolescent punk band decided to reunite for an amphitheater tour this summer. Hitfix caught up with vocalist/guitarist Tom DeLonge just before the start of the outing, which concludes Oct. 4 at New York's Madison Square Garden (although there are rumors of European dates to follow). As famous for their high-school level hijinks on stage as such hits as "What's My Age Again," "All the Small Things" and "The Rock Show," DeLonge, bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker have been garnering some of the biggest audiences-and the best reviews-of their career this summer. DeLonge discussed anxiety, when we'll get a new Blink album, and, of all things, insurance with Hitfix. Q: What is the most exciting part of the tour for you? A: I think the big talk of the day is how big the tour is. I tell people that we used to do 8,000 people a night. This one is going to be very many 20,000-30,000 [capacity venues], so I think that right there is freaking us out a little bit. Q: You told the San Diego Union Tribune: "I have a lot of anxiety right now about this tour and how big it is. " What's keeping you up at night? A: Well, I'd be fine if all those people weren't staring at me... Q: Other than that... A: Other than that...but the cool thing about this band is if we ever mess up or do anything horrible, it makes the show better and people laugh at us and they feel good, so that's good...Most bands, if something goes wrong, they cower and walk off stage and fire people. Not us. Q: What goes through your head when you look over on stage and see Travis and Mark? A: Sometimes, it feels a little like "The Twilight Zone." Where am I and how did I get here, you know. But at the same time, to be honest, it feels like that's where you're supposed to be and that's who you are. The only thing that's odd, I think, is we all have so many other things going on in our lives too. Blink, that's all we ever did for the longest time, and then now, it's like we've got companies. I've got Angels & Airwaves, which we're releasing a motion picture and an album for free right after the first of the year. So I've got that going on and those guys are producing bands all the time, so we have all these respective projects that are very much active parts of our lives. So I think when you're sitting there looking at these guys, you're so used to being younger and your whole world being around it, but now we've got this much bigger world, but at the same time, the band's bigger than it's ever been, so it's crazy. Q: We hear about these bands that the only time they see each other on tour is during the 90 minutes they're on stage together. Is that how it is with you guys? A: No, I don't think so. We'll see how it goes. We're all going to bring our families out. We'll all have different buses, for sure. I mean, I've got kids and they've got kids, but even before we had kids, we had separate buses. I don't know what the rhythm is going to be, but I do know that when we get to practice and start playing, it's funny, you know. And the couple of shows we played already, we're already back in to saying the crazy dumb shit we always say. It's one of those things that's going to come very quickly where people are going to go, "God, I forgot how much they talk!" So regardless of what we do during the days and whether we hang out, don't worry, the shows are going to have plenty of chemistry, I think. Q: You really picked great support acts who could tour on their own: Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, Weezer, Panic At the Disco, Chester French. What was the process in picking the opening acts? A: Well, we threw out a lot of names and a lot of these bands contacted us, like Fall Out Boy and Weezer, in particular. And it really seemed to fit the spirit of what the show was going to be like. You know, Live Nation, the tour promoter, was adamant about a certain type-- or not a certain type, but a certain size-- of band they wanted to see on the show. And to be honest, there's not that many bands these days that have a very consistent strong following --at least that would fit with Blink-182. We were very, very fortunate that out of the woodwork came Weezer and Fall Out Boy right away. That seemed to make a lot of sense Q: Are you bringing the acts out to play with you? A: I don't know. You know, Angels & Airwaves just went out with Weezer and that's what they had me do. I got up and sang "The Sweater Song" with them... It would be very funny with Blink, you never really know...We did bring out Robert Smith one time, from the Cure, to sing "Boys Don't Cry," but at that time we weren't playing any kind of time code, so we played it like a punk band, 10 times faster, and he was totally drunk and he got lost and he's got all his make up on and stuff and he's looking back at us, like what are you guys doing and we're like, "Oh no, we don't know what we're doing either... but 17,000 [are] people watching!" I don't know if we'll bring people up or not, we might just need to concentrate on pulling off what we need to pull off. Q: You seemed very aware that we're going through tough economic times. Lawn seats are $20 at most. Venues are pricing some tickets as low as $6.75. Are there any concerns that such low pricing may start to devalue the music experience? A: I think we devalue it ourselves by going up there and doing some of the shit that we do. I think that's really more important of a topic. But it was really important to us, with the economy and everything. That was something I brought up right away: we have to figure out a low ticket price. The compromise with TicketMaster, Live Nation and all the parties involved was amazing: $20 all in: parking and everything. I mean you can't do that any more. Just normally, all the tickets for all these bands to play these venues, after you pay parking and pay your service charges, you're, like, in for 50, 60 bucks. That's pathetic. Who has that kind of disposable income these days? Especially our fans who are in their twenties and teens; they just don't. Q: Live Nation brought in State Farm to underwrite your tour and No Doubt's tour. Insurance seems awfully adult for a band that celebrates not growing up. A: I know! Isn't that weird? I thought that was weird too. But I think the way it was explained to me, and it makes sense, is State Farm is competing with these Geicos and these other one-stop shops for early drivers. And at the end of the day, when you're 16 years old, you're going to start driving and you need to get insurance, so I think it does make sense for them, but God, I think ... I'll be honest, I think a lot of these companies come out [and] sponsor Blink and after the first show, they're going to go, "Oh my god, they're ruining our company what are we going to do? " Q: Can we talk about what's going on with the new album? There are titles of a couple of new songs floating around out there. A: It started out, my daughter wrote a story called "The Night the Moon was Gone" and I thought that was a rad title. That will probably be an Angels & Airwaves song. The song that we have is called "Up All Night." It's an amazing song. It blows me away how easy music comes out of Blink. It's really good; people are going to love it I think. The album remains to be scheduled because I am launching the motion picture and album for Angels & Airwaves. It's kind of the work of my life that's getting ready to happen so I have to figure out how and when all these things fit together because Blink is still getting offers to play the biggest shows in the world. So I'm going to have a really important big year next year with Angels & Airwaves, but then again, Blink is one of the biggest bands in the world already. I don't know, it's going to be weird oceans to navigate, but all of it really good and all of it really exciting.
Blink-182's Tom DeLonge uses reunion stage to promote upcoming Angels and Airwaves' album
August 22, 2009 Matt Thomas
Since Blink-182 has stepped back into the spotlight after commencing its reunion tour, Tom DeLonge, the group's guitarist / vocalist, has used the opportunity to promote his other band, Angels and Airwaves. During current Blink shows, DeLonge sports a black T-shirt featuring the logo of AVA's yet to be released third album, Love.
................The new LP is appropriately set to drop on February 14th, which will coincide with a film utilizing the album's songs. In an interview with The Aquarian, DeLonge said of the film, "Hopefully, we'll be submitting it to Sundance in September, so the plan is that it debuts there in January and we're hoping it will be out in IMAX theaters in February."
His predictions have already led to an online dialogue within various websites and chatrooms. Blogger Perez Hilton responded by placing pressure on AVA to "deliver" with their third album in order to live up to unparalleled expectations.
The onstage T-shirt promotion has also raised questions as to where DeLonge's loyalty lies: with Blink-182 or Angels and Airwaves. In an attempt to quiet doubters, DeLonge said the following during his interview with The Aquarian: "Both bands are totally me. I read books on politics . . . I study. The things that I do to educate myself about the world around me is totally relevant and that's what I do. But also in the middle of that I'll tell stupid jokes . . . The cool thing [with Blink-182 and Angels and Airwaves] is I really get to be both parts of myself." Simultaneous participation in the two groups seems to be the perfect situation for the hardworking frontman.
Blink -182 is currently touring North America. Love will be released free of charge (that means you, as a fan, will not have to pay a single cent to own the album), on February 14, 2010.
Tom DeLonge thought his band, Blink-182, had hit the big time five years ago.
"Literally on our last tour, 12,000 (people per show) was the biggest shows we were doing," he said in a recent phone interview, noting he was not at all dissatisfied with those numbers. "But it was really an average of six to 8,000 people a night. This tour, we're selling 20 to 30,000 tickets within hours, sold out, like crazy - I have no clue what's going on."
Actually, DeLonge is willing to take some guesses. Maybe in the five years since Blink-182 last toured, an older audience has discovered the act through various other bands and production projects the three band members have taken on. Or, he said, maybe demand is being fueled by a fear that this will be the only time Blink-182 will ever tour again.
Perhaps the band's original fans are bringing out younger siblings to see the group and experience the group's playful live show and music.
"They go, "I've got to take you to this show because it helped map out who I was when I was a kid,' " DeLonge said.
Whatever's going on, DeLonge isn't complaining at all.
"We're so lucky," he said. "It's just like you dream of playing music. You don't ever dream of getting big, and you'll never even contemplate the idea of having it be this big."
For several years, DeLonge wasn't contemplating a world where Blink-182 would ever be part of his life again.
Up until 2004, things had gone very well for Blink-182, as the group's catchy brand of pop-punk and no shortage of humor, madcap videos and on-stage wackiness, had carried the group to some 20 million album sold, with CDs like "Enema of the State" (1999), "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket" (2001) and "Blink-182" (2003) becoming hits that included hit singles like "What's My Age Again,?" "I Miss You," "Feeling This" and "The Rock Show."
During touring behind the self-titled album, tensions mounted, and by the time of a 2004 run of European shows, guitarist/singer DeLonge found himself at odds with bassist/singer Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker, over how and when the band would tour and record in the future.
At the time, DeLonge wanted to start spending more time at home with his wife and baby daughter, and that meant turning down a proposed 2005 U.S. tour and being less willing to leave home to do writing and rehearsing for future albums.
DeLonge said Hoppus and Barker viewed this as an attempt by DeLonge to control the group and its schedules for touring and recording, and he understood even then how they could reach that conclusion.
"They thought I was trying to control how and when and whatever, because that was the filter they were seeing things through," DeLonge said. "I think they were fearful of the band breaking up and they, when you see things with those kind of glasses on, it maps out these negative (suspicions). But that's not where I was coming from. I just wanted to go home and be with my family. I'd been gone for two years and my daughter was already two years old. So I'd missed all of the pregnancy, I'd missed like her first year. I needed to go home and be like a dad and a husband type thing. "But now it's like everyone understands that," he said. "Now it's like open conversation. Like (heck), you just needed some time off. It wasn't a big control issue. But at the same time, I think everyone really respects that everyone saw it in a different way. Everyone was being truthful about how they felt."
Of course, to reach this understanding, DeLonge and Hoppus and Barker had to start talking to each other. And DeLonge said the lines of communication may never have opened if not for a tragedy.
Guardian "Angels"
After the Blink breakup, Hoppus and Barker went on to form a new band, +44, which released one CD and had a modest hit single in "When Your Heart Stops Beating."DeLonge, meanwhile, formed Angels & Airwaves. That band released two CDs and had success at radio with its 2006 modern rock single, "The Adventure," and "Everything's Magic" from the band's second CD, "I Empire." A third Angels & Airwaves CD (and a companion movie) will be released late this year or early in 2010, DeLonge said.
Things were rolling along with the respective careers until Sept. 20, 2008, when a plane carrying Barker crashed on takeoff in Columbia, S.C. The drummer and his friend and musical cohort, DJ AM (Adam Goldstein), survived, but suffered significant injuries, with Barker sustaining burns from the waist down. The four other people on the plane died. Upon hearing the news about the crash, DeLonge reached out to Barker.
"I wrote a letter to Travis and had his management deliver it to him," DeLonge said. "I think he might have been in the hospital at the time. I didn't write anything about playing music or whatever, it was just about, I wanted to let him know I was there thinking about him and with support and energy in any kind of way. So there really wasn't much more to the story than that. We talked, right after he got the letter he gave me a ring and we started slowly getting in touch.
"It (the crash) . . . was the reason why we got back," he said. "We were all off on our respective lives and doing our own things, and there was a lot of bad press and there was a lot of pent-up just kind of bull - that I think friends get over the years when you throw in all the stuff we had gone through. Then the plane crash happened, and all of that was put in perspective and we all kind of realized how stupid all of it was. We literally got over it in a matter of days."
The group didn't jump back into the band, though, and DeLonge said when they first got together face to face, it was a bit awkward with a good deal of silence and uncomfortable stares.
"We hadn't really seen each other at all in person in years," DeLonge said. "So much is different, but so much is still the same. And at that point, too, Travis was still in the very, very middle of coming out of his whole accident. I don't even know if he was mentally even there. So I think the whole situation was the first of many steps to where it is now, to where we show up and we're like buddies and we can play together."
That is the vibe as Blink-182 starts its summer tour, which features impressive support acts such as Weezer, Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday opening various shows. Hoppus said Blink-182's set will, of course, include the radio hits, plus some favorite album tracks. And of course, fans can expect the usual zaniness from the band.
"One of the charms of Blink in the past is we never used to rehearse what we wanted to do," DeLonge said. "But this time we're really putting in a lot of effort. We're spending a lot of time trying to give them the biggest and most crazy rock show that people want to see. But at the same time, we have a tendency to keep it very impromptu in spirit and unpredictable."
Interview With Tom DeLonge of blink-182: Older, But Still Not Grown Up
-by Patrick Slevin, August 20, 2009 Four years had passed since Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker shared a stage together, but at this year's Grammy Awards, the members of blink-182 stood together and announced they'd be playing music together again. The trio that had acrimoniously disbanded following the abrupt resignation of DeLonge began communicating again in the wake of a plane accident involving Barker. A breakup became a reunion. Of course, all three had moved on to different projects in the interim, most notably Angels & Airwaves, headed by DeLonge and +44, featuring Hoppus and Barker. But Hoppus has done production work for a myriad of bands, Barker has been working on hip-hop projects with DJ AM, and DeLonge has been something of an investor-creative director in Macbeth, a shoe company, and Modlife, a web venture for bands. Now, with all their previous commitments on the side, the band few thought would tour again have embarked on a jaunt throughout the U.S. with Weezer and Taking Back Sunday, in what has quickly become one of the best-selling tours in the worst economy in decades. DeLonge explains.
How has the tour been? What's the energy like? Oh the tour's insane. It's somehow officially the biggest tour of the summer. Even tonight [Pittsburgh], it's 20,000 some people, sold out. Last night, 23,000 people as well. It's fucking crazy. No one understands why dick jokes got so popular. They're sending down NASA scientists to really try and figure out why it's so big. But the tour is amazing and the energy is awesome. We're playing better than we ever have and we're having a lot of fun. Mark drinks now too so now we're both up there wasted. We don't even remember the shit that we're saying.
Is it a validating feeling? I know a lot of tours aren't doing very well. Is it like, 'Shit, I should have done this two years ago?' I know, you would think. To give you an idea, the promoters bought the shows thinking we'd do 8,000 people a night. The average shows are almost 20,000 a night. No one thought, not the band, not the promoters, not the management, so it's not like we got together going, 'Fuck, we should have done this earlier.' We got back together because Travis had that accident and we thought it would be good to play music again together. But one step at a time and we're having a lot of fun. It's great. I'm humbled by it, honestly, because we still are just a punk band at heart. We're talking the band's been together almost 20 years now I guess, well, we broke up, but we've been around for almost 20 years. It's just nutty to see this right now. We're very, very happy it's working out so well. It's obviously making the reunion very electric.
You mentioned the accident. Was there a moment of realization between the three of you, that leaving Blink on indefinite hiatus wasn't the best thing? No, it wasn't like that. I honestly think a couple years ago none of us would have expected that we were going to play again. I still have Angels & Airwaves and we have a major release coming up in February, a movie and an album. Mark's still producing all these different bands. Travis has a big hip-hop cameo big album thing that he's been making for the past year-he still has DJ AM and himself. All of us still have all these things that are going on and we love them and they're made for parts of our lives. It wasn't like we were looking for this to happen. Now I think that this is going on all of us are trying to figure out-how does it fit in? It's the biggest thing (laughs). It's a bit of a juggle for myself because Angels & Airwaves is a full-time thing for me.
Are you done with the film and the record? The film is being edited right now. Hopefully, we'll be submitting it to Sundance in September, so the plan is that it debuts there in January and we're hoping it will be out in IMAX theatres in February is what we're looking for. But we don't know, we've got a long ways to plan that out and get that all ready. We'll see what happens.
As I recall, it was originally the I-Empire film and now it's the Love film. It's really kind of evolved three different times. We started out, we wanted to make a documentary that kind of blurred the line between documentary and cinema but the documentary took on a life of its own, because there was kind of a big story. I was going through a lot of stuff at the time-the breakup of Blink and then drug use. That ended up being its own giant project. The documentary called Start The Machine went off on its own, then we started the actual film. We were thinking for I-Empire that's what the goal was. Then the film was too good. It was way better than we all thought we could pull off, honestly. We just kept building it and building it. Now, somewhere along the middle of the I-Empire run, we said we can't let it come out with this record because there's so much more we want to do for this film and so we started negotiations to make everything be free, to be able to release the album and the movie for free. We're at a perfect moment in our career with that band to do something really ambitious like that, so we're really excited.
It was originally sort of a collection of vignettes connected to the I-Empire theme. Is it still vignettes? It's hard to describe. The story is about a guy that gets sent up into an international space station and he's left there as a human time capsule. He finds digital archives on the ship of people's lives. That's how vignettes come to play. There's dialogue. There's a lot of CGI. It starts in the civil war. There's a very kind of science fiction feel to it. We were always loving movies like 2010 and Solaris and these kind of movies where you sit back and soak into your seat and it takes you somewhere. It's a much more cerebral approach that what people do when they normally make a movie. This is very much an art piece, and I wouldn't necessarily think that you're gonna see a bunch of mainstream kids from high school going to see the film. I think it would be young adults and people who are really interested in cinema. I don't know how to describe it because this hasn't really been done by a band in a very long time because it's very hard to pull off. We're using the same sound designers as Darren Aronofsky, we're using Oliver Stone's editors, it's a big deal.
Is the budget spiraling out of control? No, that's the thing. I think what happened is we went around after three years of filming all this stuff and we met all these incredible guys and we showed them the footage and told them the story and they signed on and started the week after. It's one of those rare things where everybody wants to work on it, not because of the budget but because of what it is and what it stands for and the philosophy of the entire thing. Coming out on Valentine's Day, Love, it's not a boyfriend girlfriend thing, this is more of a humanity kind of thing. That to me is really exciting. That's what Angels & Airwaves is. Angels & Airwaves is a band built on this spirituality component that I think young Americans and young Western societies are slowly moving into and understanding. Angels & Airwaves is an interesting band and I think people will find that out moreso over the next year. We've been involved in a lot of really interesting things and I think people will soon start to find that out.
I've got a college-age writer who is bugging me about seeing the Flaming Lips and Animal Collective and all these indie bands, and the last thing I was expecting was him to ask me to see the blink-182 show, but he did. Has your fanbase kind of grown up with you in a weird way? It's a really weird question. Every day I'm trying to figure out, who the fuck are all these people here? I was 16-years-old when I started Blink, so I'm thinking our fans at the time, when we really got popular, I was like 22 or 23, a lot of the fans were just about 16-years-old, so I would imagine here that in 2009 that most of our fans should be late 20s. But they're not (laughs). I don't know man, it's weird. It's hard to analyze an audience when you're looking at 20,000 people. It looks like people are between the 17 and 25 bracket, which means that you have a lot of people that were really young when the band popped but are now bringing their younger brother or something. Blink is a phenomenon I think where we sum up a way of life for suburbia that I don't think any other band has really done the way we've done it. Who knows. It might be the new Grateful Dead but for a whole different audience. We might be able to cruise around and play for that young adult teenage bracket for the rest of our lives (laughs). I don't know.
I don't know if all the jaded 17 and 20-year-olds are going to be following your tour bus around, but they are following you on your Modlife thing. You started that about a year ago, right? Yeah, Modlife has been up I guess about a year, we've been building it for about three or four years. It's singlehandedly one of the things I'm most proud of in my life because it truly is revolutionary. We identified a bunch of ways that would help a band not only get bigger and help a band make money again but also make their art more interesting and more exciting for fans to buy into. And here we go. We probably have maybe 20 smaller bands in the pipeline, but we just launched the White Stripes, we just launched Korn. There's a couple big A-level acts that I can't talk about that are in the pipeline. Obviously Angels & Airwaves' on there. Blink's not on there, but we just got back together and we're not forcing anything down anyone's throat, you know. We created a platform that's completely free to the artist and protects everything they've got but it gives them a way to make subscriptions, advertising money, pay-per-view money, to sell music, to sell movies, live broadcasting, interactive auto-generating chatrooms, automated meet-and-greets, VIP parties, advance ticketing sales, it's crazy. At the same time, the 8 out of 10 kids keep coming back. The level of loyalty and happiness is insane. Because for the first time, an artist will get on a camera and talk to so-and-so from Idaho personally in front of 10,000 other kids. We're really stoked. We're talking to NASCAR and country artists and poets and authors and universities that are doing expeditions. I think Modlife is truthfully a chance to be something massive and revolutionary. The artist ends up making 75 percent of every dollar and they never get a bill and they own everything. It's really pissing off the record labels that's for sure.
For Blink, you almost got 'Up All Night' done, but you didn't have the ability to control it if you played it live, it would be up on YouTube. Is that control issue part of it with Modlife? When you try to account for how an artist makes money there's like a thousand ways. And one of the ways an artist makes money is if your stuff does get played on YouTube, but to try to collect on that stuff is really difficult. Modlife keeps everything central. Everything is at your own home base, it's your primary website. When we made the song for Blink, it was almost finished. It's not so much that we were concerned that it was going to get played somewhere where we didn't have control of it. We were just concerned that the first impressions weren't going to be the beautiful hard work that we put into recording the song and the way we recorded it. At the end of the day there's only three of us onstage, but in the studio you can really twist and turn the audio signals to do something special. It's two different mediums, one is creating the art, the other is communicating it. I always feel you should communicate it after you've created it. That's the only reason.
Do you feel that writing the song did something for you guys creatively before going out? I think so. The best thing was getting on the road and experiencing what the band does for other people. The song is fucking sick, by the way. I was just yelling, 'It's so good! How did we fuck up? It's so good!' It's not like we're embarrassed by it because it's probably one of the top three songs we've ever written. It's great. But when we first got back together, we started bouncing ideas around. I think all of us were excited to come back and kind of show each other where we've been what we've learned and how we've evolved as individuals and it served that purpose for sure.
Do you have to be in a different headspace for Angels than Blink? Is this two different halves of yourself at this point? Oh, that's what I try to explain to people. Both bands are totally me. But they're so Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I read books on politics, I read books on alternative history, I study. The things that I do to educate myself about the world around me is totally relevant and that's what I do. But I also in the middle of that will tell stupid jokes and get crazy and act like an imbecile with my friends. It's not like I have a pipe and an ascot. I still like dick jokes. The cool thing is I really get to be both parts of myself. It's really funny in how different they are. Angels & Airwaves, before a show, it's a whole different thing. People make jokes that it's like church with people crying, and there's lasers and it's super epic. With Blink I'm blasting Van Halen and getting really drunk and seeing what happens.
Are there any worries that you're on too many projects? Do you feel like more of a businessman than an artist sometimes? No, because the cool thing is I have a lot of good people around me. Modlife is ran by one of the guys who started Guitar Hero and Rock Band. There are rad people running these companies. I'm like a visionary, kind of a macro occasional objective viewer that comes in and gives my two cents, but I really am a musician. That's where I spend most of my time. I have a few meetings a week where I can try to contribute but I usually do more harm than good. Angels & Airwaves, it takes up most of my time, it takes up almost all my time. But now that Blink just came back into the picture, we have one thing on our plates right now, and that's this tour. So we'll see what happens after this tour and how everyone recuperates from it and see what the next plan is. There's sputterings about Europe, obviously we're talking about the next record, but it has to fit into everyone's schedule, and everyone has their things and none of these things are going away and we've just got to figure it out.
And what's new with Macbeth? Well, Macbeth is doing awesome. We have shoes that we just did with Green Day, Mike Dirnt from Green Day. We're really excited about that one. I have this new one that we've been working on for the past year called The Brighton that just came out. It's taken years for people to understand that you can start a shoe company based on music and it's probably as far out as an idea when they started a running shoe company called Nike (laughs). But we've really proven ourselves to stay true to the classics that we create. We base all of our shoes off shoes that musicians would love, at least our kind of musicians. From Adidas Sambas or the Converse Chuck Taylor. Stuff that punkers and alternative musicians have been wearing forever and it's great. We do custom stuff for bands like Muse, and My Chemical Romance we did some big charity stuff with them. We have rad artists that we work with. Tegan & Sara, those girls out of Canada, their stuff is so fashionable. We're small, boutique, but we grew in the worst economy ever, so I'm excited.
I'm sure you have probably an 18-month plan, whether you're conscious of it or not, where do you see yourself being in five years or 10 years? My biggest fear I guess is probably what I sense is having two gigantic rock bands (laughs). I don't know anybody else who has done that and it scares me because what I'm trying to do is simplify. I'm 33 now and I have two kids and you look around you and life isn't all about the go-go-go, which in your 20s is really easy to do. I'm not quite sure. I don't know. In five years I honestly see Angels & Airwaves as being a gigantic rock band doing anything and everything it wants to do, from cinema to technology and a lot of different ambitious, artistic ideas. That band is going to push the envelope. Blink, if we do the right record next, we could be in stadiums. That's proving itself because of this tour. I really think that. Maybe not, but it seems that way to me. But it has to be the right record and it has to be something that we really all go in and focus on and nail. So I guess the next five years, I could have these two things that are monsters but at the same time are equally gratifying in many ways. But I think another big fear I guess is how do you make them both succeed when you start cutting yourself down so thin. You know, I don't fucking know. I'll call you in the next five years and tell you (laughs).
Some of the hottest celebrities including Al Pacino, Brooke Shields, Heidi Klum, Jamie Lee Curtis, Mark Hoppus, Peter Facinelli, Steve Carell, Thomas Gibson, Tom DeLonge and Tony Hawk have built their own ocean-themed Lego mosaics. The mosaics will be auctioned off on charitybuzz.com, and all the proceeds will go to the Surfrider Foundation.
"We have no idea how much these mosaics are going to go for, I think the sky's the limit," said Beth Downing with Sea Life Aquarium. "This is the first time we've ever done anything like this so it could be a little or it could be a lot, but of course we're hoping to raise as much money as we can for Surfrider."
The kids in attendance had a blast celebrating the Aquarium's first birthday, exploring the Aquarium and looking at the celebrity mosaics.
"We were here to watch the celebration, it's really cool," said Hana Craft, with the non-profit kids group Kids for Peace. "The three that stood out to me were Tony Hawk's, he did a shark on a skateboard, Steve Carell's, he did a fish, and Heidi Klum's, she did a mermaid with a trident. I thought that was cool."
The Surfrider Foundation hopes that this mosaic project and partnership with the aquarium will increase awareness about the importance of protecting our oceans and coastlines.
In a message posted on friendsorenemies.com (where they also announced their engagement), Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz have announced that they are expecting their first child:
"While many have speculated about this, we wanted to wait until after the first trimester to officially confirm that we are expecting our first child. This is truly the most joyous time in our lives and we are excited to share the happy news and start our family."
In a message posted on friendsorenemies.com (where they also announced their engagement), Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz have announced that they are expecting their first child:
"While many have speculated about this, we wanted to wait until after the first trimester to officially confirm that we are expecting our first child. This is truly the most joyous time in our lives and we are excited to share the happy news and start our family."
'Tom sleeps with girls from the crowd!' - 'Bill watches strange couples have sex!' - 'Bill likes boys!' These confusing headlines have been all over the tabloids in the latest weeks. "It's all a lie", said Bill. It is truth! Tom isn't that big of a hero when it comes to going about girls at all, and Bill isn't a virgin! POPCORN was talking with Ina (17), Julia (16) and Sabrina (16), the ex-girlfriends of Tom and Bill, and got know, how those two boys in private life really are and how these girls with lived with the TH-boys...
When did you know Tom? Sabrina: Four years ago in gymnasium. I found him very nice since the beginning and we also got together relatively quickly.
How long were you two a couple? Sabrina: More than one year but with some breaks. Tom was unfaithful for some times, he was kissing other girls. When I told this to him, I ended our relationship. And then he always came back to me, [guilty,] and confessed it all. And I forgave it him. What all was between you two - did you have sex? Sabrina: No, I was indeed quite often with Tom at home, also at night, but there was nothing except kissing and petting. (I am not sure about these two words ) To do something more, he was just too shy.
How did you break up? Sabrina: I was sick of all this and I ended our relationship really roughly. His faithlessness hit me so much that I changed schools. I go now to Realschule. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Julia (16), Tom's ex-girlfriend
'Tom is shy. Our first kiss was on the 5th date!'
When were you and Tom together? Julia: Last summer holidays. My friend Ina and me knew Tom and Bill all together. (all 4 knew each other at once) We had a classroom above theirs. The boys got our mobile phone numbers and text messaged us.
Was Tom the first one to kiss? Julia: No, he was too shy to do it. First, I also had more fun with Bill. (while talking, she and Bill understood each other better) We didn't kiss until the 5th date. His kisses weren't bad. (giggles)
And - happened something more? Julia: No, because we have never been at home alone, just us two, so we were out all the holidays. I wanted more, but Tom wasn't urgent about it.
Why did you two break up then? Julia: It was really funny when we were divided. After the summer holidays we went back to school. And then there were those rumors about me, which Bill and Tom had to explain to the whole world. We didn't talk even one word after it, although we met quite often by way. (As in, they crossed paths but didn't talk.) Do you believe, that Tom really slept with 25 girls?Julia: (laugh) Never in my life! He always makes from himself into a big macho man, but when it gets serious, he pulls his dick (penis) back! [ROFL AT THIS PHRASE] --------------------------------- Ina (17), Bill's ex-girlfriend
'Bill had already sex - but not with me!'
Ina, how was Bill like as a friend? Ina: I found him then totally sweet and also arbitrary. He had a good sense of humor and wasn't so boring like many other boys.
What was between you two? Ina: Nothing more than between Tom and Julia. We met always all 4 together. Bill wasn't that shy, he was always so near to me and he was really tender. He also sometimes [cuddled]? me.
Had you sex? Ina: No, but I know, that he definitely had sex. He told me it. We have talked a lot about it.
Do you think that Bill likes boys too? Ina: No, I don't! Although he looks "wife like", but he definitely isn't gay. He had also some girls already; I have never seen him with a boy!
oh my god!!!! Today i got my freeakin Angels And Airwaves C.D.!!!!!! I was the first costumer to go in!! =] I'm so happy to be one of the first people to buy it!! Everything in the C.D. looks great and I can't wait to be listening to it all day and night!! =]
like the grains of sand on the beach like the breath of a baby's bottom Marks fingers smell of dog I often wonder where he stuck them so don't feel torn, weathered, battered ashamed that all has gone wrong I learned that even I don't know best when it comes to my friend Mark...and my dog
Marks parents divorced when he was 14 and he went to live with his dad,high tech weapons engineer for the U.S. navy, in Washington.His father's work took the family to various places in the U.S., rarely staying anywhere for more than two years. Mark said the constant moving was the only consistent feature of his childhood.His dad gave him his first bass and amp as a present when he was 15, for helping paint the house. He originally wanted to be a highschool english teacher. Mark has the least number of tatoos/piercings in the band, with just a nipple ring and his left ear pierced.He used to smoke, but doesn't anymore. He got married to Skye Everly in December 2nd 2000 and in August 5th 2002 they had their son Jack.
Travis started playing the drums when he was 4 and stopped when he was 7 and then started again when he was 17.Got his first drum set as a young boy. He is a highly skilled drummer, and has played in a wide variety of bands before joining blink. He was previously with the ska band, 'the aquabats', where he played under the name 'Travis Baron von Tito'.Travis mum died of cancer when travis was only young. He has tatoos and piecings all over his body, which have a lot of meaning to him. He also runs his own shop called 'Famous Stars and Straps.'
Ever since Tom was young, he has believed that aliens exist. He got a computer solely for the purpose of looking up internet sites about aliens. While he was growing up, Tom was used to hard work. He spent time working on a construction site, and also at Gary's Chicken and Ribbs in his hometown, Poway. He appeared in the movie Idle Hngs as a fast food employee, and got to say 1 line.Tom Discovered Alcohol at a young age, tom was expelled before his 15th birthday for turning up at a basketball game. He was also known for waking his parents up during the wee hours by blowing noteless tunes from a trumpet. Although not seemingly talented with music he did apply himself to the guitar. He became interested in the instrument on a church camping trip. One camper brought a guitar along, and Tom spent more time playing around with the guitar than he did with the camping activities. Tom discovered punk on a holiday in Oregon, when he went to visit a friend. This friend was heavily into punk, and introduced Tom to bands such as Stiff Little Fingers, Dinosaur Jr., and The Descendents. Despite having previously thought punk was nothing but fast noise, Tom fell in love with the sounds he heard.
