60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Blink-182—“What’s My Age Again?”

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Rob explores punk royalty Blink-182’s “What’s My Age Again?” by discussing the band’s unapologetic celebration of immaturity, their musical influences, and what so-called selling out meant for rock artists during that era. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Dan Ozzi Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I got to conduct some market research here. I'm going to play you this clip, and I want you to just react. Don't think about it. Your honest knee-jerk reaction, honest opinion. I need a better sense of who I'm talking to. I want to make sure we're aligned spiritually. The clip is from the campfire scene and Blazing Saddles. The audio, obviously.

Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks movie, 1974. Gene Wilder, Clevon Little, one of the best comedies ever made. One of the best movies ever made. full stop problematic yes absolutely excuse me while i whip this out ain't nobody going to reboot blazing saddles okay campfire scene bunch of dudes and cowboy hats sitting around a campfire eating beans that's the setup market research give me your honest reaction here we go specifically specifically i'm curious if you agree that this is the funniest 10 seconds in world history. Come on. Don't be elitist. It's more like 60 seconds, actually.

How about more beans, Mr. Haggert? I'd say you've had enough. You show this scene to me 10,000 times, and I will laugh like an idiot. I will laugh like an 8-year-old. 10,000 times. I need to give you a better sense of who's talking to you. This may shock you. If you're driving, you may want to pull off to the side of the road before I tell you this. But I am historically immature, like world historically immature. I read an interview once with John Cougar Mellencamp, and they were razzing him about how he dates women much younger than him. And he repeated that old slick line about how, ideally, an older guy like him, he should date a woman half his age plus seven. That's the equation.

Half your age plus seven when you're 50, date a 32 year old, etc. Similarly, maturity-wise, I act, or at least think, half my age minus seven. Right now I am spiritually 14 years old. Blazing saddles aside, the single most accurate distillation of my aura is the Beavis and Butthead episode, where Beavis and Butthead aren't allowed to laugh and Coach Buzzcutt is teaching sex education. We're going to be talking about the penis. We'll be talking about the vagina. Do you think that's funny, butthead?

Do you find it amusing that we'll be talking about the testicles? The way coach leans into the frame when he yells, the penis is just stupendous. I've thought long and hard about the best way to convey to you my own personal, proprietary brand of immaturity. I have two thoughts. Thought number one, here's a partial list of fantasy. sports team names I have used

in the past 20 years. This is relevant. Here we go. The Dirty Sanchez Posse. Wanton Pantslessness. Kicked in the taco. We've discussed that. Moises Alu's hands. Google it.

Sir Vixelot. Maxi Priest Holmes. Grab some Saku Koiivu. I tried hockey for like one season. I don't know shit about hockey. That name was the highlight. Them heavy people. That was football.

Kate Bush reference. Sophisticated. Bodacious Tatis is baseball. It's less sophisticated. Repetit Mort. Also baseball. That's the best name I've ever come up with for anything. I don't mind telling you.

That's incredible. It's French. Actually, I'm not explaining that to you. And finally, the six-foot kayak. That's Souls of Mischief. The Oakland rap crew, Souls of Mischief. Let's say that's medium, sophisticated. Outstanding. Thought number two, here's how mature I am historically.

Lee. My buddy Dan, who first wrote me into fantasy baseball, my buddy Dan once told me a story about his older brother, Dan's older brother, when he was in high school in the early 90s. After listening to a ton of NWA and Ice Cube and so forth, Dan's older brother wrote and performed and somehow recorded his own original rap song called The Dick is in Demand. I have never heard this song. It's unclear whether the tapes still exists. I cannot play. The Dick is in demand for you. I apologize. But Dan told me this story. Dan said those five words to me somewhere between 1999 and 2001, and I swear to you, every day of my life since, to this day, I think about the dick is in demand three to five times a day. Easy. Whenever nothing's going on, whenever I am not otherwise occupied, it just pops into my head. The dick is in demand. It's like the desktop wallpaper of my brain. I just imagine this song.

I just contemplate the sophisticated notion of the dick as an economic entity, the elasticity, the fluctuating demand. The dick roves three years of a point this week based on robust trading and Camaros down by the lake. This is my truth. I am 14 years old spiritually right now, married, three kids, and a more. mortgage, it's suboptimal. I'm glad that we better understand each other. I'm glad you have some idea now of how important it was to me then when I heard this for the first time. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s in this week. We're talking about what's my age again

by Blink 182 from their 1999 album Enema of the State. An album title, a band, a song after my own heart. Did you know that line was, and I'm still more amused by TV shows? I love this song for 22 years, and I never looked that up. In my head, I just went, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, TV shows. Clearly, I had more important things to think about. What's My Age Again came out in the spring of 1999. I was not quite 21 years old when I first heard.

this song, my sense of things at the time was that nobody much liked me. And I sensed that people liked me even less when I turned 23. Girls especially liked me less. What's My Age Again is a song about immature boys and the girls who hate them. It's about immaturity as the antithesis, as the death of romance. To my credit, I figured out that immaturity was the death of romance when I was in junior high when I was actually 14 or so. Quite traumatic this realization. So I'm on the bus home from junior high, right? And this buddy of mine, let's call him dysentery Gary.

Gary lived in my neighborhood and he was a bit of a ladies man. But on this day, on the bus ride home, Gary is sitting by himself, silent, looking forlorn, looking distraught. He's not crying, but the vibe is bad. And I'm just sitting there concerned, looking at Gary, looking sad. And don't ask me why I bothered to remember this. But on the radio, a cover of Alice Cooper's Only Women Bleed was playing on the bus radio. Shout out WMMS in Cleveland.

A 1990 cover of Alice Cooper's 70s hit Only Women Bleed by a group called Favorite Angel. I am finally looking this up today after like 30 years. Never heard it again. This is Favorite Angels only song. why do I remember this? But yeah, picture a confused 14-year-old watching a sad 14-year-old listen to this. So we get off the bus and I go to Gary's house. We're in his bedroom.

And Gary explains to me that he's sad because his girlfriend dumped him. But he gets angry as he's telling me why he's sad because his girlfriend broke up with him because he was immature. She called him immature. And Gary, in fact, gets irons. recounting this conversation. And Gary goes to his dresser, and he pulls out a pair of underwear,

clean underwear, tidy whiteies, and Gary puts this underwear on his head and starts dancing angrily around the room going, I'm immature, I'm immature, I'm immature, I swear to God. And once again, I'm just sitting there, dumbfounded. Like, dude, I'm just here to play Pat Riley basketball. Gary was the first kid I knew with the Sega Genesis.

But that's the day I learned. chicks aren't into immature guys. Did I act on? Did I capitalize on this information? Fuck no, enough about me. Blink 182 formed in Southern California in the summer of 1992. High school kids from the suburbs of San Diego. Original lineup was Tom DeLong on guitar and vocals,

Mark Hoppice on bass and vocals, and Scott Rayner on drums. They called themselves Just Blink until some other band in Ireland, named Blink threatened to sue them. Ergo Blink 182. They swear the 182 doesn't mean anything. If that number does have a secret meaning, it's probably gross. Their first show is at a bar called the Gorilla Pit.

Nobody showed up. And after three songs, the bartender gave them free Snapple if they'd stop playing. So they stopped. The band improves. The band makes a few demo tapes. In 1994, Blink 182 starts selling a glorified demo tape, basically called Buddha, which is, thankfully, less problematic, spiritually at least, than the name Buddha would imply.

Almost 20 years later, the website Music Radar asked Tom DeLong what his influences were in these early days. And Tom said, it would have been strictly the descendants. I was trying to emulate that band. Really punchy guitars, fast, simple, and formulaic nursery rhyme love songs. So, the descendants. I want to be stereotyped. I want to be classified.

Descendants, or the descendants, choose your own adventure. Formed in the late 70s in Southern California, their first official album, Milo Goes to College, came out in 1982. Listen to that today. It's fantastic. A landmark for pop punk,

a landmark for putting the word college in the title of your punk rock album, a landmark for snotty but semi-volnerable punk rock about, and also for... the suburbs. For example, this song is called Suburban Home. It sounds sarcastic, but maybe it's not.

There's a documentary about the descendants came out in 2013 called Filmage, and Mark Hoppish shows up. There's a talking head and calls the descendants the punk rock beach boys. So there you go. Early Blink 1282 aspires to SoCal pop punk greatness, so think bad religion

and Pennywise and the Vandals, and no effects. No effects. from LA, who started putting out records in the 80s. Their second album from 89 is called S&M Airlines. The album cover is ridiculous. No effects have perhaps the clearest spiritual connection to blink 182, given the don't act your age ethos, given the extra juvenile juvenile juvenilia,

the silliness alongside the snottiness, the poop and the pee, and so forth. Parents just don't understand, and neither do the ladies. This song is off the 1991 No Effects album Ribbed. See if you can guess what the cover looks like. A song's called Shower Days. It's about how No Effects frontman, Fat Mike,

doesn't like the days when he has to take a shower. No Effects co-wrote an autobiography. Came out in 2016 called No Effects, The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories. It's quite possibly the gnarliest and groatiest band biography I've ever read. And I'm here to tell you that I don't think this song is sarcastic in the slightest. That's about the time she walked away from me. This is the greatness and the groatiness to which young Blink 182 aspires on Buddha.

It's okay. It's a demo. It's mean-spirited in a good-natured way, if that makes any sense. Here's our friend Mark Hopp is singing a song called Fentuzler. He's singing to a lady friend. It's not going well. Tom's guitar solo doesn't go so great either, if we're honest. Though if you squint, you can hear the pre-tuzer.

You can hear the prototype to a guitar riff that he will put to far more effective use later. In the meantime, for Tom's party, he's tired of being strung along himself. This song's called Romeo and Rebecca. I like to imagine Rebecca just asked him to take a bath. You can roughly divide early Blink 182 songs into two categories. Girls are a waste of time versus girls have decided I am a waste of time. Both approaches have their merits. Tom and Mark as distinct songwriters and singers both have their merits as well.

Tom is the higher and more explicitly punk nasal wine. Mark's a little more deadpan, a little droll, a little more tuneful to my ears. What they share, what they hone and magnify in one another, especially when they're bantering on stage at great length, is a devotion to potty humor, to masturbation humor, so absolute that it approaches a sort of religious ecstasy, a monastic devotion to onanism. We're talking about dudes who waited until their mid to late 20s

to call an album, take off your pants and jacket. We're talking about dudes who named whatever their most consequential tours, the Poo P-P-P-P-Tour, capital P-O-O, capital P-O, space, capital P-E, capital P-E-E,

tour. We're talking about dudes who named their holding company, Pooh-Poo But Incorporated, capital P-O-O-O-Space, but incorporated. As Tom once explained, we did it because it was the most immature, dumbest thing ever. We thought it would be funny to have our accountants, managers, and attorneys having to say that over the phone every day. And right now we're talking about these dudes when they're just out of their actual teens. no major label deal yet, no accountants or attorneys yet, no wives or children yet.

In 1995, Blink 182 put out an album called Cheshire Cat, Mark out most of the good songs, including the one called Eminems. He's singing to a lady. He's trying to convince the lady that he's not a waste of time. It's astounding, really, how convincing he sounds. I said Mark was a little more tune for. Best song on Cheshire Cat is a Mark song called Wasting Time. He's infatuated with a lady. He is envisioning the ideal romantic relationship with this lady. He's going to rhyme something with modern art here.

You have 10 seconds or so to guess what. Starting now. And yet this song is genuinely affecting. Tender, romantic. Is it well recorded? Not really. Is it undeniable all-time top-tier? God level pop punk? Not yet.

Is it lyrically clever? Fuck no. Blink 182 are not clever. No American band in rock and roll history is less clever than blink 182. No American band in rock and roll history has worked harder to prove that being clever is overrated.

Fuck being clever. Rime, fart with art, if that's how you feel. Rime, fart with art if you think that's how you'll get the girl. Because historically, this never worked for me. This never worked for me either. Nope.

Sometimes I sit at home and wondering she's sitting at home thinking of me and wondering if I'm sitting if I just wasting my time. That part's a little clever though, right? A little bit. Anyway, Cheshire Cat ends with Tom singing a song called Depends. They've got great rapport. and Tom. When the song's over, they do a little bit of the I-Speak Jive bit from Airplane. Also one of the funniest movies ever made. Also problematic. All right, let's get these knuckleheads

a major label deal, shall we? Later on in the show, we'll be talking to Dan Ozzy, who's written a great book called Sellout, the major label Feeding Frenzy that swept punk, emo, and hardcore, 1994 to 2007, 11 chapters and 11 underground bands, making their major label debut albums. That's Green Day, Jimmy Eat World, Thursday, the Donnas, My Chemical Romance, etc. A lot of the time, this decision to jump from an indie label to a major, to thereby sell out, to submit oneself to the mainstream alt-rock machine. This decision is often an agonizing, cataclysmic act of self-loathing

from the band's perspective, and abject betrayal from the band's fans' perspective. So think Green Day. Blink 182 is clear as predecessors as pop punk superstars just as a matter of scale, right? Green Day grew up in the iconic Bay Area punk scene, sign a more or less handshake deal with the iconic lookout records, play famous shows at the iconic Berkeley venue, 924 Gilman, and get glowing write-ups in the iconic punk zine, maximum rock and roll. Then Green Day jumped to a major and put out their album, Dookie, on Reprise Records in 1994, and eventually sell nearly 20, million copies of Dookie and become international punk rock superstars. But they are also denounced

by some percentage of their vehemently anti-major label Bay Area punk fan base. And they are spit on at their shows, but not at 924 Gilman because they are excommunicated from 924 Gilman. And they are lambasted as corporate traders in the pages of maximum rock and roll. It's heartbreaking. or you're as heartbroken as you can be on behalf of dudes who sold 20 million copies of one record. They'll live. Actually, for me, the most agonizing story in this book is about the band Jawbreaker. Also Bay Area Punk Royalty, but a little more cerebral, less bouncy, trending more toward the quote-unquote emo side of things. Jawbreaker swore up and down for years, often from the stage that they would never sell out, never disappoint their fans, never signed to a major label.

And then they signed to a major label to put out their fourth album, Dear You in 1995. Jawbreaker signed to Geffen to DGC. Home of Nirvana, home of nevermind. This is a great idea from any sort of commercial standpoint. But there's this mortifying scene in this sellout book where Jawbreaker's new label tries to convince the band to put a new, cleaner, shinier, more radio-friendly version of their old song, Boxcar on this new record, Dear You. Boxcar had been a standout on Job Breakers' last album, the last indie album, 24-hour revenge therapy. But if they put a new improved boxcar on Dear You, it could get on the radio.

It could get on MTV. It could be their breakout hit, their smells like Teen Spirit or their Longview. But Dan writes, Jawbreakers shot the idea down. They felt it would be a betrayal to their loyal fans who had earned some ownership of the song as well. Boxcar does not appear on Dear You, which turns out to be a car. colossal flop and Jawbreaker break up and never put out another album

again. There was a band literally called Jawbreaker Reunion for years before the actual Jawbreaker got around to reuniting for occasional festivals and shit. Here's how the chorus of Boxcar starts, by the way. Good Lord. And this tragic

tale, in turn, made me think of the band face-to-face. A SoCal pop-punk band formed in the early 90s, rad shout-along hooks, a palpable warmth usually. You hear a ton of face-to-face and blink 182 as well. And I flash back to this confusing moment from somewhere in my teenage years when I was listening to the face-to-face album Big Choice.

Also came out in 95, also their major label debut, as it turned out. And there was this confusing, to me, bonus track skit situation in which the band is arguing with an English-accented guy at their label who wants to put one of their old, songs disconnected on their new record because the old indie version is getting radio play and a new shiny version can get even more radio play and be their big hit their long view their basket case but the band saying they won't do it for basically the same reason jawbreaker didn't another thing another reason for people to call a sell-ups yeah we don't want to lose the credit ability with our following just a second don't talk to me about some else i'm

run a record company here. As a 17-year-old, the finer points of this debate were completely lost on me. Though, of course, back then, pretty much everything was lost on me, except, well, never mind. I think it's absolutely wrong. I think we've got to do this. I mean, it's the best idea. I don't want to do it.

Hey, no offense, Phil, but there's no way in hell that songs going on this record. And then face-to-face play the new shiny version of Disconnected as a bonus track on the big choice album. That's the joke. That's the compromise. The other bonus track on that record is a descendants cover, actually. I heard disconnected by face-to-face quite a bit as a teenager. I did not hear box car by Jawbreaker at all as a teenager. You want to get played on the radio on a junior high bus in suburban Cleveland. You do what you have to do. In fact, to roughly paraphrase Michael Clayton, when you sell out, I'm the guy who buys. I'm the guy you sell out too. You know what other song I heard quite a bit as a teenager?

There's that riff. There's a far more effective version of that riff. Blink 182's own major label debut album from 1997 is called Dude Ranch. It had not occurred to me until Dan mentions it in his book that the title, Dude Ranch, might have an explicit masturbatory aspect, that it might be Dude Ranch as in the salad dressing? I kind of wish Dan had mentioned that. I apologize for mentioning it to you. And of course, Blink 182's breakout hit. Their long view is a little tune called, Damn It.

Mark sings this song. He sounds way less deadpan than usual. The band sounds 10,000 feet tall and majestically shiny. And I will argue that Blink 182 became an undeniable all-time, top-tier, god-level pop punk band, specifically on the words that guy. It's the way Mark sings the words

that guy, the way he spits them out, but spits them out melodically, almost warmly. That's the moment it all clicks. Scott Rainer is still playing drums. Blink 182 don't even have their canonical drummer yet, but still, this is the moment Blink 182

ascend. And they ascend proudly, defiantly, and without an ounce of self-loathing or fear of betraying anybody. I brought all that Green Day jawbreaker face-to-face sellout stuff because what makes the Blink 182 chapter about Dude Ranch in Dan's sellout book so effective is that Blink 182 don't really give a shit about selling out or risking the ire of their early adopter fans or antagonizing maximum rock and roll or any of that. Not in a snotty or elitist or malevolent way. It's not that they don't know or

don't care about that controversy, but Blink 1-82 just want to make the hugest sounding music they can for the hugest audience available. They want all those clueless, radio addicted, MTV watching flyover state kids and all those suburban homes. They want me at 19. And they got me. Did you know that line was The Chirade? It Won't Last. I've loved this song for 24 years, and I never looked that up. No idea what I thought it was all this time. Anyway, here's the other moment on damn it that vaults blink 182 to the God tier. Yes, the contemplative

melancholy, sensitive guy section of the song. That simple little dynamic shift, a little quiet to make the loud louder. This is blink 182 adding a change up, or maybe a slider. Sports metaphors, sometimes that's all it takes.

Sometimes that's the key to unlocking all those suburban homes. Perhaps do RANch. I can't believe the salad dressing theory. That's super gross. That pretty much ruined my day. Perhaps Dude Ranch is a record you know well or know by heart. Maybe you know the song's pathetic, voyeur, degenerate, and dick lips by heart. If you want to hear this record in a new way, in a quieter way that'll make the loud way louder, I heartily encourage you to check out Blink 182's Dude Ranch as played by Colleen Green. I believe that to be the full title. Colleen Green is a

pop-pong singer-songwriter based in LA. She covered Dude Ranch in full in 2019. My former ringer colleague, Lindsay Zolads, called it an empathic exploration of the post-adolescent male psyche. And you can trust her. I'm digging the Colleen Green version quite a bit. It explains a few things. It brightens a few corners. There's a surface level where it's just funny to imagine the girl Mark Hoppus is singing in the song Apple Shampoo, too, singing in the song herself.

But there are also, if you choose to explore them, deeper levels of exploration as well. Though maybe the surface level is enough. Is it even punk rock if it's not a little problematic? Dude Ranch eventually went platinum. A million copies sold in the United States alone. That's not a Duky type number. No. That is at most one-tenth of Duky's number in the United States alone, actually.

But it'll sure as hell get your band of the next record. which is a good thing when your band's next record is Enema of the state. I think I was driving when I heard What's My Age again for the first time on the radio. I think I subconsciously started driving faster whenever the chorus, the guitar distortion kicked in. I do have a vague memory of my delight upon hearing these lines for the very first time. Not those lines, actually. Did you know that line was, I wore Cologne to get the feeling right?

For 22 years, I heard it as I walk alone to get the feeling right, and I figured it was, you know, impressionistic. I have no explanation for this. Whatever your personal musical definition of impressionistic is, this is the least impressionistic song in rock history. Those lines. Dollars to Donuts, I snorted with laughter the first time I took off my pants. It's the infantile shock of that line. It's the more sophisticated shock of the lack of a rhyme in that line. Dollars to Donuts, though, my snort was inaudible because I'd already cranked up my car radio super loud. Scott Rainer is no longer Blink 182's drummer. on Enema of the state, he got kicked out and replaced roundabouts at the time of the mythic poo-p-p-p-p-tour

with Travis Barker. And ah, yes, here at long last is Blink 182's canonical drummer. I picture Travis Barker in my head as a shirtless, severe-looking, balding, but it's awesome, majestically tattooed octopus, where five of his arms are pounding on various drums, and the other three arms are pouring immense quantities of mountain dew down his throat. Just this constant

foosh. Tom DeLong in that music radar interview talked about how psyched he and Mark were when Travis joined the band and how intimidated they were as well. He said, we were nowhere near as good as Travis, but we got better. Did you know that line was

and are still more amused by prank phone calls? In my head I always just went bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo prank phone calls. It's a revelation. But the final push to the summit where what's my age again is concerned? when Blink 182 throws the change up. This is a sad song to me.

This is a sad song to me in the loveliest, most ecstatic and affecting way. There is something akin to regret rattling in the bones of this song, even if it's a sorry I'm not sorry sort of regret. You'll recall that in the What's My Age Again video in which Mark Tom and Travis are streaking, they're naked the entire time, this is the precise moment in the video

where the encounter Janine Lundemulder, the porn star, the sexy nurse, who also adorns the enema of the state album cover. She's pulling on the blue glove. Yeah, but for me in that moment, hearing this song for the first time, I was ecstatic in a sad sort of way, because I knew that Blink 182 got me. You might say nailed me. They nailed, they glorified my immaturity, and the futility of fighting that immaturity. And the futility that would result romantically and otherwise,

from my futility in fighting the immaturity because best case scenario this is what it sounded like in my head in my mid-20s and i mean this is a huge compliment to the band if not so much a compliment to me that's what it sounded like in my head or that's how i romanticized what it sounded like in my head please do not ask anyone who knew me at 21 22 23 what they think it sounded like in my head at that point or at this point you get it i am more or less ignoring here to two other massive hit songs on Enum of the State, and I do feel bad. I go through phases where I put Adam's song on repeat for an hour or two, and this is another quiet makes the loud, louder phenomenon,

where the ultra-rare serious blink 182 song benefits from that ultra rarity. An Adam song, or a stay-together for the kids, hits ten times harder just because of how anomalous it is. What I like most right now about Adam's song is Travis Barker, actually, and how he tastefully manages to still sound like a mountain-dew chugging octopus, even on a slow song about contemplating suicide.

Even when this band's at their gloomiest, old Travis is still back there banging on shit. I am also, for the most part, avoiding the matter of all the small things, which is a Tom song in the biggest hit on Enema of the state, and their biggest chart hit ever, actually, number six on the Billboard Hot 100, kept out of the top five by Santana Smooth at number five.

Tough break. And it's also Blink 182's most streamed song on Spotify. The truth, my truth, is that all the small things is my personal like 23rd favorite Blink 182 song. I've got nothing against it, but I couldn't say what makes it the song for a lot of other people. Or maybe I could say I concede that the specific vocal cadence of all the small things is infectious. You want to shout along

with it. You want to pump your fist along with it and then put your fist through a wall and then run through that wall. But what I like most about all the small things right now is that line. The Roses by the Stairs. I used to actively dislike that line.

Too cheap of a rhyme. What can I say? I'm sophisticated. But now I see, now I hear the Roses by the Stairs as the happy ending to the sad story What's My Age Again is telling. What's my age again is Mark Hopp is putting underwear on his head and going, I'm immature, I'm immature.

But all the small things is Tom DeLong proving that immaturity is not necessarily the antithesis of romance. He found love. He found a woman who cares, despite his own exhaustively documented immaturity. And whatever is coming for him and the band in the next 22 years, my impulse is to leave Tom there, infantile but truly loved, clutching his roses by the stairs. But enough about him. Let me tell you about the funniest thing anybody's ever said to me. So a while back my wife and I were watching normal people, right? The Hulu series, based on the

Sally Rooney novel, some zeitgeist action. It's the prestigious, sexy, depressed Irish, romantic drama. They have sex 10% of the time and they're depressed the other 90%. I'm on the counts watching normal people with my wife. And my wife's on her phone looking up if the sexy couple and normal people, if the actors have been in anything else, any movies or TV shows previously. And my wife's just talking out loud while I'm watching the show. And she looks up the main guy. And she says, he was in a sausage advert.

And there's like a 10 second pause. And then my wife says, I'd like to see your sausage advert. And it's the funniest thing anybody's ever said to me. Maybe you had to be there, but I'm sure glad you weren't. If people find you too immature, too bawdy, find somebody bawder than you. That's my advice. Or if you need symmetry in your life, find somebody who finds the campfire scene in blazing saddles exactly as funny as you do.

Our guest today is Dan Ozzie, author of the new book, Sellout, the major label Feeding Frenzy that swept punk, emo, and hardcore in 1994, 2007. Thanks so much for being here, Dan. Thanks for having me. Of course. There's 11 chapters in this book, 11 bands, 11 major label debuts, 11 debates about whether to sign with a major label. Is it fair to say that Blink 182 care the least about selling out or alienating any semblance of the underground?

Not in a mean way, but they seem pretty chill about it. Yeah, I don't know if it was like their socioeconomic upbringing or like, geographic upbringing or just like maybe it was just a few years after this like sellout craze that hit like green day and berkeley but like yeah they really did not care and you know it's funny they recorded dude ranch with mark trombino who was in drive like jahoo and you know masterful uh studio engineer but he he told me he was like they were the first band that i worked with that was not ashamed of wanting to be a big band like he's like even my band We were like, uh, you know, like, whatever, for whatever reason, you just had this, like, punk guilt.

But they were the first band and Mark told me like, no, like, we, we love our band. We want people to hear us in the radio. Like, why wouldn't we, you know? That does sound like a suburban approach to this issue, right? Like, maybe that's what it was. Like, Green Day got so much shit, but Green Day was from Rodeo, a really run downtown outside of the Bay Area. And Blink was more like Sandy. like more middle-class suburban, maybe it didn't really matter as much to them. I don't know.

The Green Day chapter was traumatizing to me. Like, I knew all that stuff, but just, and they turned out all right. But like the fact that they got kicked out of like their home, you know, it really was so intense and so sad to me that like they had to give up what they had to get what they wanted, you know, in a way that it doesn't seem like anybody else quite did. And you would think that wouldn't matter too much because within a year they sold just in the U.S. 3 million records, one of Grammy, could play anywhere that, you know, played Madison Square Garden, played anywhere they wanted. And you would think that it wouldn't matter to them. But it seemed like it really did. And I don't know what, I guess that's just like human nature of like, you know, 99 people tell you you're the greatest thing ever. And then one guy's like, no, you suck. Yeah, it's just going to. personally affect you. I don't know. Yeah, it's like their teenage girlfriend broke up with them, you know,

and their teenage girlfriend was just a place in Berkeley. Yeah, they got dumped, and they never got over their ex. The VEM in argument against selling out, against signing with a major label, is that a musical argument at all? Like, Green Day go from Kierplunk on lookout to Duky on a major label.

Are there Green Day fans who think Kerkrplunk is a better record and, like, signing with a major ruin? Green Day musically? I bet you could find people still who are like clinging to the lookout records releases, but like, I mean, Duky is, they should teach that record in studio engineering college. It's like a per, like, there's no denying that that is a perfectly recorded album. And their success was hanged on them releasing it the way that they did.

So I don't know. But I do love, I love Kripunk, but there's just no denying it from a sonic perspective. Like these are better records. I'm sorry, you know. Yeah. Because for me, like the pop part of pop punk is as important as the punk, right? And it's a lot easier to make a truly great punk record in your garage than to make a truly great pop punk record in your garage. Like is what's my age again a totally different song on an epitaph records budget or with epitaph records promotion? So we're doing like the hypothetical. I guess we are.

Well, there's a section in my book where there was like, it seemed like a brief fork in the road where Blink could have gone to epitaph records. And they wanted to. And they did because they liked epitaph. It was like a Southern California label that Pennywise their buddies were on there and no effects, all these bands that they love. But had they gone to epitaph, I think that they probably would have done pretty well. for a while. Like, they would have been a big epitaph band, but there's, I don't think that they would have hit that offspring level.

And I think, really, they needed, they really needed at that point in their career, a sensible producer. And, like, they got that with Tramino who, like, because if you listen to the, like, the first album, the Cheshire Cat album, I think I described it in my book of just being like punky fragments stitched together for three minutes.

they're over. But like with DudeRent, you could tell, like, oh, they got some songwriting help. There are verses and choruses here. There's dynamics, yeah. Yeah, totally. And then, you know, the next album, and I'm of the state, like, they had Jerry Finn. And that's when you can see, like, what you're talking about, the, like, pop side of it. Like, they wrote pop songs then that were just very fast in their style. But, like, really, I think that, like, had they remained on Epitaph, they might not have gotten that studio support to, like, take them to the pop level, I would guess. That would be my guess. I was thinking about bad religion, which had a similar sort of arc.

They jumped from epitaph to a major, and then four or five records, they jump back. Which is funny because it was his own label. Like, he left his own label to go. Yeah. That's how punk he was. Yeah. I love bad religion sellout period, though, like the gray race, stranger than fiction. Those are fantastic records to me. Like, do you think the most die-hard bad religion fans are a block?

to grit their teeth through the major label stuff, like given how political that band is, how political was that decision, do you think? Well, first of all, I super agree with you. Stranger Than Fiction is unapologetically, my favorite bad religion album. Thank you for not apologizing. I'll tell you why in a second,

but I definitely think that existed, and I can tell you exactly how I know that. I remember when I first started going to shows at this hole-in-the-wall place called The Joint in Staten Island, there was a guy there, probably was like around 1998 or 1999, and he had a workers jacket on, and it had a bad religion patch on his chest.

You got to find that guy. Above bad religion, he wrote old. Like, he wanted people to know, like, I just like old bad religion. I don't like this new stuff. Oh, my God. I think for sure. But on the flip side of that coin, the reason stranger than fiction is my favorite bad religion record is because that's the one that I got first. My mom's friend got it for me for Christmas

in 1995, I think, because I asked for it. And like, I'm sure bad religion, you know, had to reconcile their politics of going to a big corporation, but they probably did it to reach a bigger audience. Like, they hit a limit on epitaph. They wanted to reach young kids who had like this new interest in punk from Green Day or whatever. And I was one of those kids. So it was, worked. Like the experiment worked on me. They went to a major label to like rope in these new fans. I can tell you from first hand's experience, that worked, you know? Um, so yeah, I mean, I guess like a lot of it is just reconciling if it's worth it. You know, like, do we try to get a bigger audience? Is that worth it to us to like alienate some of our existing audience? I don't know, but still have that

record. Every band should sell patches where one is like new band and the other is old bands. I think you should just have to, when you start at a major label, you should just have to have all new iconography and logos. Just so people know which era they're supporting, you know? Exactly. I have to say I've never understood what makes all the small things, like, far and away, the biggest ever, Blink 182 song, like, streaming-wise, chart-wise. Like, I don't dislike it, but, like, I vastly prefer what's my age again or damn it or, like, 12 other songs? Like, what percentage of this song's popularity is just everyone loves to sing work sucks? I know.

Maybe. I also agree with you that I think it's not the best single from it. I think What's My Age Again is? Better Video, too. Yeah. But I don't know. Like, I think maybe it has something to do with this song was really like the peak of their popularity. Like this was the, they had three singles.

What's My Age Again? This One. And then Adam's song. Yeah. And this one seemed like it really captured like the highest. highest high of Blink 182's career. So maybe that was like, you know, they say people, you tend to like fall in love with whenever you found it.

Like, you know, so same with you and bad religion. Yeah, exactly. So like maybe this is when the most amount of people discovered Blink 182. No, I think that makes sense. I, the video, all of the small things video, of course, is like a boy band parody that also acknowledges that like Blink 182 are basically a boy band. Like I always pictured TRL in this era as like, all the Backstreet Boys and Brittany fans over here and all the corn and Eminem fans on the other.

And like Blink 182 is like the exact perfect midpoint. Like were they the one TRL staple that everyone could agree on or at least not fight about? Yeah, they were, I mean, they were their manager, Rick, told me that they were at TRL so frequently that like, you know, like everybody. They basically work there, you know, just like everybody would. Yeah, they'd be like, hey, Rick, what's up? But, you know, it's funny because the reason that I did want to do this song for songs that explain the 90s podcast is because, like, this was at the very, very, very end of the 90s. Right, right. I think you could look at it as sort of like putting a cap on the 90s and bringing in what came next, especially for not just pop culture, but for MTV because like, yeah, like there was, the late 90s, there was so much of this.

Boy Band Ubikwity, like Battery Poison Sink, like all this stuff. And there was also like at that point we had gotten so much of it that things that were making fun of it were popular. Like the Slim Shady LP came out in February of 99. And that was a lot about how they hated, you know, Christina Aguilera. Exactly. So there was just like, it was kind of cool at that point to not like boy bands. And then Blinkled 182, this video I think comes out right at the very, very end of 90s. and like basically kind of put the cap on the boy band craze.

And then into the 2000s, we had this different thing that was popular on MTV that they really helped usher in. Like, I do not think it is a coincidence that Blink 182 being so popular 1999 into 2000 on MTV. And then October of 2000 MTV starts jackass. You know, like I don't think it's a coincidence. That is a spiritual match.

Yeah, I mean, like, Blinkin'clock. You know, Tom Green came a little bit before Blink. And then it was Blink. And then it was Jackass. And it was like this new era of like shirtless white guys behaving badly, right? So yeah, like I just think that like if you're going to analyze the 90s, you have to figure out when they ended. And this was Blink kind of like shutting the door on the decade in my opinion. But they did it cheerfully.

Like Eminem like truly seemed to hate, you know, teen pop. And like he was so like everything he did. It was so mean-spirited like Britney, Christina, whatever. Whereas like the Blink 182, like that video, it seems playful. Like it seems like again, they don't really care about that divide between, you know, teen pop and pop punk. Like it feels like they didn't waste a lot of time performatively hating teen pop or what they weren't supposed to be. Yeah. I mean, but Eminem's entire like, you know, thing is like, I'm going to kill you.

You know, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. I'm hanging you from a thread, whatever. That's true. And Bleakwood AD2's, like, entire thing is not, you know, that. So you couldn't really apply. Yeah. It wasn't as much violent imagery to apply.

It was, it was for sure playful. It was just like, hey, what if we did the same video as the Backstreet Boys? But, you know, we had goofy, awesome powers teeth or whatever. Yeah, it was, it was, I wonder if those guys, like, I wonder if Backstreet Boys ever. I wonder what their take on that is. I'm sure they were relieved. it wasn't meaner you know i have to think on the spectrum of people making fun of the back street boys at that exact point that was pretty minor yeah like that's yeah i'd have to think they were

stoked it was like very mad magazine yeah yeah there we go mad magazine street boys jackass yeah the wax street boys oh no that's good that's really good actually they should i wrote for mad magazine i didn't never told you about that i was that's that i would tell everyone if i had written for Mad Magazine. I respect that. In your Blink 182 chapter, you talk about the first years of the Warp Tour and how important the Warp Tour was to Blink 182, but also how tenuous

that first year, those first couple years were. Like, the Warp Tour guy, Kevin Lyman, he says, like, we had no doubt in sublime that first year, but nobody knew them. Isn't that crazy? It's really crazy. I think people remember Warped now as this colossal, corporatized,

like, compromise and, like, inevitable thing. But are people forgetting now, like, how ahead of its time that festival was? When we're thinking of the Warpter, I think of, you know, that scene in the Simpsons when Bart is doing a book report on Libya and that he didn't prepare for, and he's just like,

in conclusion, Libya is a land of many contrast. Thank you. So Warpterr is a tour of many contrasts. Like, yes, there were a lot of negative things that came out of it, but it was pioneering in the sense that, like, Kevin had the idea to, like, package

this surf skate punk thing and like bring it on the road to middle America, you know? And even before it got criticisms for being like a corporate festival, you know, in its first couple of years, it got a different kind of criticism. Like it got more punk criticism where a lot of punk kids were criticizing it for basically taking package tours and like overshadowing the local stuff that was happening. You know, like if it was, if Warped Tour was coming through, town that was like taking away business from like the club shows and stuff like that um then the criticisms evolved into like much bigger things and then towards the end it was like it seemed more

controversy than festival at that point yeah but yeah so like the early year like uh you know if it had been just like one year if warped tour had just been that single first year it might be looked back on it being like a crazy like no doubt and sublime and That's wild, yeah. I saw my first warp tour in Middle America somewhere in the 90s, and I saw a rocket from the crypt, you know, speaking of San Diego. And I also saw the alcoholics, that rap group, the alcoholics, who rap about how much they love alcohol.

Like, early Warp Tour was just chaos. And also, like, pretty awesome if you were a teenager in Middle America, at least. I guess you had to be there, but I was, and it was rad. Yeah. Back to Eminem, I remember the 19. 1999 warped tour. I saw a blink there actually. And I think Dropkick Murphys were playing. And I'm like looking in the pit and I just see this like blonde head just throwing elbows. And I looked at it was M&M. And I at that time he was just still, I mean, he had just put out some shady LP.

So he was not yet, he was getting bigger. But he wasn't like so famous that he couldn't leave his trailer. And I like, I'm like, man, that was cool. And then I, I, told friends about this on the way home, and they, like, convinced me, they're like, no, that wasn't him. I'm like, I know what I saw. I don't know if I believe you. You saw Eminem moshing to the dropkick Murphy's in 19. That's incredible. If you go on YouTube,

there is a little like MTV behind the scenes Warped Tour thing, where they kind of followed Eminem around. And it was really interesting to watch, because again, like, he put out this album, he was getting kind of more well-known. But he was going around. a kid just being like, hey, what's up? My name is Eminem. And some of them knew them and some of them were like, oh, yeah, right, right. But it was just so interesting to watch him at the cusp of fame,

like trying to win. Like you say, before he couldn't leave, you know, his house. Just like literally trying to like sell himself on kids. It was so funny. What do you remember about Blink? If you remember anything. That Warped Tour performance? Yeah, the 99 Warped Tour. I remember it so distinctly. And I don't know why, you know, that was the, that was the year. that they had dammit in the bag for like a year. And now this is when they started dropping their new singles. And they were getting bigger. And especially in the Warp Tour crowd,

they were getting really big. Like they were, you know, another band just like on the cusp of just being exploding, being huge. And I remember at that time, I thought I was like too, even though I was like a teenager, I was like, though that's too kiddie for me because I was like, it's a bad religion, you know? Sure, yes.

That's a difference. My girlfriend at the time, Tammy, she was like, I want to go up and watch Blink 182. And I was like, great, have a good time. I'm going to chill in the back over here. And she went in, I think not realizing how many people had gotten into them or like how much more popular than they were than the last time we had seen them. And she came out in like 10 minutes. And she was covered in dust. And she was like, couldn't breathe.

And she was just like, I got knocked down. and nobody who would pick me up. It was crazy and I couldn't breathe and I lost my camera in there. And like it was, so that was the last time that I remember seeing them where it was just like, this can't like maintain. This is about to be like huge. And then they did.

That was the year that like towards the end of the year, they just blew up when those singles came out. And yeah, I remember. That's a really funny moment in their career just being like about to hit their head on the ceiling, you know? How many times? have you seen them? Totally not that many. The last time I saw them, I was working at Noisy, and this was maybe 2016 or 17 or so. It was like after they had brought Skiba in. So the new lineup,

right. Yeah, right. And they were playing like a Good Morning America, one of those like morning in Central Park shows that they have like in the summer. They have like Kelly Clarkson, things like four songs. And they aired on Good Morning America. And I went to that. and it was so miserable because it's not a good vibe you have to get there at like 5.30 in the morning.

No, it's terrible. Yeah, morning punk is not a thing. Terrible. And then it's the worst way to like, if you think you're going to see them perform,

it's the worst possible way to do that because they, you go there and you're just waiting in a field and then they're like just standing there. They're just standing around

a lot of dead time and then finally some producers like, okay, back in five, four, three, two. And then they'll like, do no, no, no, no. And they'll play all the small things. And then they're like, yeah, that's great. And then they cut to commercial and then you just have to stand around for another 10 minutes. It's just the worst way to see it. But yeah, that was

the last time I saw them. I do. That record, that first new lineup record from 2016, I think. I think about the song, Built This Pool a lot. It's the 16 second long one. I want to see some naked dudes. That's why I built this pool. Like, it's funny that you saw them in 99. You're like, I'm more mature than this. And they're still doing it in 2021, but like it works for them. Like everybody else gets older and they stay the same age. Like how is that? Well, it's funny too, because then Tom will go do angels and airwaves where he's like a serious artist who was very serious, you know, to the jam or whatever he was. And everybody's just kind of like, hmm, all right. We're not ready for you to grow up yet, Tom. This makes me uncomfortable. And then, you know, he gets back.

and it's like, I want to see Wieners in my pool and everybody's like, this is great. This is perfect. I'm also traumatized by the Jawbreaker chapter in your book.

I know the challenge you have here is to convince young people how much selling out used to matter to young people then. But like how big a struggle is it to convey how this process,

this jump, like used to just destroy bands. It was tough. I don't know. how like a young person will read this book and if it will even make sense to them. All I could do is just like point to things that were written about them or things that people remember or how, you know, ticket sales went down or whatever it was. But like all I can do is

like point to it and be like, yes, it happened. Like people cared so much about what label a band was on that. They would sit on the floor if that's what it took, you know, like while they were playing. just sit on the floor. Or spit in their mouths. Spit in their mouth. See, I put that in the book, but I couldn't tell if that was just normal, like, punk show behavior or if that was, like, a reaction of that. But, yeah, they got, like, spit on.

And, you know, there was this punk guy who had protested Green Day show in, where was that? Petaluma. And he came to their show as well and handed out flyers that said, like. The flyer guy. I should have, I wish I could have included the flyer in the, like, a, picture of it, but I don't know what the rights are for it. But yeah, it was like dollar signs on a Xerox page. And it said, like, we are asking you to walk out on Jobbreaker, you know.

Jesus. I think that's the old bad religion patch guy. I think it's, that must be the same guy. God, what's that guy doing? I wish, I mean. He's podcasting. Absolutely. Does it surprise you that Travis Barker has emerged, like, has endured as like America's

official rock and roll. drummer. Like, he always strikes me as, like, your favorite rapper's favorite rocker. Like, what is it's, and now he's, you know, he's, he's, he's in a high profile relationship. It's just a bizarre career and personal, like, public arc. And you know what's funny about it, too, right? Is that it doesn't, it's all based on his moves, I guess you could say, or like his decisions, because he never says anything. Right? Like, he's, he's, he's, I'm, He really doesn't. I read his entire memoir, and a lot of it was just like, and I've helped somebody write a memoir,

so I knew how hard it must have been on this, like, poor ghost writer. So it must have just been so hard to, like, he just doesn't, it's just, I could just imagine what it was like for his poor ghost writer having to, like, get material from him being like, okay, Travis, you know, like, when you were 16, your mom passed away, that must have been really hard. Do you want to, like, what do you remember about that? And he must have just been like, yeah, I put my drum kit flat. Like a lot of people tilt it, but I like to have it flat.

You know, like he just, he just seems like, he's a great. I mean, like, he is such a great drummer, like an athlete's discipline on the, on the drums. But like, I don't think that he does a lot of self-reflection, or maybe he does and he just doesn't not like talk about it. No, yeah, he keeps it to himself. But I don't know. So, like, all of the things that has happened have happened in the last couple of years have based on, like, the process. he's chosen to work on or the women he's chosen to date because like he never like when was the last time you were like did you hear did you see what Travis Barker said tweeted yeah never he never ever does

it's always just like I here's a picture of him kissing whoever whatever gender who who is he dating it's Courtney Courtney Kardashian so yeah like look at this picture and that will go viral but it's never anything that the man is said it's only like what he chooses to like work on or be around. Well, if you listen to like the Blink 1-82 live album, I think it's from 2000. I think it's for the next year. And like, it's just the entire album is just, just Tom and Mark just, just bantering. And you can, like, his, Travis's silence is just very loud, you know, like, he's so, he's really smart in that regard. Because, yeah, Mark and Tom already had this, like, perfectly balanced banter. Like, it was half of what made them appealing, you know, it wasn't just their music. It was like,

Yeah, it was like watching a stand-up show, you know, and they had like a perfectly balanced give and take. And Travis got a job drumming for them, and he contributed a lot to the band musically. I really, truly don't think that we would be talking about them right now if it wasn't for Travis. I agree. He knew what he was doing, and that, like, he's just like, I'm going to shut up and look cool in the background. I'm going to show my tattoos. Pretty cool. And my high cheekbones, and I'm going to look good in the photos, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

He's really, like, didn't try to taint the chemistry at all. The dynamic, right. And it is funny, like, from a technical aspect, how much better he is. And, like, you can, you know, Tom will say this. Like, I saw some quote, like, Tom was like, yeah, he was way better than us when he joined, but, like, we got a little better, you know, but it's just, it's just Tom and Mark now chasing after him, trying to keep up with him. It's just sort of the perfect setup. For sure.

I think Tom and Mark had a mentality from the beginning of like, yeah, that's good enough. Like, it's good enough for punk. Exactly. But then he started working with Trumbino and Trimino was like, no, actually, that's not good enough. Like, you have to do better. And they were like, oh, okay, I didn't. Yeah, all right. And then they got, you know, Travis.

And I don't know that Travis ever said, like, hey, you got to play better. But like, when you're playing around Travis just through osmosis, you're going to get. Reading by example. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, they had like these little, not like, you know, mentors, but these people sort of like teaching them to sort of like. Spurring them along. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Well, this has been great, Dan. Thanks so much. We really appreciate you talking. Oh, thank you. And I'm, I said this before we started, but Rob's gumshoe reporting is in my book. And it was so invaluable. I had, I had, when I had, I had, I hope I even remember this, right?

but like they took green day took those records back from lookout because lookout stopped paying them royalties and so they let it go forever but i mean what is this like 2005 2006 green day finally goes takes uh 1039 whatever that compilation is and kerplunk back you know and like i you know i was living in in the east bay at the time and that was this huge traumatic moment but like after everything green day had been through i didn't get the sense that everyone was mad at them like i think lookout was was struggling enormously. And it was like, Green Day deserves to take these records back.

I think people were looking with an eye more on lookout themselves because it was just like, you made how many million dollars and you can't make this label work? Like what? Right, yeah. They did pretty well for themselves for a while there. So yeah, that's,

but thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for talking, Dan. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks very much to our guest's week. Dan Ozzy. Thanks, as always, to our producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales.

And thanks very much to you. you for listening. And now without further ado, hear our Blink 182 with What's My Age again. See you next week.