Tom DeLonge, one of the co-founders of punk group Blink-182, has told In a recent Rolling Stone that he never officially quit or had been fired from the beloved pop-punk band. In addition to this, he took to Facebook directly after the band announced their new album California to say that he had met up with Mark Hoppus and was in regular contact with drummer Travis Barker. There was even a hint at a possible reunion, “We DO have a future together if we want it, but for now we are busy doing separate things.”
Hoppus has refuted all this, however, in an interview on Kevin Klein Live. He stated “I haven’t even spoken to Tom in a year and a half.” On the subject of a possible reunion, Hoppus said:
“That is something so far down the road to even be a possibility… His post came as a surprise to me. I’ll never say never to anything, but this is what Blink-182 is right now, and we’re in a really good spot and really excited about things and this is what the band is.”
That makes sense, seeing as California will be the first album release since DeLonge parted ways with the band, and the first with Matt Skiba, formerly of Alkaline Trio. It seems unlikely that the band would drop Skiba and bring back DeLonge when they’re in such a good place. California was announced with the release of a new single, “Bored to Death,” and the band has announced a large summer tour across the US.
DeLonge (in addition to being a 40 year old man who still uses the word “bummed” to describe his feelings) meanwhile is working on an array of projects, including a book titled… *changes tab to check spelling* ahem… Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows, written with UNC Charlotte Shakespeare Professor A.J. Hartley. I would give my left arm to be a fly on the wall of those book writing sessions! The mix of Shakespeare and learned opinions with “duuuuuuuuuuuude” would be a comedy goldmine. The book, whilst fictional, apparently incorporates information DeLonge gained from “sources within the aerospace industry and the Department of Defence and NASA,” after which he added: “That sentence, specifically, was approved for me to say.”
Gawd. He sounds like that kid in 7th grade who wants to be all cool and mysterious, so he pretends his dad’s a spy and he know’s things you couldn’t even imagine, dude.
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