Tom DeLonge Says He’s ‘Totally Willing and Interested’ to Play With Blink-182 Again
Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker appear to be determined to move forward without their longtime guitarist Tom DeLonge after both parties fired shots at one another earlier this year. Recently, Hoppus revealed the pair will soon return to the studio with DeLonge’s replacement, Matt Skiba, to record the next Blink album. Nevertheless, DeLonge says he’s “totally willing and interested in playing with those guys again.”
However, DeLonge’s admission doesn’t come without its qualifications. The guitarist -- who is currently working on a multitude of projects for his Poet Anderson series, including a novel and an EP -- told Billboard the trio first need time apart:
I'm totally willing and interested in playing with those guys again. People ask me every single day, 'Go back, go back, go back.' And I tell people I haven't forgotten anything and I'm grateful for that band and for those guys in my life. And I think about that band every single day of my life -- sometimes multiple times a day. I love those guys and I love the band and, yeah, in the future let's play together and figure it out or whatever. We just need time apart because we all want different things at this time. Those guys want to play the music and tour all the time, but I'm involved in some very big s--- and some very important stuff.
DeLonge also alleges that he asked his Blink-182 bandmates to participate in his Poet Anderson projects:
I sat in a room and showed them animations and everything and said, 'Do you guys want to do this with me?' And there was a tiny bit of interest, a lot of awkward silence and a lot of emails that were just ignored. So I moved on and got it done. It's not like I'm doing these things and didn't ask them to go along for the ride, ever. People don't know this s--- 'cause I didn't go out and talk about it.
But DeLonge insists he harbors no ill will toward Hoppus and Barker for choosing to move on with Skiba in his place:
If they want to go off and play the songs I wrote because that's what they want to do and that makes them happy and they want to make a living, that's cool. It's not like it makes me extraordinarily jealous and I feel like I have to be on stage with them. I'm not wired that way. It wouldn't have bothered me if they called me up and said, 'Hey, if you're really busy do you mind if we go out and do some of these things?' I would've said, 'Hell yeah, go for it.' But it just never went down that way.