Before Blink-182’s Las Vegas Residency at the Palms wrapped, Daniel P Carter headed out to America to sit down with Mark Hoppus for ‘Music Ruined My Life’.

Mark took us on the journey of his musical upbringing on Radio 1's Rock Show, from buying his first cassette to christening the Walkman he got for his tenth birthday, to having explosive diarrhoea in front of The Cure's Robert Smith some 22 years later. Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be a true Blink-182 anecdote without some sort of bodily fluid getting a mention…

Here’s what we learnt on ‘Music Ruined My Life’ with Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus.

1 | The first album he bought… Michael Jackson’s Thriller

Before discovering his own music, Mark's father introduced him to The Beatles, Billy Joel and Elton John (not a bad haul), but when Mark was given some money for his tenth birthday it was a Michael Jackson record that he went out and got (again, not bad for a 10 year old).

“I think it was my tenth birthday and I got money from one of my grandparents. I bought it on cassette for my brand new Walkman, which was my big birthday present that year. I felt really spoilt as a 10 year old to have a Walkman.”

“I remember when the video for that song came out. It was a huge deal, and it premiered, I think, on HBO in the United States, and they had the making of beforehand and John Landis directed the video. It was this big thing that a music video was actually longer than the song - it was like a short movie. So that formed the foundation of my music collection.”

2 | The album that changed his life… The Descendants’ I Don’t Wanna Grow up

It's no secret that The Descendants inspired all the members of Blink-182 (past and present), but Mark said it was Silly Girl that changed his view on the punk rock forever.

“When I heard Silly Girl it changed everything that I thought punk rock was or could be. All the punk rock I heard before that was really political, angry and screamy, and it didn’t click with me at all.”

“Then I heard Silly Girl - it was like a punk rock Beach Boys - you could sing along to it, it had great melodies, great harmonies, and it was about a girl. Then I wanted to hear everything I could by the Descendants, then from there I got into Bad Religion, then from there I got into Sonic Youth... and then my brain blew up and I was 15."

3 | The first band he saw live… They Might Be Giants

Dressed head to toe in black, Mark and a group of his teenage friends headed to the 9:30 club in Washington DC to see alt-rock band They Might Be Giants while they were touring The Pink Album in 1988.

“In the March of 1988, I went to see They Might Be Giants at the original 9:30 Club, and it was the first time that I smoked a cigarette.”

“We were just these 15 year old kids, turning 16, and we decided we wanted to smoke to look cool, so we bought bought a box of cigarettes from the cigarette machine and sat at a booth. We must have just looked so laughable."