When they tore through the ‘90s with Dammit, All The Small Things and What’s My Age Again, Blink-182 were fucked up, bored suburban kids writing anthems for fucked up, bored suburban kids – get drunk, act up, go skating, and try to get laid; you’ll piss off your parents, but they don’t get you anyway. The headiest emotions were coupled with puerile pranks and potty humour, they had great songs with better hooks and faces for television, and they broke just in time for the hey day of MTV.On 1999’s Enema Of The State, Blink could make a mockery of polished pop stars while topping the charts themselves, and called themselves a punk band while selling four million copies for a major label. They influenced a whole generation of pop punk outfits, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco and New Found Glory amongst them, but there’s been no one since that’s been able to so successfully couple dick jokes with sincerity – and all the while looking like they were having more fun than anyone.
“We didn’t have a problem with being on a major label, we didn’t have a problem being on the radio, we didn’t have a problem with people buying our albums or our t-shirts. We wanted it,” bassist and singer Mark Hoppus says. “The only thing we cared about was not pandering to what people thought we should do… We were like, ‘We’re just having fun and doing what we like. Stop! Leave us alone!’”
I’m speaking to Hoppus on September 23, the Australian release date of Neighbourhood, Blink-182’s first album in eight years. Their infamous break-up may have been only six years ago, but there’s been births, deaths and middle age since then. Immaturity has always been at the heart of Blink’s identity, so what message are the band touting now they’ve finally grown up? And is anyone still listening? “I don’t know – being immature at 17 and being immature at almost 40, like we are now, it’s the same thing,” Hoppus says. “I don’t think [immaturity] is a numbers thing; I think it’s an outlook on life thing.” Each member of Blink-182 is a father now – what will their kids say when they crawl under the bed to find an old copy of Dude Ranch sitting with the prank videos and porn mags of Blink’s wonder years? “I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do, that’s for sure,” Hoppus laughs. “I don’t know how exactly I’m going to own up to this…”
Blink’s 2005 break up came as a huge surprise to fans, as shocked at the finality as they were by the open hostility flung about in the aftermath. Singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge had decided to take a step back from touring to spend time with his family, but it was his manager who finally called the band to tell them it was over. Drummer Travis Barker wouldn’t speak to him for nearly four years – until September 18 2008, just before midnight, when a learjet 60 crashed during takeoff in South Carolina. Of the six on board, only two survived: Adam Goldstein, AKA DJ AM, and his close friend Travis. “Tom reached out to Travis after that, just to say, ‘Man, I hope you’re okay, I’m sorry to hear what happened, if there’s anything I can do,’” Hoppus explains. (Travis won’t fly any more, making that rumoured Australian tour a little tricky: “It’d have to be a boat situation…”)“But I think even before the crash – I mean for me at least, I was already ready to move past all the nonsense, and at least start talking again as friends. I didn’t think that Blink would ever necessarily reform, but I didn’t want to have that negative energy hanging over, or that baggage to carry around.”
Just a month before the crash, Blink-182’s long time producer and friend Jerry Finn died of a cerebral haemorrhage, and in August the following year, DJ AM died of an overdose in his New York apartment – so it’s not surprising to find themes of mortality, loss, ghosts and nightmares lending a much darker tone to the self-produced Neighbourhood. “Something’s swimming in my blood / something’s rotting in my brain,” Hoppus sings on Fighting the Gravity, before the track distorts into a minor chord mess over sinister drums and hypnotic bass, before skittering to an abrupt end. Those hooks are still undeniable, that energy is still indefatigable – and if you look past the sex gags and dick jokes, Blink-182 have always been sentimentalists – but on Neighbourhoods, the teen breakups and that fear of growing-up have been replaced by something much harder to define. “It’s definitely a different Blink than it ever has been before,” Hoppus explains. “That being said, when we go out on stage, we’re still just three idiots having a great time, making stupid jokes and running around… So that still feels the same.”
With the benefit of hindsight, does Mark regret any of the mess? The four years of silence? The public insults? That bitter song he and Travis recorded with their side-project +44 about the break-up: “This isn’t just ‘Goodbye’ / This is ‘I can’t stand you’.” (‘No It Isn’t’)? …The one which was mysteriously leaked on Tom’s birthday? “I don’t regret anything that happened,” Mark says adamantly. “It was definitely an ugly experience for all of us – the breaking apart of Blink and the loss of identity and the acrimony and everything else – it was very difficult. But I think that it really showed us exactly what each of us brings to Blink… And I feel like we’re a lot smarter with one another now.” Are there still clashes? “Oh, absolutely!” he says.“But I think the main thing we learned is that that clash is exactly what makes Blink [work]… We all wanted very different things out of this record, so we were all pulling it in different directions – and I think that, ultimately, is what makes Neighbourhoods sound like it does.”
BY STEPH HARMON
