It’s exciting to be posting about Blink-182 again. It’s even more fun when the music coming out is undeniably catchy and there seems to be this buzz hovering around the band again in a way I haven’t felt in years. Hell, I even had to give myself a Blink-182 avatar in the forums. So, today the band will be visiting KROQ once again to announce some news and probably talk a little more about their upcoming album, California.
We’re expecting pre-order information and probably the announcement of their massive tour as well. I’ll be listening live and then updating this post with news as it comes in, that way there will be one central location for everything you need to know about what happened today. If you’d like to join in on the conversation you can click the little quote bubble on this post to jump to the comments section or, as always, join our large official thread in the forums.
What we know so far: The new Blink-182 album is called California, the first single is called “Bored to Death,” there will be 16 songs on the album, and the band is heading out on tour with A Day to Remember, All Time Low, and All-American Rejects.
Digital pre-orders for the album are up on iTunes and Amazon. A vinyl pre-order is up on Amazon, US pre-orders are now up, and EU/UK pre-order bundles are up on KingsRoad.
From Today’s KROQ Interview
6:45am: I’ll be updating this section live with any information we may get. It’s early for me here on the West coast — I’m definitely getting more sleep after this.
6:53am: Mark, Travis, and Matt will all be in the studio. They’ll be streaming this live on Facebook Live as well. Live video streaming is definitely becoming a thing.
7:00am: This can’t start soon enough — I can’t handle much of these morning talk people. Good lord.
7:11am: Here’s the direct link to KROQ’s live video stream.
7:12am: The band has arrived.
7:15am: Band was at rehearsal when someone at their management company accidentally leaked the song yesterday. It was an honest mistake from their management.
7:18am: Travis doesn’t like reading online comments. (HEY!) “Bored to Death” was one of the first songs recorded with Feldmann, so they’ve been sitting on this one for a while. It was done in January.
7:21am: The band demoed 20-30 songs at Travis’s studio first, before going in with John Feldmann, then when they got into the studio they basically tossed all of those. They think this is a good thing because that first batch helped them learn each other more as songwriters, and get comfortable together. And then when they got into the studio with a producer and it really all started to click. They all mentioned how they were glad to be working with a producer again and heaped a lot of praise on John Feldmann. Question: What happens if you don’t have a producer? Travis: “Then you get Neighborhoods. That’s just my opinion.”
7:22am: They wrote about 20ish new songs with Feldmann for the record, by the end they knew what was all supposed to be on the album. It was “self-evident.”
7:23am: They’re talking about “Built This Pool” and playing it now. Lyrics: “I want to see some naked dudes, that’s why I built this pool.” The song is about 16 seconds and you can tell the band’s having fun again. Update: A clip has shown up online. Update #2: Mark originally played this song years ago on his show with Amy Schumer (skip to 2:20).
7:26am: Mark loves touring. He’s very excited for this one. “I want to go everywhere, I love touring. It’s always worth it and it’s so much fun.”
7:29am: Travis: “We’ve known Matt for years, we did some shows together when he was in Alkaline Trio, but we never said we had to go in and record but we wanted to explore first and it was just so fun, great vibes, easiest work ever.”
7:30am: Question: Was it obvious Matt was the guy? Answer: “Yes. It was the only guy that could do this.”
7:30am: Matt: “I’m just so grateful.”
7:31am: Alkaline Trio status: Did a show a few weeks ago, will do shows here and there, but Blink is the priority right now.
7:33am: Album is called California because they reference California in the songs quite a bit. They shout out some California bands in the songs. Mark: “The album title was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Another joke title tossed around: No Hard Feelings. Get it?
7:34am: July 1st is Blink-182 day.
7:35am: About “Bored to Death”: The first day they were in the studio they put this together. Mark wrote the bridge that night in the studio with John.
7:41am: Some shows are starting to go up for sale on Ticketmaster.
7:43am: Travis: “The end of BTD I think I was just playing after the song and John just kept it and put it in the record.”
7:44am: No idea if they’re actually playing “Brohemian Rhapsody” but if they are, it’s definitely just farty-horn sounds to music. Update: Someone on Twitter said this is a running “joke” that KROQ has where they play this clip, so it looks like that portion was not new Blink. (Kinda happy about that to be honest, the “Built a Pool” joke works way better.)
7:45am: They will be going to Canada on tour this year and then international next year.
7:47am: Question: Was there a time you doubted this would continue? Mark: “I dunno. This album far surpassed what I even hoped to do though. It surpassed everything I thought we could do. I’m really happy and so excited for everyone to hear it.”
7:48am: They’re heading out now, played “Built a Pool” again. That sunny melody cracks me up, or maybe I’m just really tired and need to go back to bed. They told a good story at the end about how they were playing around and goofing around on that song playing to a click-track, then they set it up like it was a “real” song for Travis to play to, he recorded, and was like “wait, is that it?” and they left that little audio clip in on the song. The band sure does sound happy and excited about this album and really happy to be out there making music again. Tour dates and pre-sales should go up on blink182.com later today.
Update: The official EU/UK pre-order bundles are now up for sale.
Update #2: Pre-orders are up.
Bundle comes with exclusive unique code to purchase presale tickets for the blink-182 North American tour. Tour presale begins at 10am Monday, May 2 at 10am local time at ticketmaster.com. Code will be delivered by email with 24 hours of purchase.
Extra Stuff
I used the high-resolution version of the new album artwork to make an iPhone wallpaper if anyone is interested. God, I’m making wallpapers for Blink-182 again, maybe I need to change the name back to AbsolutePunk.