By: Sindy
They were around long before anyone had ever heard of Good Charlotte or Simple Plan, and now they're back on the scene with a new self-titled album. Sindy recently had the oppportunity to chat with Blink-182's drummer, Travis Barker, and got the scoop on their new tunes, their families and what it really means to be punk. Check it out!
Sindy: Hey Travis! How do you feel to be back with Blink-182 again?
Travis: It feels amazing. It feels like it's just good timing. I think if we were to have made a record two years ago, right after our last one came out, like the record label tried to get us to do, it would have been so far from what I wanted. I think we needed some time off after our heavy touring cycle. It's good and it's fresh to be able to go and play other music with other musicians and just give yourself space and time to grow, you know?
Sindy: Did you ever think you wouldn't come back to play with Blink?
Travis: No. We always knew. Like, when I was doing Transplants, Mark and Tom were at home with their newborns and they would talk to me all the time and I would go 'Man, I have all these ideas' and they would say, 'I can't wait to hear it.' And then I came to them and we started the record and I said, 'Look, I want to pretend this is our very first record and forget about anything we've done in the past or what people are expecting from us and not second guess ourselves and just make the record we want to make right now.' And that's what we did. They were both on the same page as me.
Sindy: Cool. So, what's different with your new album then?
Travis: Everything from the sound, like the sound of the record, sonically, the guitar tones, drums, vocals, the way things were recorded. Songs like Feeling This have, like, five different break beats in it, that you don't hear in a hip-hop song. There's a cow bell in Feeling This - what rock song on the radio has a cow bell in it, where it's still cool? It just doesn't exist. Who can write, by far the most aggressive song, like Easy Target or Stockholm Syndrome, and then follow it up with, like, Miss You or a song like All Of This? This is, like, a record. This isn't some band that put out a record where there's a song on it that you like, this is an album.
- Click here to find out how Travis Barker of Blink-182 defines punk and whether or not having kids has changed Blink's sound!
