BRING ON THE BLINK-BLINK
The San Diego trio’s sixth full-length album is called "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket," and you only have to say the title aloud to realize their collective minds are still swimming in the same punk gutter that spawned the band in 1993. A lot has changed in the past decade—our president found out that Africa is a continent, reality TV features chained dating and MTV started a second channel just for videos. But rest assured that cultural advances have done nothing to mature blink guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker, who still write songs with titles like "Time to Break Up," "Happy Holidays, You Bastard," and "Shut Up."
Hoppus says "Take Off" is the pop-punk act’s best album yet, balancing a raw new sound with elements of earlier albums like "Cheshire Cat" and "Dude Ranch." But every band says their new album is its best one yet, so our own gutter-minded punk, Jennifer "The" Maerz "The Merrier," talked to Hoppus about really important issues: touring with handcuffs, sex with the elderly, making out and why he would ever submit to a lame trade website interview.
"Is Take Off Your Pants and Jacket" going to make Sen. Joseph Lieberman and his censorship crew all charged up over "offensive lyrics" again?
Yep. It’s so stupid the way they attack musicians and the entertainment industry in general. It’s like, "Oh my God, if kids watch a violent movie, they’re gonna shoot up their school." But a kid can walk into any bookstore and buy a book by the Marquis De Sade and find out how to have sex with dead people. Obviously, you just have to raise your kids to be able to differentiate between entertainment and reality.
Your sister Anne is writing a book about the band, "Tales from Beneath Your Mom," What kinds of stories are going into the book?
The best stories are stories about our manager, Rick Devoe, from the early days. He grew up in the punk rock scene and he’s a hoodlum like all of us. He’d come out on the road and just be amped like we were and end up getting way too drunk. We had to handcuff him once because he was belligerent at a bowling alley. We had a huge food fight, so we had to handcuff him to a chair.
That’s lucky that you had handcuffs with you.
We always tour with handcuffs.
You’re always testing other people’s boundaries of good taste. What are your limits?
Tom said something the other night that went way, way too far: He made a joke about having sex with 90-year-olds and it wasn’t funny. And as soon as he said it he realized what he said and he spent the next ten minutes apologizing.
You’re married. Was it a proper wedding in a church?
We got married outside in a big, grassy field overlooking the ocean. It was funny because there were all these grandparents and conservative old people, and then there were all our friends, who are tattooed, pierced, and spiky haired. One of the girls in our wedding had purple hair.
What does your wife think about all the screaming girls who come to your shows?
She just laughs and shakes her head. She knows that I’ll definitely be faithful to her and realizes that it’s just part of the industry we’re in.
Have you ever had any fans come to your shows who truly scared you?
Not really scared, but speaking of handcuffs—there was this girl who ran up and tried to handcuff herself to Travis. That was a little scary. Most of our fans are just normal, cool people. Once in a while a fan gets way too excited and starts crying or screaming or something and it just gets embarrassing at that point, you know? It’s like, come on.
What else should people know about the band?
People should know that I’m a really good kisser.
What gives you the edge on the other guys in the band?
I actually like girls, so that’s different than the rest of the guys in the band. And I know how to use my tongue.
