Derrick Bryson Taylor, writing for the New York Times:

That’s a really good question. It was funny because, fortunately most of the people I was meeting with in the early days weren’t really aware of the crazy rock and roll behaviors and antics that I’ve had in my early, mid-20s. I always tell people being a celebrity got me in a few doors, but that’s all it did. My intellect, whatever level it may or may not be [laughs], is what got those meetings to bear fruit. I think from my perspective, the most important thing that I was focused on was being eloquent. Being humble to the subject, because the subject is not a joke. I had to really be respectful about what I was saying, how I was saying it. I think because all those things, I earned trust and I earned more meetings. It was a process, it did not happen over night, it took me a couple years.

Tom DeLonge sat down with Rolling Stone for a new interview:

I think Angels and Airwaves has always been a little bit ahead of its time. For a kid that grew up on a band like the Ramones like me, these are complex sounds and compositions. I remember that a lot of my fan base wasn’t totally ready for it, because they were still mourning over the fact that I wasn’t playing with Blink at the time. But I tend to realize that everything I’ve done in my life is about five years ahead of its time. It would make a lot of sense that people would revisit what I was doing now and say, “Oh, I kind of get it.” That tends to be the curve that I’m on with everything I do.