He’s ‘honoured’ fans still listen 20 years on (Picture: Frank Hoensch/Redferns via Getty Images)

Mark Hoppus and his band blink-182 give off the vibe of being the wise dads of pop-punk music. Starting out in 1992, it’s no easy feat that songs they wrote 20 years ago are still classed as iconic and probably will be years from now.

But something that Mark was astounded by this week was the fact that even die-hard blink-182 fans sometimes get the lyrics to one of the band’s most well-known songs wrong.

‘Due to personal reasons I will be wearing cologne to get the feeling right,’ he tweeted recently before adding: ‘Science fact: if you thought the lyrics were “I WALK ALONE to get the feeling right,” you are a Fake Fan.’



‘The idea was it was a joke. Like I wore cologne, I’m so cool I wear cologne,’ he explained to Metro.co.uk. ‘I don’t know, I think somebody who wears too much cologne is trying way too hard, and that was the idea, the joke.’


He added: ‘”Walk alone” doesn’t make any sense. You go on a date but you walk alone? Neither of them really make any sense,’ he resigned.

Nevertheless, he realises that people getting so worked up about the lyric means they still care deeply about the band’s music decades after the songs were written.

They’re always looking to push boundaries (Picture: Estevan Oriol/Getty Images)

‘It’s such a huge honour that people still listen to what we wrote 20 years ago,’ Mark marvelled. ‘I think we do our best work when we’re true to ourselves, we put our heads down, and we write music that we love, that means something to us.’

He added: ‘I think a lot of bands and artists look out into the world and try and see what’s popular and what’s working, and they tailor to what people expect.’

However, blink take an entirely opposite approach.

‘We always want to push what people think blink-182 is or what blink-182 could be,’ the I Miss You singer explained.

‘Enema Of The State – we love that record, but we really wanted to try different influences, different styles, a lot of that had to do with Travis joining the band and his ability on the drums are second to none so he was introducing different rhythms.’

And that’s why he takes no notice of the minority that moan about the band changing.

‘We’ve had that since we recorded our second album,’ he sighed. ‘When we recorded Enema Of The State, people said “I wish this were more like Dude Ranch”, when we recorded Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, people said, “Why isn’t this more like Enema Of The State?”‘

We’re starting to see a pattern.

And with the sound changing, the members of the band have also experienced a switch-up throughout the years, with Mark admitting that he hasn’t spoken to ex-members Scott Raynor or Tom DeLonge in ‘years’.

‘There’s no bad blood, no ill feeling, no animosity or vindictiveness,’ he insisted. ‘Being in a band for this long is like being in a marriage or relationship. A lot of times it doesn’t last, people change, things are different, but it’s not a bad thing.’

Due to personal reasons I will be wearing cologne to get the feeling right. — mark hoppus. (@markhoppus) February 17, 2019

So he’s determined to push boundaries, especially with the upcoming blink album.



‘This album definitely has the same spirit and vibe as we did when we were recording the [self-titled] album in 2003, we are trying different sounds, we’re trying different guitar ideas, we’re trying to push the boundaries of what blink 182 is,’ he explained.

And he’s definitely bringing that attitude to new band Simple Creatures, which he formed with All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth.

‘It’s intimidating and exciting and fun and different, and it’s really the first side project I’ve done outside of blink that’s tried to stand up on its own,’ the 46-year-old reeled off excitedly. ‘And we want to tour and keep recording and releasing new albums.’

‘The legacy of blink and All Time Low will only get us so far,’ he pointed out. ‘The new EP [Strange Love] is fun, it’s weird, it’s exciting, it’s off-beat, it’s something different to what I think people are hearing on the radio or in music right now.’

With just the EP being released in March, it’s sounding pretty epic so far.

‘We call ourselves trash pop…we want our songs to be catchy and things you can sing along to but at the same time we want to be ratty and dirty and have strange guitar sounds and synthesizers and dirty sounding drums,’ he told us.

He describes Simple Creatures as ‘trash-pop’ (Picture: Twitter/ @Alexander William Gaskarth)

Count us in.

It’s no secret that band mate Alex was a huge fan of blink growing up, even beginning All Time Low with friends Jack Barakat, Zack Merrick, and Rian Dawson as a blink cover band.


But Mark definitely thinks he holds his own in the studio.

‘He very much stands up for himself, him growing up being a blink fan, people might expect him to be intimidated or deferential in the studio, but he will absolutely stand up for what he thinks is a good idea, or fight what he thinks is a bad idea.’

While the star reveals that there haven’t been any arguments, there have been ‘good discussions’ between the pair.

‘There are a few things here and there that we disagree on,’ he admitted. ‘It’s more who the idea’s more important to, if someone’s really dedicated to an idea then the other person will usually concede.’

However, despite Mark’s clear excitement about Simple Creatures, he’s emphatic that blink will always come first for him.

‘The good thing about blink is blink is the priority of everyone in the band and we’re very honest with each other,’ Mark explained.

‘[It’s] our main focus, and when we go and do things on the side, we take those learned experiences and bring that back to blink-182 and use that on future projects’

While the band have had years of success and put on incredible shows throughout their careers, one unexpected bump in the road came in the form of a festival – the infamous Fyre Festival, to be exact.

Advertised as the headline act, they were forced to cancel ‘within hours’ of having to get on the plane.


Revealing he’s seen both the Hulu and Netflix documentaries, Mark recalled: ‘Our first clue was when we struggled for several months just trying to get very basic answers about power and stage size and how much weight the roof can hold, and things our production crew can normally get information on on day one.

‘By the way, our production team are amazing,’ he pointed out. ‘We have an amazing crew. If you give us a stage and give us power, we can make a show happen.’

He remembered: ‘As it got closer and closer, our team was like, “There’s no way this is going to happen.”‘

‘If we’d gotten on a plane, and we’d gone over there and been given two pieces of bread with a slice of cheese on it, it would have been a huge bum out,’ he admitted.

As for Ja Rule’s plans to put on another festival?

‘I’ll have to wait and see what it turns out to be, but those documentaries don’t make anyone in that whole world look very good.’

Tragic failed festivals aside, Mark is hyped for the future of music and where he can take blink-182 and Simple Creatures.

‘I think music is in a really exciting time right now. I think the technology to create music has greatly lowered the barrier of entry, you can make music on your phone, you can have a laptop which has the same technology as some of the best studios in the world,’ he explained.

As for where he’s looking to go, ‘I think that we’re going to embrace new technology and the new way of making music more as it evolves. I think it’s an exciting time in music where people are creating songs in a completely different manner.’

He considered: ‘It’s like if you were a painter and you discovered an entirely new colour that no one had ever seen before.’

We couldn’t be more ready.

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