blink-182 Band • Page 1507

I love this.

 

It’s a Cheshire Cat kind of day

 

Threw OMT on at the gym and damn I forgot how much I love Childhood.

Weren’t we supposed to get a music video for that?

 

Also listened to OMT today, put it on in the car running errands. So, so good.

 

You all should listen to it every day like I do. It’s always good.

 

I like to think I’d play it cool but if I were in the same room as Tom I’d have to dive deep into aliens.

 

I’ve said it before but the original tracklist where Other Side goes into Childhood always makes me feel something

 

I'm personally on a California kick right now. Back and forth between that and Untitled

 

Book from Premiere Collectibles arrived today! Wasn’t packaged very well but thankfully no damage.

 

I love the friendship Mark and John Mayer have. A huge fan of both it’s awesome to see worlds collide.

 

Book tour date last night was amazing. Enjoyed every minute of it and learned so many details to stories I’d heard in the past. Lots of new info as well. Very excited to read the book and even more excited about this band’s future. He neither confirmed or denied they were going to start writing new songs this summer.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Blink182/comments/1jxqzkl/atst_karaoke_with_tom_watching/

 

Put it on this afternoon, and it really is a super fun summer album. It's sunny out today and it's great for that.

 

Part 2 of California is one of the things I have spent the least amount of time with from the band. Listening now and I still really like "Misery." But OMT2 has found a way to grab me in a way this one never really did.

 

Parking Lot.

 

Any story details you'd like to share?

 

I’ll put spoiler text just in case people are going to these shows. I actually wish I had remembered more, but here’s my best recollection:

-Mark’s last interaction with Scott was a phone call a couple months after they fired him from the band. Scott actually lived with Mark’s family after Scott’s family moved out of their town in Cali in order to keep the band alive. Scott developed a drinking habit that Mark says was discussed a number of times before coming to the decision to remove him from the band.

-It was great hearing his honestly with knowing Tom wasn’t into it before the second break up. Specifically talking about the Reading 2014 incident (i hadn’t heard about this before). Tom was described as always showing up to the venue, going straight to his green room, not talking to anyone, playing the show and then leaving. So this specific Reading show, Tom goes to Mark and says “I’m too drunk, I don’t know if I can play this show”. Mark talked to Travis about it and said it was super shitty of him to do that, especially with 125,000 fans waiting for them; super unprofessional. So they decide to prank Tom. I guess at some point, Tom had talked about wanting to do this grand intro to their encore at Reading where he’d go out on stage with this big synth machine, tinker with it, and then Travis would come out and start the drums to “Violence”. Well, Travis tells Mark “I’m not going out. Fuck him”. They left Tom on stage for a solid 2 minutes tinkering with this machine before joining on stage. Mark says “do you know how long 2 full minutes are in front of 125 THOUSAND people?! It’s about this long”.. and then plays the video. It’s so awkward. I’m sure it’s on YouTube somewhere, but damn it’s hard to watch knowing Tom is thinking he’s doing something but lowkey freaking out inside wondering where his band was.

-Matt Skiba is a terror to travel with. There was one time they were all waiting for him in Chicago to take a flight somewhere and Matt was running late. The band and others were waiting in the first class lounge and Matt comes rushing in, makes eye contact with the band and says “I need to shower” and rushes to the lounge shower. Mark jokingly tells us his thoughts were like “what the hell happened in the 20 mins between you leaving your house and getting to the airport that you needed to shower?!” He said that after he showered, Matt went to a shop and bought a big bottle of water, a stack of magazines, and a neck pillow. They barely make their gate as doors are closing and they get on board and Matt promptly straps his neck pillow on and passes out. He fell asleep before take off, and so as the plane is taking off, his big bottle of water rolls off his lap and goes down the aisle backwards. The stack of magazines slides off his lap and get sprawled out under peoples seats around them. Then, he sleeps SO hard on this flight that he’s snoring loud enough to where people are standing up to look around and see where this noise is coming from. He told us he eventually told management to give him a ticket in a different row on future travel and to just tell Matt that his ticket got mixed up and they weren’t sitting together. This was followed up with “OK Mark, of all these stories, what is the worst?” And that led to Mark saying “Cancer!” With a big-ass smile on his face. That transitioned into the cancer talk.

-We’ve all heard about Mark’s cancer, but I really appreciated the details he gave about it. Specifically about how Tom came to be his biggest cheerleader. Tom had randomly texted a photo of himself on set for the music video of “Euphoria” from Lifeforms with these women, to which Mark responded like “haha nice, hey by the way I was just diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma”. Mark goes on to say that that day he had his best friend back (teared up). Mark would go to chemo and Tom would text him every time he went. Mark wanted to sulk in his misery, and Tom didn’t let him. Kept him positive. It was so great hearing how Tom was and is so much more than a funny stage left, he’s truly a best friend.

-The last section he talked about was the lead up to Coachella and how he didn’t think anyone would care about the band anymore and how wrong he was. It truly is incredible seeing this band in the current state it is in. It’s truly the best time to be a blink fan. This is the most genuine and fun form of the band we could ever get.


There’s a couple more stories I’m forgetting, but if anyone is on the fence of going, it’s well worth it.

 

Yeah it's always one of my go to albums as soon as it gets nice out.

 

Misery is definitely one of their top songs from the skiba era.

 

I’m not saying it was the wrong/right move. I would just like a little more insight inside the creative discussions around that time instead of writing it like they were in the same page when it’s not truth according to Tom.

 

So cool! Let us know when you're reading the book! I think you'll be pleasantly surprised

 

One thing that stuck out to me from that book that I personally hadn't heard before that was shocking is that they lost HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars on touring with +44. I cant imagine how damaging that would be coming from the high of Blink into that situation.

 

The mention of post hardcore influences seemed weird to me too until you look at the songs that aren't rock show or first date. Like the bridge in every time I look for you is legit heavy. Lyrically were heavier than enema.

 

Mark talks A LOT about money while he constantly tries to downplay how much of a businessman he is. So far (about 75% in) that's the only thing I find a little disingenuous about the book. Mark literally says how you have to play the game etc but then makes it out like that didn't matter much to him.

 

I remember reading an old punk Google group from back in the 90s where Mark/Tom posted a bit. They seemed pretty savvy about the business side of things even back then. It was pretty funny to read, I'll try and find it again