Tom Delonge on Blink 182 Break Up

Eriiin

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WHEN YOU AND TRAVIS FORMED BOX CAR RACER WITHOUT MARK, WAS THAT THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR BLINK 182?
"Mark took it extremely hard. I had no intention to ever make Box Car a priority over Blink, but it really hurt him. It sucks because Mark's a sweetheart and I never meant to hurt him. But he never got over it."

WHY COULDN'T HE LET GO?
"Mark's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, but sometimes he's too intelligent for his own good and will over-analyse stuff. But if the only issue was that he couldn't get Over Box Car, then I'd have propably hung it out a little while longer."

SO PROBLEMS BETWEEN YOU WEREN'T JUST A RESULT OF BOX CAR?
"I also wrote a song for a hip-hop guy because I wanted to do something different and after that, our record lable offered me a solo deal."

DID YOU WANT TO GO SOLO?
"I was flattered, but there was no way in hell that I'd ever do that. I thought it would be the most stupid, arrogant, lame thing to do. In any case, these e-mails were getting floated around between the lable and management and Mark found out."

HOW DID MARK TAKE IT?
"He didn't talk to anyone for two days and was pretty ********ed about it. Off the heals of Box Car, Mark was suspicious. There were many things he thought happened that never happened - like secret meetings behind his back - and I couldn't convince him otherwise. I think people thought I was conspiring to do things and that was so not the case."

THAT MUST HAVE MADE YOU FEEL PRETTY ALIENATED.
"It was one of the things that frustrated me the most because I really wanted nothing but the healthiest and to be doing it with my best friends. I didn't want to start another band and I didn't want to go solo."

SO AMONG ALL THAT, YOU GUYS DID ANOTHER BLINK ALBUM.
"Yeah, and it was a great healing period for us, but with Mark not being able to let Box Car go, things weren't the same. Travis, on the other hand, I think his focus was in many different places. He wanted to tour all the time, was playing in multiple bands and then he started his reality TV show that he never told me about."

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT TRAVIS DOING THE MTV SERIES "MEET THE BARKERS"?
"It was something I didn't agree with, but I supported him, even though I didn't like having TV cameras around me and I felt that my personal privacy was invaded. And then on our last European tour [towards the end of 2004] everything kind of came to a head."

HOW BAD DID THINGS GET ON THAT TOUR?
"I was super-bummed because I needed to go home and see my daughter and my wife. We'd been away from home for nearly two years and I was really unhappy."

DID YOU RESENT THE FACT THAT BLINK KEPT YOU AWAY FROM YOUR FAMILY?
"No, but it got to the point where my family couldn't be my first priority and I wasn't willing to uproot them every time I went on tour. It just wasn't fair - they needed some normality."

MARK AND TRAVIS HAVE WIVES AND CHILDREN TOO. WHY WAS IT SUCH A STRAIN FOR YOU?
"Of course they love their families, but I think they deal with the way that their family lives fit into the band easier than I do. My family needed me at home and it didn't seem like me making that my priority mapped up with the way those guys wanted to work."

COULDN'T YOU JUST TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT?
"I didn't understand. Travis and I couldn't talk to Mark anymore - we weren't the friends we were. The other thing was I was getting so much ******** from Mark about Box Car, but then when we were on that last tour, Mark and Travis had already put together Plus-44. I didn't even know about it until it got printed in a magazine - in Kerrang!, I think."

IS THAT WHEN YOU DECIDED TO FORM ANGELS AND AIRWAVES?
"No, absolutely not, and I want to make this clear. I had an epithany on that tour which made me feel like I was going to do something big, but I had no idea what it meant. It didn't even cross my mind to put another band together until after we announced our hiatusm when I was working on some new songs last March."

BUT MARK AND TRAVIS MUST HAVE KNOWN YOU WEREN'T HAPPY.
"They were going to me, "What do you want? What is your problem?" I didn't want to tell them what I wanted - a break - because I knew they wouldn't like it. Mark was happiest when he was on tour because he was with his friends and doing what he loved and Travis just wanted to play the drums. But I was going to self-destruct if I didn't make some changes."

WHAT CHANGES DID YOU ALL AGREE TO MAKE?
"We decided to take a six-month break."

HOW DID THAT SIX MONTH BREAK SUDDENLY BECOME AN 'INDEFINATE HIATUS'?
"My number one reason for needing a break was because my family needed me but as soon as we came home, we had to record a song for Travis' TV show and Mark had booked us multiple tsunami benefit shows. I think because they felt I was trying to control the band by making us go on a break, they were booking stuff for us to do."

WHAT WAS THE LAST STRAW FOR YOU?
"Before that show [the Music For Relief tsunami benefit] we had this big argument after a rehearsal. It was completely clear to me that the way the band was going to operate was very different to how I needed it to be, because of the type of family man I wanted to be. Anyways, as I was driving away, they both called up our manager and tried to cancel the show because they were really mad at me. They were so angry that they were saying... I don't even know what they were saying."

WERE THEY INSINUATING THAT SOMETHING BAD MIGHT HAPPEN?
"There wasn't an actual threat, but there was a really weird, unsaid... I don't know what it was but it was so strange. That's when I said to my manager, "Okay, it's time for a break"."

SO YOU WERE LEFT WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE A 'HIATUS'?
"Please understand that the break-up, or hiatus, or whatever you want to call it, was never an agenda of mine. I never wanted it to happen. It was a very depressing thing for me."

HAVE YOU SPOKEN TO MARK AND TRAVIS SINCE?
"No, We did a huge amount of talking and that's why I haven't spoken to them since because I said everything I needed to say to them."

DO YOU THINK THEY UNDERSTOOD WHY YOU NEEDED TO MAKE SOME CHANGES TO THE WAY BLINK WORKED?
"I don't think that either of those guys would ever believe that I did this because I thought it was best for my family. I think, until the day we die they will go to their graves thinking I did this because I had a master plan to make another band or do it by myself without them."

THAT'S A SAD THING TO THINK ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS.
"I'm tired of thinking about what they think said. I'm tired of wondering how I could have said things better. I said to them, "I want to be the biggest band in the world, I want to love my band and I want to be your best friend, but I have to be the best husband and father first." But I don't think they were really hearing me. I just think that we were different people at the end."

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MARK AND TRAVIS NOW?
"I miss them. I don't feel "******** you" towards them at all because I love them. They're ********ing awesome guys."

YOU AND MARK STILL OWN (CLOTHING LABELS) MACBETH AND ATTICUS TOGETHER, DON'T YOU?
"Part of the charm about this whole situation is that we still have these companies together, which means that one day we have to come together and rebuild our friendship."

IS THAT GOING TO HAPPEN?
"It has to happen."

ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?
"It's not going to happen on it's own. When all this stuff went down, I knew I had to take a different route to happiness, so I don't feel guilty about that, but there's such a large part of me that can't wait to rebuild my friendships with them. Playing with them again is something I think about every day, but I know that it just doesn't make sense for me right now."

PART OF THE APPEAL OF BLINK 182 WAS THAT IT REALLY SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE BEST FRIENDS. DO YOU THINK FANS WILL FEEL DUPED WHEN THEY REALISE THAT WASN'T THE CASE?
"We were friends. That's the saddest thing. We were doing what we loved and I swear, whenever we were onstage it was magical. There's nothing stained on the Blink name as far as the music and shows go, the only thing that's stained is the breakdown of our friendship at the end. It makes me so sad to think our fans would feel that way."

- Kerrang
 

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oxx

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#2
Blink 182 are the boyband of velvet punk.
About as sincere as a fart in a bathtub.
Good riddence to another MTV cred shot.:thumbsu:
 

collo21

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#8
bad musos bad lyrics.
but they hit there target audience... radio friendley ********,for people who only listen to whats "hip"
 

Eriiin

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Thread starter #9
You are all idiots. Why even bother posting? I was showing something that is very interesting to most Blink fans. I'm sick of knobs like like you... what do you even listen to?
 

LIONS then DAYLIGHT

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#10
Eriiin said:
You are all idiots. Why even bother posting? I was showing something that is very interesting to most Blink fans. I'm sick of knobs like like you... what do you even listen to?
I listen to Oasis, Coldplay and The Verve

Thank You Very Much Indeed Sir
 

collo21

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#11
i listen to

lindsey buckingham
fleetwood mac
top petty and the heartbreakers
led zepplin
pink floyd
beatles
beach boys
brian wilson

and fkin proud of it to
 

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lifelike_

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#12
collo21 said:
bad musos bad lyrics.
but they hit there target audience... radio friendley ********,for people who only listen to whats "hip"
I don't like most in the punk genre, but Blink was an exception.
Calling all Blink fans "radio friendley ********,for people who only listen to whats "hip", is unfair, as I also listen to most other kinds of music, not just "punk".
As for the article, good pick up Eriin, it was a good insight into what really happened.
 

lifelike_

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#15
Then you have little understanding of punk. Stick to pop, princess.
Blink was punk. What artists would you define as pop? I'm not trying to get into any arguments. It just annoys me that people that have posted in this thread are attacking music that they have no interest in and that people are genuinely interested in.
 

Eriiin

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Thread starter #17
Well, personally I'd classify Blink as a "Pop-Punk" band.

We could get into another "what is punk" argument, but in the mid 90's right through to now, the definition of punk rock is somewhat (thankyou guttermouth) "A loud fast and deliberately offensive style of rock music".


Thankyou Westy for having a clue
 

Jabso

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#18
Blink are pop punk, well that is new pop-punk. Old pop punk is stuff like the Descendents who werent ever that radio freindly as the pop punk bands of today who are more pop than punk.
 

w00dy

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#19
collo21 said:
bad musos bad lyrics.
but they hit there target audience... radio friendley ********,for people who only listen to whats "hip"
hahaha, what a load of crap... for starters their last release wasn't "hip" at the time, it was a very different and mature cd...

secondly they made some great cd's and pioneered alot of the pop-punk music that is popular today... how many punk singers sound like tom? it took a few years before their sound became so popular, i remember that dammit wasn't even that successful when it was released... now you can't see a cover band that won't play it more often than not, and it's always a crowd favourite...

their early music became what's hip, a while after they actually made it...

and as for the transcript eriin, was a great read... had no idea things were that bad with them... you wonder how they could play as a band, when none of them knew what the other one was doing... sounds like they've all been pretty selfish and stupid about the way they've done things...

lets hope they have a reunion with scott, and do a tour playing only song up to dude ranch
 

patsmith

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#22
Well, Dude Ranch was probably the album that got me into the music that I love, so I guess I'm a little sad to see them go. They also were integral in getting "punk" (not exactly, but you know what I mean) into the mainstream, and this is a GOOD thing, not matter what so many poseur knobs think.
 

oxx

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#23
kempos_kingz_05 said:
nah i wouldnt want to confuse you with to much information oxx. your little narrow mind couldnt handle it
God forbid u post anyhting informative toolmeister.
 

Monkster

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#24
LIONS then DAYLIGHT said:
I listen to Oasis, Coldplay and The Verve

Thank You Very Much Indeed Sir
So you listen to the 90s Boyband of British Rock (Oasis) the 2k Boyband of British Rock (Coldplay) and you probably listen to The Verve because no one else does and it makes you feel "individual"
 

oxx

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#25
Monkster said:
and you probably listen to The Verve because no one else does and it makes you feel "individual"
lmao Monkster.

I love these bands that kick and scream all the way to the bank.

Oasis did write some big tunes though and backed it up with recordings full of attitude.

LMAO@ listening to Gwynith Paltrows boyfriends band to feel individual also.
 
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