The story of Blink 182;

Blink 182 are;

Mark 'fish guts' Hoppus
Tom 'hot pants' Delonge
Travis 'f**k boy' Barker

A very cool punk band from San Diego, this is their story;

Originally the band's drummer was Scott Raynor.
Mark and Tom teamed up with Scott, but in 1997 he decided to leave the band. The rest of the guys were on search for a drummer and the results was meeting Travis, who immediately joined the group.

Mark came from a well off family. He was born in California but was forced to move to other places coz his dad worked for a hi-tech weapons agency for the U.S navy. Mark's parents divorced when Mark was 14 so Mark went to live with his Dad, Tex, in Washington DC. This event had a massive impact on Mark's like as we can tell from the deep and moving track 'Stay together for the kids'. When Mark was 16 he came back to San Diego in the city of Ridgecrest. From then on Mark developed a serious intrest in punk music which led to Mark getting his first bass which his dad bought for him. Mark's favourite band was the Descendents, which influence alot of Blink 182's music today.

Casually one of Mark's sister's friend dated Tom and the two guys met. Although coming from a nurturing background Tom was a problematic child. Tom discovered alcohol at an early age, and was expelled before his 15th birthday for drinking at a basketball game. Tom made a triumphant return to school and all of his friends voted him homecoming king. Although not seemingly talented with music he did apply himself to the guitar. He became interested in the instrument on a church camping trip. One camper brought a guitar along, and Tom spent more time playing around with the guitar than he did with the camping activities. Tom got his first guitar from a local friend who's dad worked at a dump. Someone had thrown away a perfectly usable guitar. So, Tom's friend gave it to him.

Tom and Mark started practicing in garages but they needed a drummer....

Tom met this guy at high school, that guy was Scott Raynor. Scott was 14 and a very big fan of Metallica, he bought himself a cheap drum kit and it all went from there...

The band used to play in assembly halls, lunch breaks and gyms. Blink 182's popularity has only increased since their formation in '93. Teens loved their music, so much so that they were asked to produce a demo tape. The results were 'Flyswatter' and 'Buddha'. In 1994 the band realeased their first full length album 'Chesire Cat' on Grilled Cheese records. The album was released with the name 'blink' on the front but that posed a problem. It turned out that there was already some shitty Irish Techno band called blink, so, for legal reasons the band changed the name to blink 182. Asked where the '182' came from, Mark replied 'it was just a number we pulled out of our ass'. Blink 182 started to tour around with some famous bands such as NOFX, Pennywise and even their idols, the Descendents. This was to be the making of the band.

In 1996, blink 182 signed a joint record deal with Cargo Music and MCA Records. Their first release was the hugely popular 'Dude Ranch' in 1997 with tracks such as 'Dammit' getting regular air time on radio stations. By the end of 1998 blink 182 were one of the most popular punk bands around. However, during their tour to promote Dude Ranch Scott decided to leave the band. Travis Barker was brought in to replace scott almost immediatly.

Before joining Blink 182 Travis was a member of a ska band called "The Aquabats'. He got his first drum set and been playing ever since he was young.
Travis had a shop named "Famous Stars and Straps" where he makes belts, belt buckles and shoulder straps for race-cars. He also teaches drum lessons for kids.

Blink 182 took a break after Christmas 98'. Shortly after they exploded onto the punk rock scene with 'Enema of the State'. EOTS went Gold multi-platinum in the U.S, Europe and Australia. The albums three singles 'All the small things', 'Whats my age Again' and 'Adam's Song' dominated radio and MTV. 'The Mark, Tom and Travis Show' (The Enema Strikes Back) was recorded and sold a third of a million tickets. Blink 182's songs reached Gold status in a large number of foreign countries.

Blink 182 even had a taste of acting when they appeared in American Pie (which they also recorded the soundtrack 'Mutt' for).

Recently their latest release 'Take Off Your Pants And Jacket' sold close to 350,000 copies in its first week in the US, and debuted in the Billboard no.1 spot! It has also been released in a limited digipack and a normal cd release. The album is packed full of excellent tracks like 'First Date' 'Stay together fot the Kids' and 'Reckless Abandon' which show the bands progress throughout the years.

And theres more to come from Blink 182, you can bet on it....

Did you Know?

Tom and Mark OWN their own clothing site - LOSERKIDS.COM.

Here you can buy all the great stuff that you see blink 182 wearing. Brands include Atticus, Hurley, Macbeth, Adio and many more. I've used this site and the prices are pretty damn good for what your buying!

www.loserkids.com

Contact Blink 182!

Ever wanted to contact Blink 182? Well here is the information you need. You can try these but it will depend on your luck if you get anything back.

Contact them at this Address
Blink 182
P.O. Box 506901
San Diego, CA 92150-0901

Or at these Email's
mark@loserkids.com
tom@loserkids.com
vikingwizardeyes@yahoo.com

Your best bet is probably to write to them, this is usually guaranteed to get to them whearas the emails may be security checked or may not even work anymore.

Good Luck!

www.blink182.com