Eat, Blink And Be Merry

For 8,000 rabid fans, Blink-182’s last show in Dublin’s Point Theatre was perfect. Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge and Travis Barker were in exceptional form; they joked, they waved the Irish flag and they delivered a hyper-charged, hit-packed set. Barker even played a monster five-minute drum solo from the middle of the crowd.

What the fans didn’t know was that, as far as Blink-182 were concerned, it was the last time the trio would ever share a stage. Delonge had handed in his notice, and the Dublin show was the last order of business before an indefinite hiatus.
“You know what?” Hoppus says today, cocking an eyebrow. “It was actually a super fun show!” It’s eight years later, and as we settle down for a chat in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel, the singer and bassist is in a nostalgic mood. “It was very strange because it was so acrimonious at that point, I think we all knew that something was gonna give after that show, but it was such a fun show to actually play. I remember being on stage and having fun and liking the audience and enjoying the show and thinking, ‘What a waste that this is probably going to go away…’”
When Blink-182 burst onto our TV screens way back in 1999, all white teeth and piercings, tattooed (mostly naked) flesh and aerodynamic hair, they looked – and sounded – like quintessential California boys. So, what’s Mark Hoppus doing living in London, supporting Chelsea and taking the tube to afternoon tea?
“I have always loved travelling overseas,” he explains, “especially the UK and Ireland, I love the history here. Living in London, we don’t have a car, we walk everywhere and I love the fact that we wear heavy coats, we don’t get to do that in California! I grew up in the desert where it was 120°F in the summer, it was always very hot, it was always very dry and it was always very bright…”
Sounds like absolute torture.
“Well, I mean, I love that about Southern California, but it was just time for a change. There are buildings on the street that I live on now that are older than the country that I was born in!”
As well as calling Blighty home, Hoppus flies to New York every other week to film his chat show, Hoppus On Music, inviting everyone from Noel Gallagher to Ozzy Osbourne to Tinie Tempah onto his big leather couch. If somehow, through the medium of CGI, he had Blink-182 on there, what would he ask them?
“What would I ask Blink 182? Why did we allow ourselves to run naked in a video? Why did we think
it was a good idea? And why did we do it so much
after that?”
Maybe so their leanest, buffest years would be captured on tape for all eternity?
“I mean, it’s funny and that’s who we were and we had a lot of fun with it… we just did it to death, though! It was like, ‘Oh, everyone likes this one thing? Let’s just do the shit out of that!’ We should have just said no. ‘Do you guys wanna be naked on this thing?’ ‘No. Nuh-uh’.”
Everything changed for Blink-182 in 2008, when Barker nearly lost his life in a horrific plane crash on his way home from a show. Suddenly, bandmate squabbles didn’t seem so important and the threesome made up their minds to work towards a reunion. 2012 marks the band’s first proper tour
since the release of their sixth album, Neighbourhoods last year.
“I thought that there was no way that anybody would embrace this record like they have,” Hoppus beams. “I thought that everybody was gonna be like, ‘Meh’. Our biggest fear was coming back and putting out a record that was less than we had done in the past, you know?”
Blink fans were expecting the band back on tour last summer. What gives?
“We were confident that we were going to finish the record last February, and it came to be January and it came to be February and we weren’t done. We had three options; 1) put out the record not ready to be put out, 2) postpone the record but do the tours on all the old music, and the third was to postpone the tours, finish the album and come back and play new music.
‘We chose the third one and it was difficult, it was very expensive, it sucked! A lot of people were really mad at us, but we weren’t going to be one of those bands who were like, ‘Here’s our old shit… again.’ It’s very important to us that we continue to write new music and not to say, ‘Hey, remember Enema Of The State? That was a good record, right? Here it is, 12
years later!’
That’s not to say that they won’t be cracking out the hits when they return to the O2 in June.
“I like playing the old stuff,” Hoppus grins, “even though I’ve been playing it for 20 years. I remember where we were when we wrote it, and what it meant. But I love playing new stuff as well ‘cos it’s fresh, it’s different, it’s something that we just wrote in the past few months and it feels vital and new.
“We struggle with the same songs every time, there’s always songs that weren’t necessarily singles but that mean something to us that we want to put into the set and then we’re like, ‘But to put that in we have to take out ‘What’s My Age Again?’ Are we gonna take out, ‘What’s My Age Again?’ because people love that song!’”
It’s funny that he should mention ‘What’s My Age Again?’, the track that pretty much sums up the band’s goofy, harebrained appeal. On the turn-of-the-century pop punk anthem, Hoppus whines, ‘Nobody likes you when you’re 23/And you still act like you’re in Freshman year…’ I have to ask how Hoppus, who turns 40 in two weeks time, is dealing with the onset of middle-age.
“Well, I bought a yellow Ferrari, I divorced my wife… Nah! Age is just a number, I think however old you feel, you are. For me, I’m about to turn 40, I still love doing what I’m doing and don’t feel any different than I did 20 years ago. When I was in my 20s, I always felt like I was the world’s oldest teenager and then I turned 30 and I was the world’s youngest adult. Now that I’m about to turn 40, I’m like, the world’s youngest old person? I dunno, It’s a weird unknown to step into 40. I understand how people would freak out, but for me, the number’s just an arbitrary delineation of rotations around the sun.”
How many more rotations does he reckon Blink-182 will last?
“I hope to god we’re still making music in our 60s!” he laughs. “That’d be so good, to get to do what we do and to do it for 40 years? That would be incredible.”
For now, though, Hoppus says he’s just delighted to be back on tour.
“This is definitely the best-looking show that we’ve ever run on the road. The production design on this tour is amazing, it’s got moving screens, it has video, I think we’re bringing lasers over… it’s pretty impressive. One of the greatest blessings of this phase of Blink-182 is that there’s people at the shows now who’ve been into Blink from day one but there’s also people who are bringing their kids to see our band for the first time, it’s this multigenerational thing. People who have never seen Blink-182 and are seeing our band for the first time. That’s awesome! After being around for 20 years to have new fans coming to your show? That’s exactly what we want.”