Redefining Blink-182
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
 |
| Blink-182 includes, from left, guitarist/ vocalist Tom DeLonge, drummer Travis Barker and bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus. The pop-punk superstars play Blaisdell tonight.
Associated Press |
 |
| After a four-year absence, Blink-182 returns for shows in Honolulu tonight and Saturday on Maui. The band first played in Hawai'i at The Groove — now Volcanoes — and later as part of the Vans Warped Tour. |
Blink-182 7 p.m. today Blaisdell Arena $29.50, $35 (877) 750-4400 On Maui: 7 p.m., Saturday, Maui Arts & Cultural Center, $35, (808) 242-7469 Our Blink-182 iMix "All The Small Things" (1999) "The Rock Show" (2001) "What's My Age Again?" (1999) "First Date" (2001) "I Miss You" (2003) "Dammit" (1998) "Man Overboard" (2000) "Adam's Song" (2000) "Feeling This" (2003) "Down" (2003) "Anthem, Pt. 2" (2001) "I'm Lost Without You" (2003) |
Blink-182's resident tour doctor Mark Hoppus, that is.
And he's kindly offering a review of drummer Travis Barker's medical condition that's a bit more detailed than expected. Terms such as "pins," "multiple surgeries" and "70-mph motorcycle crashes" easily earn the winces he's likely angling for.
"He's in a cast even now," says Hoppus, explaining Barker's condition five months removed from surgery for a foot injury that forced the pop-punk trio to prematurely end its spring tour. Shows tonight in Honolulu and Saturday on Maui kick off a one-month tour of postponed Japan and Australia dates.
"When we get back from this tour ... he goes back in for another surgery where they take pins out of his foot and put him in a cast for six more months," says Hoppus. "By the time that he's actually out of that cast, it'll be a year from when he broke his foot."
Which, of course, begs the follow-up question: What exactly happened to Barker?
"He just tripped walking out to the bus," says Hoppus. "He had a backpack on and a camera bag with a bunch of stuff. When he fell ... he twisted his body so that he wouldn't fall on his computer. And it just broke his foot in half."
Uh-huh ... Ow! But Hoppus isn't finished with the blow-by-blow.
"It's the kind of break that people get when they're riding a motorcycle at 70 miles an hour and they lose it, start to fall over, put their foot down to try and stop themselves from falling, and their foot folds up under them."
Hoppus pauses.
"That's what the doctor told him anyway."
FIRST DATE/LAST DATE
"Can you tell our house has no furniture in it?"
The Hoppus family has lived in its new Los Angeles home for only a few weeks, and the bassist/vocalist's voice seems to bounce off of several walls in a cavernous room before entering the phone receiver.
He retreats to a carpeted room to dampen the slightly annoying echo. Settling in, he recalls Blink's first of several pre-stardom, pre-"Enema of the State," pre-"All The Small Things" Hawai'i gigs.
First stop: A July 1995 show at The Groove, opening for The Vandals and Guttermouth.
"I remember Tom breaking a guitar string and my bass becoming unplugged," says Hoppus, a bit wistfully, of the early career show with Blink guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge and former drummer Scott Raynor. "And then an amp blew or something like that."
Hoppus strongly disagrees with a suggestion that The Groove — now Volcanoes Nightclub — was a venue ranking only slightly above "dive" status back then.
"No, it was rad!" says Hoppus. "I loved that place! It had such great energy."
Blink played there again the following May, and outdoors as part of the Vans Warped Tour and Big Mele in 1998. A year after the huge success of its breakthrough fourth CD, 1999's "Enema of the State," Blink finally headlined an all-day music fest at Waimanalo Polo Field.
Blink hasn't been back since.
"We really haven't been there since 2000?" asks Hoppus, genuinely surprised and embarrassed. "It's been that long?" Pause. "That sucks."
Hoppus smartly avoids assigning blame to any one thing — Blink's promotion from club gigs to arenas making Hawai'i stops more problematic, for instance. But he's honestly moved that even a decade after its first Hawai'i show, Blink can still attract a near-sellout crowd in one of the first cities outside of Southern California to embrace its music.
"When somebody tells me things like that ... it still surprises me, because I always think of us as just this small band from San Diego, you know?" says Hoppus. "And to have all of this stuff happen is still strange to me."
WHAT'S MY AGE AGAIN?
When you're Blink-182, suddenly being called "mature" by formerly abusive music critics requires a moment of pause. It is, after all, that strange kind of compliment that has a way of coming off way condescending.
Released last November, Blink-182's widely praised self-titled seventh CD amassed more reviews containing the "M" word than the band famous for its never-ending adolescence was at first comfortable with.
"I used to hate when I would see that," says Hoppus. "In the beginning, I completely tried to distance us from that. ... But you know what? I think that we did, in a lot of different ways."
"Blink-182" is actually Blink-182 redefined. More somber, emotionally rooted and sonically adventurous than anything preceding it, the record doesn't so much abandon Blink's machine-gun pop-punk sound as it does sharpen its edges. Lyrics once centered around goofy — though quite honest — teenage angst now address adult problems and a sobering worldview.
"Feeling This" opens with signature Blink bombast, but soon gives way to surprisingly lovely vocal harmonies. "Go" addresses abusive relationships; "Not Now" and "Stockholm Syndrome" explore themes of mortality.
The gorgeous and very un-Blink hit ballad "I Miss You," with its 70 tracks of acoustic and organic instruments and hip-hop drumbeats, fits well among oddly ethereal tracks like "I'm Lost Without You" and "All Of This."
"I don't think we went in saying we were going to change our band," says Hoppus. "We just went in with the idea that we had these different thoughts and these different directions that we wanted to explore."
The trio also adopted a whole new approach to working in studio — entering with only snippets of songs rather than complete compositions.
Explains Hoppus, "Whatever felt right for a song was how we were gonna record it. And we would change songs all the time.
"If we were recording and something sounded really different from what we thought people would expect from Blink-182, we embraced it."
Pleased with what they were hearing, executives at Geffen Records offered the band all the time it needed to work on the CD. Blink took a year.
Like "Enema" and its equally pun-loving 2001 follow-up, "Take Off Your Pants And Jacket," "Blink-182" has wound up a million-plus seller. It debuted on the Billboard Top 200 album chart at No. 3 last November, and remains entrenched in its top half.
"People that have never liked Blink-182 have heard this record and liked it, which means a whole lot to us," says Hoppus. "I mean, we just wrote the album and didn't know how people were gonna react to it. We thought people might hate it."
FEELING THIS
Hoppus is back in the echo chamber.
"When I listen to our record now, I think of all the things that I want to do on the next album and how much further we can push it as a band," says Hoppus, his voice full of infectious hope.
The success of "Blink-182" has energized the guys so much, they began work on their next CD while on a recent two-month co-headlining tour with No Doubt.
"We actually brought a demo studio out with us and put it in the dressing room every day," says Hoppus. "So we were putting down ideas even then."
Hoppus expects Blink to formally enter the studio next spring, following winter tours of Europe and the Mainland.
"I can understand why reviewers would say some of the things that they say about us," reflects Hoppus. "I mean ... we're a silly band. We are. We have fun. We love to do what we do. We try to write the best songs that we can. We put our heart and soul into our music."
But it's cool to be rewarded for changing things up a bit, too.
"The best thing that this CD has done for our band is really rejuvenate our love of our band and our love of music," says Hoppus, his vox reverberating. "It feels like our band is starting over from square one. And it feels great to be excited about all the aspects of our band — about touring again, about recording ... everything."
Now if the tour doctor could only get around to ordering some furniture ...
Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.
