Blink-182: "We're so lucky'
Blink-182 speak language of survivors
By ALAN SCULLEY August 21, 2009
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."
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