Blink-182 Career
Retrospective….Part 2
By Kevin Ott
Last time on Music and Vine, I was giving a retrospective
look on the career of pop-punk kings Blink-182. If you haven’t read that yet, I
advise to go back and do so because this article is just kind of pointless
without having read the last segment. Blink-182 had broken up and gone their
own ways, with bitter feelings still in the air. DeLonge would later recall
back to the events in an interview in 2009: "My biggest failure was the
breakup of Blink. That was a failure of friendships, businesses and
communications. In our hearts, we thought that was forever and gone. What's
funny is, at the time, I looked at it as a triumph."
After the
indefinite hiatus announcement of Blink-182, the members of the band stayed
anything but quiet.
Delonge immediately copyrighted and began production of a
new band, Angels & Airwaves. Hoppus and Barker also began to go their own
way in a new band, named (+44) after the emergency dialing code in London,
where the concept of the band was decided between the two. Delonge was a lot
more public with his band, promising "the greatest rock and roll
revolution for this generation." DeLonge later revealed he was addicted to
painkillers at the time, recalling "I was losing my mind, I was on
thousands of painkillers, and I almost killed myself," not realizing his
statement sounded highly ambitious. Both debut albums dropped within the first
year with Angels releasing ‘We Don’t Need To Whisper’ and (+44) releasing ‘When
Your Heart Stops Beating’. The Angels album did well, driven by the singles ‘The
Adventure’, ‘It Hurts’, and ‘The War’. In this new project, Delonge was going
for a more space-age arena rock sound similar to that of U2. ‘When Your Heart
Stops Beating’ did moderately well, but did not sell as much as Delonge’s
debut. The singles ‘When Your Heart Stops Beating’, ‘Baby Come On’, and ‘No It
Isn’t’ received little air play, except for the title track. Hoppus and Barker
showed their roots were always in pop-punk with this band, sticking to the
sound of Blink-182 but also going for a more darker and punk sound. The album
itself is also a concept album detailing Hoppus’ feelings about the breakup of
Blink-182, with many of the songs taking harsh lashes out at his former band
mate, especially the anger and sorrow driven ‘No It Isn’t’ which was released
online on Delonge’s birthday.
The band members did not speak for
many years, until 2008. That August, producer of the last three blink-182
albums and longtime friend Jerry Finn suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was
taken off life support. On September 19, Barker and Goldstein, were involved in
a plane crash that killed four people, leaving the two the only survivors. Barker
sustained second and third degree burns and developed post-traumatic stress
disorder, and the accident resulted in sixteen surgeries and 48-hour blood
transfusions. DeLonge reached out to Barker, first through a series of letters
and phone calls, and eventually started visiting him in the hospital together
with Hoppus, laying the grounds for what was going to be the band's reunion.
Delonge would later recall hearing about the plane crash while boarding a plane
of his own, and being brought to his knees with sadness for his longtime friend
that he had not spoken to in over 4 years, stating that was the moment he knew
he missed Barker and Hoppus. The three began hanging out as friends at Hoppus’
home and studio in Los Angeles after Barker’s release from the hospital, taking
it very light during the first month of their being friends again. he three
opened up, discussing the events of the hiatus and their break-up, with DeLonge
asking what is next for them, to which Hoppus replied they "should
continue with what we’ve been doing for the past 17 years.”. Regarding Barker's
incident, in 2010 Tom DeLonge stated that "if that accident hadn't happened,
we wouldn't be a band. Plain and simple. That was fate."
The band’s first public appearance together
in over 5 years was as presenters at the February 2009 Grammy Awards. Before
announcing the nominees for ‘Best Rock Band’, the trio made the announcement
that Blink-182 was back, and fans watching were estatic. The band's official
website was updated with a statement: "To put it simply, We're back. We
mean, really back. Picking up where we left off and then some. In the studio
writing and recording a new album. Preparing to tour the world yet again.
Friendships reformed. 17 years deep in our legacy." Before writing the new
album though, the trio felt they needed to get back into the swing of things.
In the fall of 2009, they embarked on an across US reunion tour with big name
bands who had been long time friends being the opening bands (i.e. Taking Back
Sunday, Weezer, Fall Out Boy, The All American Rejects) to make one huge
comeback. In the middle of the reunion tour, in August 2009, friend of the band
and fellow plane crash survivor DJ AM was found dead by a friend in his New
York apartment. Medical Examiners listed a mix of prescription painkillers and
cocaine as the cause. The band was forced to cancel and reschedule a few number
of shows on the tour due to Barker’s grievance for his friend.
Recording their comeback album was stalled
by their studio preferences, tours, managers, and personal projects. The band
members decided to produce the record themselves following the death of Jerry
Finn. DeLonge recorded at his studio in San Diego while Hoppus and Barker
recorded in Los Angeles. The album was delayed several times, which Hoppus
attributed to the band learning to work by themselves without Finn. In
addition, Barker was releasing a solo record, DeLonge was still involved in
Angels & Airwaves, and Hoppus had to fly to New York City once a week to
film his television show Hoppus on Music. Finally in September of 2011, the
sixth studio album for Blink-182 was released 7 years after the last one,
titled Neighborhoods. Driven by the
singles ‘Up All Night’, ‘After Midnight’, and ‘Hearts All Gone’, the album
peaked at number 2 on the billboard charts. The album was again a split divide in fans,
with many claiming it was a natural progression in sound for them. Taking the
sound and ideas they had used on their untitled 5th album, the band
also incorporated new ideas, and sounds of their side projects to make a dark,
gritty pop-punk album that displayed their maturity on their sleeves.
Following
the release of Neighborhoods, the band embarked on the Honda Civic Tour that
fall with co-headliner My Chemical Romance in promotion of the album. The
setlist contained a large mix of their old hits, as well as the three singles
from Neighborhoods, and two other songs from the album ‘Ghost on the Dance
floor’ and ‘Wishing Well’. The band would continue to tour this album through
the rest of 2011 and half of 2012. Delonge took a break to record and produce
Angels & Airwaves’ third and fourth albums ‘Love Part 1 &2’ and as well
as a movie based off the sound of said albums titled ‘Love’. The movie did well
at the Sundance Film Festival and is ranked as one of the best independent films
of that year. In November of 2012,
Blink-182 dropped their label Interscope that they had been using since ‘Take
Off Your Pants And Jacket’. Deciding to record independent of a label, the band
quickly made their way into the studio and in mid December, the 5 track EP Dogs Eating Dogs was released. Not happy
with the process of recording in separate studios as they did in the precious
album, all three band members worked together in Delonge’s studio to produce
the album. I did a track by track album review of this earlier on in these
segments, so I would recommend reading it. The singles from the album ‘Boxing
Day’ and ‘Dogs Eating Dogs’ did very well commercially, showing a more free
sound for the band that was true to their sound and turned it up a few notches.
That brings us to the present day.
What is to come for the band? Where are they going next? Only time will tell.
Delonge and Hoppus have both stated that they are getting ready to start
writing and recording a new album, but a date to enter the studio is unknown at
the time. They are also producing a documentary that had started when they
reunited, but became dated due to time and cost issues, then scrapped and is
now being redone. All that is known though, is that Blink-182 is still at the
top of their game, and they have a bright future ahead of them.
