Blink-182 Take It Back to the Beginning

The world has been interviewing Blink-182 over the past week (the label’s mad at me for posting that the video went up on YouTube, so I’m probably s.o.l), the latest is from Forbes, discussing the new beginning for the band and giving a little more detail on some of the new songs:

Well songs like “Rabbit Hole,” that have this big anthemic gang vocal at the end of it. There’s a song called “No Future,” there are a lot of really energetic, anthemic, angst-y fun rock songs I can’t wait to play live. This album is really rich with sing-along melodies and sing-along choruses. When I go to a show I want to sing along with the band. I still have that energy of going to see Bad Religion at the Palladium and wanting to sing every single word and I think this album has a lot of that for people.

Fuse Talk with Blink-182

Blink-182

Fuse sat down and talked with Blink-182 about their upcoming album, California. The band liked the other songs that didn’t make the album enough that they may save them for another album:

There weren’t any that we started where we were like, “No, that song’s not good.” Some were better than others, and obviously we put the best on the record, but we have so many more left over that we want to continue working on them and either use them for the next record or maybe do an EP.

They also discuss in more detail the title of the album and the themes found throughout:

It wasn’t a deliberate choice, but when we started writing lyrics and coming up with song titles, we were in the valley of Los Angeles. It was a perfect California winter, and it was sunny and hot every single day. John’s studio, it’s basically indoor-outdoor with palm trees everywhere. We were writing songs called “San Diego,” “Los Angeles,” “California,” and shouting out all these California punk-rock bands, lyrics to songs, and it just had this theme of California, this beautiful, endless opportunity with something weird or twisted underneath it. All the songs kind of have that. It’s a really catchy album, a really melodic album. There are all these hooks everywhere. It has an edge to it, a darker side. It just seemed like what California means to the three of us.

New Blink-182 Album Will Go in Lots of Different Directions

Rolling Stone were at the kickoff “Karaoke Bash” for Blink-182’s new album and tour and the article has some new information peppered in.

“It goes in a lot of different directions,” says Hoppus. “We have some songs that sound like Blink-182 from 1999. … We have some songs that are like nothing we have ever done before. We have a ballad called ‘Home Is Such a Lonely Place’ that has clean arpeggiated finger-picking guitars with strings underneath it. We have super-fast late-Nineties-punk-rock-sounding songs. … We tried to capture the energy and not worry so much about all the knobs.”

Tom DeLonge Comments on New Blink-182

Tom DeLonge

Tom DeLonge has taken to Facebook to comment on the current Blink-182 situation. You can find the entire post below, but one excerpt stood out to me:

For one, I think partnering with a song-writer on the Blink album (Feldy- 5 Seconds of Summer, Good Charlotte) was too far a change, but something they desired, and that in itself may be an indicator of some of our current artistic differences that are difficult to overcome. I guess I’ve always just liked the song-writing we did together. But, at the end of the day, I support their desires. And if they are happy, then that’s what matters.

I think kinda throwing John Feldmann under the bus here is a dick move, but more so I continue to hate the meme that shows up from time-to-time that writing music with an outside source is inherently inferior. If you sit down to write music and bounce ideas around with a friend, that’s seen as totally legit. But the moment you give that friend credit on the song, or give them money for their work, somehow that’s now seen as less. I think that mentality is silly.

I’m glad to see Tom is working on his own projects and is finding happiness in all of his art and different endeavors. I also think Blink-182 is better than ever. I think it’s ok for both of these things to co-exist.

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Warner Music’s Deal for BMG’s Catalog Sets Up Showdown With RED

BMG

Ed Christman, writing for Billboard, looks at how Blink-182’s new label, BMG, and their distribution deal with the Alternative Distribution Alliance will be challenging RED as the largest indie distributor in the U.S.:

According to sources, BMG’s record label operations is already generating about $100 million globally, and about one-third of that is in the U.S. While BMG began its revival in 2008 by first pursuing music publishing opportunities, after it completed the sale of its music assets to Sony Corp., it actually held back about 200 album master recordings from the Sony deal. But it wasn’t until 2013 when it acquired Sanctuary and Mute as part of the divestiture’s the Universal Music Group made in order to keep the EU Commission’s regulatory agency happy about its EMI Recorded Music acquisition, that it began aggressively pursuing a recorded music strategy too. Since then, it has also acquired Union Square, Infectious, S-Curve, Vagrant, and Rise.

All these labels and deals and acronyms sure gets messy fast.

Blink-182 on KROQ — All the Updates

Blink 182 - Full Car

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.

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Blink-182 to Release ‘California’ on July 1st

Blink-182 - California

It’s real, it’s happening: Blink-182 will be releasing California on July 1st — pre-orders will be up on their website tomorrow. The new single “Bored to Death” is back up for stream. Go hit play and then come join us in the official thread to talk about it. More news, maybe some tour dates?, will be coming tomorrow according to the official YouTube description.

Update: At one point the album was going to be called No Future, but it was changed to not be so negative. Also Mark tossed the name OBGYN Kenobi around as a possibility, because of course. The album is out July 1st, which is the 182nd day of the year.

Update #2: The tour dates have shown up online and can be found below. A Day to Remember, All Time Low, and The All-American Rejects are opening select dates.

Update #3: The track listing for the album (holy yes: 16 songs!) has been added below and pre-orders are showing up on different services.

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Blink-182 – “Bored to Death”

Blink-182 - "Bored to Death"

Today we get our first taste of new Blink-182. Not just new music from the band but also our first glimpse at what Blink now sounds like with the addition of Matt Skiba. You can stream the song below. Holy shit.

Update: It looks like the video, which was definitely official, has been pulled from YouTube after going live “accidentally.” If you got in early (or are one of the bazillion that probably ripped it), lucky you! The song will premiere on KROQ tomorrow at 7:00am (PST). Feel free to come join us in the forums and in this post’s thread to talk about the new music. I’m going to leave this post up for the rest of today and tomorrow to point people to the forums and will edit in the official stream when it goes live again.

Update #2: The band has moved up the premiere of the song to 4:30pm PST on KROQ. I will update this post with the official stream when it goes live but any new news will be getting its own post.

Update #3: The song is back up.

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Tom DeLonge Talks With Rolling Stone, Says He’s Still in Blink-182

Tom DeLonge

Tom DeLonge has given a new interview with Rolling Stone about aliens, UFOs, and stuff like that. You’d think that would be the strangest part of the interview. It’s not. When discussing Blink-182, Tom says (emphasis added):

“I love those guys,” he continues, “The only thing I think about is, I want them to be happy. [But] I don’t want the legacy of the band to get fucked with. I do care about that. I don’t want an incredible legacy to be ruined.” Still, he says, he’s not closing the door on playing with them again. “I’m not opposed to it. I still would be interested, if people would just pick up the phone and call.” (Confusingly, DeLonge gets in touch with Rolling Stone a few weeks later saying, “I am currently in the band.” He maintains that he has never officially quit or been fired.)

Blink-182 Single Artwork Leaks Out Early

It looks like the Sands Bethlehem Events Center mistakenly leaked the full version of Blink-182’s upcoming single artwork for “Bored to Death.” If you want to see your Christmas presents early, the Blink-182 thread in our forums is full of sleuths.

The new single will premiere on KROQ on Thursday. We will, of course, have a thread open and ready for the premiere in our forums for everyone to share their thoughts on the new song. I find it semi-weird that the day after I republish a blog post about what I consider the “worst part of my job” information leaks about one of my favorite bands.