And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 141: Mark Hoppus

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Today’s singer, musician, songwriter, and record producing guest is a founding member of the genre defining pop punk band, blink-182 as well as the popular +44 and pop duo, Simple Creatures. He has survived three decades of alternative music - from punk clubs of Southern California to unlikely pop stardom in the TRL era to navigating the new millennium's post-genre revolution. The band is noted as bringing the genre of pop punk into the mainstream. In 1995, blink-182 released their debut album, Cheshire Cat which launched their first national tour. The group's album Enema Of The State peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, led by it's No. 6 track, "All The Small Things." The album has since been certified five-times platinum by the RIAA. The band received their first career GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Album for their album, California in 2016 during the 59th Grammy awards. blink-182 has sold over 13 million albums in the United States, and over 50 million albums worldwide. Our guest is not only recognized as the bassist and co-vocalist of one of the most iconic bands but also as an incredibly loving father, husband and overall human. And The Writer Is… Mark Hoppus!Artwork: Michael Richey White Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs.

I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing, and Mega House Music Management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear. Go to our website www. And The Writer is.com. Welcome to And The Update is.

I am your host, Paige MacDonald, and this is your weekly music industry update. Kristen Burke has been named the president of Warner Music Canada while Steve Kane exits the company after 20 years. China will be banning any music that insults or defames others in its 50,000 karaoke venues. Incredibly sad news from the legendary band Rolling Stones, Charlie Watts, who is their drummer for over half a century, has passed away at the age of 80. Tune Core, which paid over $400 million to indie artists last year, has named Andrea Gleason as their new CEO. The Global Dance Music Festival and Brand Tomorrowland is launching a record label.

Their releases will be distributed worldwide by Universal Music. See, Barrett has joined Cobol as its director of the creative division. Barrett will be responsible for discovering and signing songwriters as well as creating opportunities for the existing global Cobalt creative roster. LinkTree has acquired SongLink Odesley, which is an automated music link aggregation platform. LinkTree will integrate the platform into its newly launched Music Link feature, which enables artists to increase their digital streaming footprint and help fans discover new music. UMG will become home to Erasmith's entire recorded music catalog in 2022, as well as future music releases, merchandise, and audio visual content.

Amazon Music and AWOL have launched Amazon Music Sessions IRL, which will be the first in-person Amazon Music Sessions event after they launched the series during COVID. Kerang editor Sam Kowar has been appointed as the new managing director of the U.S.-based music title Alternative Press. Alice Levine will be hosting the 2021 Music Week Women and Music Awards. FAC is teaming up with the music tech firm Adu. The partnership will see Adu work closely with the FAC team to deliver insights and educational content to the FAC community.

Warner Chapel Music has signed a worldwide publishing deal with Scottish indie rock band The Snuts. Sony Music Publishing UK has announced the signing of Breakout Singer-Songwriter Mimi Webb to an exclusive worldwide agreement covering both catalog and futures. Miley Cyrus has signed with Crush for Management. Manager Janelle Gensink has launched Valara, a female-driven artist management company based in LA, also announcing the signing of Sabrina Carpenter and others. Universal Music Executive said at a Capital Markets Day on Wednesday that they expected 2021 revenue to grow by over 10% at constant currencies, with EBITDA rising over 20%.

Olivia Rodriguez has added two members of Paramour to the writing credits of her hit single, Good for You. Haley Williams and ex-gatarras Josh Farrow are now listed as co-writers. A big thank you to Haley Evans of Megahouse for gathering today's news. Now stay tuned for this week's episode of End the Writer is. This episode with Mark Hopas was recorded back in March. As many of you know, since then on June 23rd, he has shared with his fans and the world the news of his cancer diagnosis and his ongoing treatment.

The And The Writer Is family is continuously sending him all our thoughts, love, and wishing him a quick and healthy recovery. We love you, Mark. Stay strong. You got this. And I'll see you back in the studio soon. Welcome to And The Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golan.

Today's absolute legend of legends isn't only a bona fide rock icon. He's a smash-writing frontman whose melodies and bass lines revolutionize the genre. His music inspired a whole generation of musicians, many of which have been on this show. But this pop-punk royal is not passively sitting on his throne. No, he's actively mentoring and collaborating with artists and writers and musicians and producers, etc. But wait, there's more. This guru of alternative music is also an entrepreneur. What can he not do?

All the way from Los Angeles, this self-taught musician enjoys all the small things, which is why he's a family man first. And the writer is, founding member of Blink 1282 and half of Simple Creatures, my friend, Mark Hopas. Hello, how are you? Hello.

Hello. Yeah, okay, so, you know, you are, you're famous, You're in a famous band. You've written a lot of songs. And I know a lot of your history is wikipedeable, but let's pretend like nobody knows any of baby Mark Hopas. Okay.

So you're born, yeah, let's start from there. I was born in a small town in the middle of the California desert called Ridgecrest. And the only reason that there is even a town there is because, there is a Navy base in the middle of the desert where they test their jets and their missiles and their ordinance out there in the middle of the desert where they can blow things up and relative safely. My dad worked for the Department of Defense,

and he designed missiles and bombs for the military for decades, and that's where I grew up. It was a strange combination of really genius aerospace engineers, scientists, the best pilots you can possibly, imagine and also just the most methed out desert rats you've ever seen in your life.

How is there even a little bit of creativity in a kid who's raised in that environment? I don't know. When I first heard the descendants, well actually when I first heard the cure, I really started to like

that style of music. I grew up... Hey, no, sorry. I have a new dog and she's not happy right now. now. No barking, please. So yeah, when I first heard the cure, I really felt like I found my style of music.

And then from the cure, I went to the descendants, and from descendants, I went to bad religion. From bad religion, I went to like Pennywise and No Effects and things. So that's where I started. Musically. Who, you know, I just feel like it's a strange thing.

A lot of people who listen to this podcasts, don't live in LA and found their way out. Somebody hands them an instrument. I believe, you know, I'd read that your dad text gave you your first bass guitar.

Did you listen to music in the house growing up? Or was it you who had to discover the guitar? Yeah, my dad and my mom grew up, when I grew up, I was listening to or they were listening to, all kinds of really cool pop stuff, everything from Neil Diamond to Donna Summer to Elton John, to Abba, to who, I mean, just all kinds of rad singer-songwriters,

Barry Manilow. I remember my dad had a journey eight track at one point that we listened to a lot. He listened to Dire Straits. So I grew up, I think, with a lot of really great music. The Beatles, I remember they had a bunch of Beatles records. So, yeah, I grew up listening to standard American and, I guess, English pop. you know getting into the descendants and the cure and bad religion that's first of all those those bands are incredible

um did you naturally try to write songs like them did you wear your hair like them were you emulating them i i looked like robert smith for like four years like all through high school 10th grade 11th grade 12th grade and into college i totally look like robert smith i had my hair all stuck up i wore black eyeliner to school. I remember I wore a bright red lipstick to metal shop when I was a junior in high school, and my shop teacher just thought that the world had ended. And I was evidence of that,

of the apocalypse. So yeah, he did not care for me. Did your parents support that uniqueness? Yes. They did. You know what, I'm going to put my dog up. Hang on just one second, okay? Okay, cool. Sorry. Here, I'll play some interlude music on my recorder that I have here. So this is super convenient. Okay. Nice, nice recorder music.

Thank you. Yeah, they supported me. You know, my dad bought me my first bass after I said that I would paint his house for him. So I spent a summer painting his house, and he bought me my first bass. And my mom always encouraged me and wanted me to play the music that I liked when she would drive me around. So I was in high school and she was driving me around in friends' houses, and I would play the Smith. and the Cure and Susie and the Banshees and Jesus and Mary Chain and all kinds of cool bands like that.

And they always supported me, yeah. You, moving on because you have a solid history of things that happen in your life, you moved to San Diego and you attend Cal State San Marcos? Cal State San Marcos, yeah. It's brand new. What did you study there? I was on.

track to be an English teacher. I took a full load of courses and I just started taking classes and classes and classes. And after I'd been in college for about five years, I went to my guidance counselor. I'm like, hey, when do I get my diploma? How does this work? Like, you know, I've been here. I've been taking classes by getting good grades, but nobody's contacted me about like graduation or diploma, anything like that. And they're like, you have so many more classes that you need to take. Your electives are all good. Like, you've overblown yourself on electives, but you still have. so many core classes to take, it's going to be another couple of years. So at that point, Blink was starting to take off, and I was kind of in this situation where Blink would be touring, you know,

we'd have like a Friday, Saturday show, L.A. San Diego. And then we'd have next weekend, it'd be, you know, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, or something weird, you know. And we just started touring a little further and further away, and the weekend started getting longer, and I started getting worse grades in school. And I went to my mom after a while and I'm like, look, I'm either going to fail out of college or I'm going to pursue this band or I'm going to quit the band. So what should I do? And she said, you know, you can go back to college any time that you want for the rest of your life. You only get one chance to be in a band. So why don't you do that? And that's what I did. That's really good advice. Do you look at that now and question whether, you know,

if you were a kid, do you want your kids to go to college? My kid is in college, yes, he is. I think that he wants to be a computer scientist, so I think that that's probably the direction to go for him. But I don't know. I don't know how important college is if you want to do something different and out of the mainstream

where you need that kind of diploma or that kind of education. I mean, obviously, if you're a scientist or if you're a mathematician or, you know, something like that, it makes a lot of sense. But especially in the creative fields, a lot of times it's more you just got to go out and do it. You got to, you know, if you're an artist and you feel like you have a good start in your chops or if you want to get into music management or if you want to be an engineer,

or if you want to buy it like any of these other things, I don't know how important college necessarily is as opposed to just getting in there and doing it somehow. So let's go back to the band gets together. explain how this is a band that sort of changes a lot of songwriter's directions so

again I know a lot of this you can find online and whatnot but again from your perspective I know your sister introduces you to Tom and the rest is history so they say so let's just give a little background on the band getting together before

Cheshire Cat and stuff so I had been living in the desert with my dad. I've taken a couple years of community college there. I moved to San Diego to go to Cal State San Marcos. My mom was living there with my stepdad and my sister at the time. So I moved in with them. My sister knew that I was playing bass and wanted to play in a band in San Diego. And she said, you know, my boyfriend's best friend plays guitar, really likes punk rock music. You should meet him and see, you know, if you guys want to start a band together. So I went over to Tom's house. He was living with his parents. He was still in high. school. I think he was a senior at the time. And we sat in his garage and started talking about music

and he was excited about the same music that I was into and I would kind of start a sentence and make a joke. And it was almost like we were finishing. So there's sentences not only literally, but musically. Because I sat down and Tom said, do you have any song ideas or anything you've been working on? I said, yeah, I have this one baseline that I think is kind of cool. And I played it for him. And he goes, oh my God, that matches perfectly with this guitar riff that I've been working on. and that song that we started that first day is called Carousel and it was the first song on Cheshire Cat. So the very first day that we met,

we started writing songs together and just really hit it off. Did you understand what you were doing at that time? Did you think that the goal of that moment of writing a song together is, you know, we're going to start a band and we're going to be huge? Or was it none of, you know, were you already thinking, now when I feel like people start bands, their goal is to be the biggest band in the world, You know, did you guys think about that?

No, we just wanted to write songs, play fast, make jokes, go and, you know, like play backyard parties, play with our friends. You know, we were, Tom was actually for a while, he was working at this company that delivered products to drilling sites. Like they would deliver concrete and I forget what all the different chemicals and things they used at the drilling site. but he had to deliver literally like 50-pound bags off of a flat truck, and we would go to their warehouse and practice in their warehouse and put on shows there and our friends would come. And we just kind of started poking around San Diego. Tom was really the one who thought, you know what,

we should probably start playing clubs. And so he just started calling clubs in San Diego, just cold calling clubs. Hey, we're a band, we're punk rock, we're new, let us play. And that's kind of how we started playing clubs. Had you ever recorded before Cheshire, cat? Or was that your first time? We had. Yes, we

paid to have some demos recorded. We recorded some demos. Our friend had like a four-track recorder, a four-track cassette recorder that we did some demos in our drummer's bedroom. We got some money together.

We rented a very cheap studio and did some demos in downtown San Diego, actually more in Sancti. And then cargo records was not interested in us at all. They were like, Cargo Records was the big

indie record label in San Diego at the time. And at that time, San Diego was having this really big kind of neo-grunge movement with bands like Rocking from the Crypt and Fluff and Olive Lawn and I forget who all else was in there.

I would drive like Jayhu and, you know, all these cool San Diego bands and a lot of them signed with Cargo. The owner of Cargo Records, was this teenage kid in high school who somehow found out about our band at one of our shows. And then the guitarist and singer from Fluff is this guy named O, who saw us his shows as well and thought, oh, these guys are really cool.

And so between him and the label owner's son, they kept pressuring the label owner. He finally was like, fine, fine, I'll sign these guys, whatever. We'll put out an album. And he gave us some minuscule budget. And the people inside the label were betting how few records we were going to be able to sell. And really he just did it to placate his son and O from Fluff and, you know, it ended up being a pretty great selling album. Do you still keep in touch with that kid? I just recently found him online again and through my Discord and reconnected and kind of said hello and what's up

and remembered the old days kind of stuff. It's so interesting, the people who really do open the doors for you or not who you think they are. You assume it's going to be Clive Davis who opens the door for you, but it ends up being somebody who's just a fan, you know? Yeah, the kid used to go into his dad's car every day before work and put in our blink demo and turn it up all the way,

so every morning his dad got in the car, started his car, and the blink demo was already playing. It's kind of genius. You're an English major wanting to do that. Having worked with you only once, it's very apparent that language is really important to you and lyrics are important to you. When I think of the bands you mentioned before, they use lyrics in a really unique way as well.

Did you find that being interested in literature and being a songwriter are similar, or did you not connect those dots right away? I think they're similar. I think that I've always been interested in language and communication and the way that people express their ideas to one another. You know, I cheated my way through years of college-level political science by taking ideas that I learned from bad religion songs and kind of morphing them into my own essays and things like that. I think that lyrics are really what carry a song. I think that lyrics are what connects people to a song. I spent a lot of time on lyrics agonizing over this word or this word or syllables or how does this sound?

We have enough a sound in this verse, so let's go with more like e sounds or, you know, this song needs a lot of more aggression. So let's put some, you know, some hard consonant words in here, things like that. So I think about that a lot, yeah. Going on tour with Cheshire Cat, that's, you know, the first album starting, it really gives you some recognition. But then you sign to MCA Records. sort of a it's a different level when you signed to a major

and you guys are so young at that point um yes did you have any idea what was going on no because you know we we were kind of touring here and there we did well in san diego we could we could we could sell out the club that we wanted to sell out in san diego

which was called soma i think it had a capacity of like 1600 and when we sold out soma at 1600 we thought that we were you know we'd sold out Madison Square Garden. That was it. We'd reach the top. And then cargo bought, cargo got bought out by MCA. And so our contract moved to MCA. We went there. We met with the people. They seemed like, you know, at that point, Green Day had really broken and offspring had really broken. And I think that a lot of labels were kind of sniffing around the punk rock scene, seeing if there was lightning in the bottle a third or fourth time. And they signed us, but really still pop was

was where it was at that was really popular at the time and they were working a lot of pop acts i remember the big band at um mcc at the time was live and they were a huge band selling all kinds of records and touring and doing huge numbers and nobody really cared about us i think they just signed us because they felt like they had to have a punk rock band in their roster um i remember we recorded dude ranch nobody which you know nobody from the label came once to the studio when we recorded Dude Ranch, which was totally fine with us. We didn't need that. We recorded in San Diego. We recorded

Mark Trombino who had recorded the Jimmy Eat World albums, and we were huge fans of that. So we recorded Mark Trombino. I remember we went to MCA to deliver our record. We had the CD of all the mixes, sat down to play the label, the record,

and, you know, went around to all the different offices, hey, Blink's going to play the new music. Hey, Blinks going to play the new music. Out of the entire office, I think a handful, like maybe seven or eight people came and sat around this one listening area. We started playing the record. And by song two, people were checking their Blackberries. And by, like, song three, people were getting up and walking away to make phone calls. And literally by like the fourth or fifth song, it was just me and Tom and Scott sitting there by ourselves.

So we just turned it off and packed it up and went home. So, I mean, I don't get, I don't, how do you go from that to damn it then? that, the label, once we started doing it for ourselves, because Blink never took tour support ever, ever, ever. From any label, we never took tour support. We just started doing our own thing. We started touring and promoting ourselves. And, you know, we got on some Taylor Swift surf,

Taylor Swift, Taylor Steel surf videos that kind of got us recognized in the extreme sports world. And we just toured and people started coming to the show and eventually the record started selling and the label's kind of like, oh, dang, this might have some legs. So they put out, Damnit, and Dammit did fairly well on alternative radio.

What is it? You know, early 1990 through 93, it's like all the northwest. And something along the way, it moves down south where, you know, this time in 96, it's you guys and Sublime and No Doubt and you said offspring and I mean it's like so many big bands

were coming out of Southern California what was it about Southern California that was creating these bands you know or why is what was it what was happening I think that we in Southern California were the children of baby boomers who you know came out to California we had all grown up mostly, you know, suburban life, all of bad religion, no doubt.

Like, everybody came from, like, disaffected latchkey kid, Generation X, you know, left to our own devices to grow up and our parents were off doing their thing. And I think there was just kind of this, I don't know, unrest, people wanted to go and kind of strike back against what is expected of suburbia and how clean and boring and uniform. everything is and wanted to go out and make some noise and, you know, have some fun. In 98, Travis Barker joins the band. That's a huge shift for a band. The drummer is sort of like the lifeblood of the feeling of a band and you guys had already had some success. What was the transition about? So Scott left a tour to

to go home and deal with a personal emergency. And Travis was playing with the aquabats at the time. And we had shows, and we went to Travis and we said, hey, do you think you could fill in for Scott during this time? And Travis said, yeah, I'm a fan. I've been watching you guys play. I'm pretty sure I know the songs. Let's run over it in the dressing room.

And I mean, I think we spent 45 minutes in a dressing room going over the set. And Travis knew everything already. And we walked on stage and played. and it was really magical when we played honestly. I mean, Tom and I looked at each other after it was like, holy shit. That was really cool. And Travis just has this taste, this, I don't know, this X factor. And, you know, eventually Scott wanted to do other things.

And so we asked Travis to join Blink and it really changed everything with the band. I mean, Travis has this innate quality to do something completely left of center that you would never expect. and somehow is perfect for the song. Yeah, he's insane. His memory is shocking. Enema of the State is one of those albums where, you know, I have 10 writers signed to my publishing company and two of them say that's their favorite album.

Wow. It's like, you know, we'll go to one of these side segments, In this segment, Drew Taggart of Chain Smokers, who also credits that album as being influential, he asks you, he says I want to know if he still has the fuck sign, and if not, do you know where he can find it? Yes, we still have the fuck sign.

We've taken it on tour since the Take Off Your Pants and Jacket Tour in 2001. The Fuck Sign, we were recording Take Off Your Tants and Jacket Tour in 2001. The Fuck Sign, we were recording Take It, off your pants and jacket. I was driving home from the studio. My mind was just wandering. We were talking about, you know, the opening of the next tour and what the next tour was going to look like. And I just had this epiphany while I was driving that we would play the beginning to 2001 Space Odyssey. I don't know what the name of the piece is, but everyone knows what it is. It's one of the most, like, biggest crescendos in the world. And I had this idea that we would play that.

At the big crescendo, a curtain would drop. We would be standing there and there would be a giant sign behind us, it said, fuck, and it would be on fire, and there would be like fireworks going off or like a rain of sparks or something like that. And I remember calling up Tom and telling him that, and Tom just going, holy shit, that's awesome. We should totally do that. And so we fabricated, you know, we hire out this company that professionally welds and works with metal to make this giant sign that says, fuck. And it has, you know, tubing in it that lights it up on fire and lighting elements and heating elements and the whole thing.

And I mean, we had to do with fire marshals and we had to deal with all kinds of stuff. At that point, on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket Tour, we'd taken out more pyrotechnics than any band in history to that point. More than Kiss, more than Motley crew, more than, you know, any of these amazing, huge, kind of heavy metal acts,

Blink 1182 took the most fireworks out, most pyro. That's unbelievably impressive and a strange accolade. going back to animus of the state being this kind of album that changed how a lot of young musicians heard like you were allowed to be you were allowed to be musical you were allowed to have a sense of humor you were allowed to be emotional but you didn't have to be you didn't have to be straight up emo you could be if you were pop you didn't have to be so pop you gave like a license to a a lot of things. I think people

didn't know that they needed a license to. It really like capped this alternative rock decade that was incredible. It's like it becomes you know it's a it's in that classic group of albums that came out of that

decade. Did you feel while you were writing it that you were doing something extraordinary or was it that you guys were back in San Diego like writing with, you know, the first time you wrote with Tom. Did you know what you were doing?

No, we really liked the songs that we were writing, but especially during that time, between probably 96 and 99, there was all this, like, you know, bands that signed with a major label were sellouts. And, you know, in some ways, Blink were total sellouts because we had signed with a major label. We weren't punk enough.

The, like, I don't know, the punk police were very against Blink 182 because we made jokes on stage and we weren't very political and we were signed with a major label and we wanted to be played on the radio so we just went and we did our own thing. You know, the people that came to our shows

understood what Blink was about and it was really just us having a good time with the people in the room trying to have, you know, a connection with them. And when we got in the studio, we were trying to write the best songs that we could and working hard on that, but we also were having a great time as well.

And so I didn't think about it in the long term. I just thought, wow, this is going to be a really quick, cool Blink Winnetty 2 record. And I listened to the songs when I drove home from the studio. And I listened to the songs when I was driving to the studio and coming up with ideas and walking into the studio with handwritten notes. And I wrote another verse for this song. And that was the first time that we worked with Jerry Finn. And Jerry was just an amazing producer and friend. And, you know, he became kind of the fourth member of Blink 182. And he really helped

blink define what we wanted to do and what we were going to sound like. Also, that era, right when you start releasing that, that's when there's this huge Swedish boy band girl group, you know, sweep across the world. And somehow you guys shine on radio in an era where the shiniest of productions become and songwriting become you know sort of what's in the zeitgeist but you guys were doing it and you guys weren't really

you know you were doing it on your own did you did you feel like was that an accomplishment did you feel like it was strange to be in competition at radio with these kinds of bands I mean this before we get to the music video stuff

you know it's just an interesting time to be at the end of this 90s era you've been in a pop punk band for years at that point and then right when you guys are releasing the biggest album of your career at that point

the music that radio's playing is this shiny music you know. Yeah. I feel like we were kind of at the right place at the right time. I feel like MTV the radio kind of popular culture

was they were so poppy at the time and it was all like, you know, InSink and Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and all this pop stuff but I feel like, you know, kind of the Nirvana, Green Day, offspring was coming more and more and more into the mainstream

and Blink just hit at a time when people were ready for our style of music. I don't think if we had come out five years before that we would have gotten the attention that we did at that time. I don't think if, if enemy of the state had come out in 94 it would have gotten zero attention whatsoever

I mean it might have been a successful epitaph album or it might have been a successful underground record or something like that but I don't think that it would have gone on to be all the small things being played on pop radio and me walking into a J.C. Penny and hearing a fucking Blink song being played. Well how does that feel

when you're in a pop punk band and you the punk communities you know giving you shit because you guys are signed to a major and because you want to be on radio and then it's not like you're just on radio. You guys like define radio for a year, you know? Did you, you know, did you enjoy that kind of success? Oh, hell yes.

Absolutely. 100%. Yes. It felt like, I don't know, it felt like, it felt very validating. It felt like when you would see, I don't know, like when you would see Nirvana at the MTV Awards standing next to. you know, pop stars and whoever. And it felt like, you know, finally the losers were getting their time.

And it felt like, I don't know, it was rad. It was validating. And it was fun to hear ourselves on the radio. And it was fun to see our videos on MTV. And it's awesome showing up to MTV, walking onto TRL and having people scream. And there's people lining the streets of Times Square outside with posters and things like that. It was awesome. Dude, that's so crazy.

You, in this time where most, artists would you know I'm sure that they would indulge in all kinds of ways you indulge by getting married yeah like yeah

well Tom had a girl so when Blink broke in 99 I met my wife when we were filming the All the Small Things video she worked at MTV Tom had had his girlfriend for a number of years at that point Travis was dating this girl

who he ended up marrying and and you know we all kind of were normal i mean you know we're just dudes who playing a band and have girlfriends and eventually wives and bought houses and did kind of normal stuff at this time you guys career wise had you guys go on all kinds of weird paths between it feels like from enema of the state like after that there's so you guys all start doing side projects and you do main projects, all kinds of stuff. Why after

that kind of successful album did everybody start wanting to do something slightly different also? When we were recording Enema of the State and we were touring a lot and being in California we would buy these cool

skate clothes or get hooked up with companies or have access to rad stores or things like that and we'd be on tour and people would say like oh where'd you get that or where can I find a shirt like that or where can I find that skateboard or where can I find you know cool books and so I had this idea that I told Tom about and I'm like I want to open up an internet store called marks crapperama.com and I want to just sell stuff that people can't get like weird shit that I find on tour if there's like a cool bookstore that has a local author selling poetry that I like or if there's a cool toy or if there's a rad skate brand that I

want to whatever and so tom's like oh that sounds awesome i want to let's let's do that i want to help you with that uh and so he we started putting this in together and it became a website called loserkids com and we were selling you know different brands of skate clothes and and surf clothes and things of that nature and then Travis started famous stars and straps he wanted to make belts and it kind of was just like different outlets for our creativity different ways to express ourselves um you know Travis has always had this drive to kind of to build this whole empire. And so Travis kind of went

in one direction with the famous stars and straps. And Tom and I went in a different direction with loser kids and then Atticus and then Macbeth and kind of built like this whole thing that all worked together somehow. So crazy. In 2003,

you guys release, you know, I miss you becomes a... Well, I guess take off your pants and jacket come, comes before that. So let's go there. Sorry, I went out of order. But also a really

successful album, and then you go into, it seems like every two years you're recording, you're releasing, you're recording, you're releasing. Do you were you feeling inspired at that time? Or is there a point where it's just like we need

to get more music out because that's what bands do? There was that feeling that we need to get more music out because that's what bands do. We recorded Chesh or Cat, toured it as much as we could, recorded Dude Ranch, toured that as much as we could.

Same thing with Enum of the State. Same thing with Take Everton Pants and Jacket. You guys have one of your biggest songs that comes out in the album after all that with, I Miss You. It was a huge record. It's a bigger song, I believe, than anything that came off on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.

When you have a kind of hit again, having just experienced Enema of this day and then you have another big hit like this, do you appreciate it differently or is it, does that explain, does that relieve any of that self-doubt? No, never. Really?

Never. Yeah, I never really. No matter, I mean, touch wood and thank God for all the success that we've been fortunate enough to have. But really, every day I wake up and I'm like, I'll never write another good song. I just put a fork in me, I'm done. You still believe that now? Yeah, every day, every single day.

Every single song that I write, I start off with, this is a cool idea, let's pursue this. Oh, my God, no, that's not a cool idea. This is terrible. Oh, wait, there's a good idea in there. Oh, wait, that's kind of cool. And then, oh, that's awesome. Ah, cool.

Like, you write a good song, and you drive home, and you listen to it in your car, and you're like, wow, this is really cool. And you wake up the next day, and I'm like, well, guess that's it. Is that why, I mean, you're really, good at collaborating. If you look at the last album, I know we met through Feldy and, you know, you guys are, you're really good at opening doors to share with other people. Is it to

invigorate creativity? I have always loved championing other bands. It's one of the things that I love about coming out of the punk rock scene. It's like if any punk rock band got their chance to shine, they brought their friends with them. You know, when Dinosaur Jr. was having their day, they brought Nirvana on tour with them, and Nirvana got the shine. And when, you know, Nirvana was selling out amphitheaters around the world, they would take out small, like, punk rock bands that Kurt thought was cool, or Dave thought, you know, they would always bring their friends with them. And so that's something that I love. And when Blink was doing our thing, you know, we would bring out Phoenix TX or Newfound Glory or, you know, Travis is always

championing people like Bubba Sparks or, you know, we brought out Cypress Hill for a tour. And I don't know. It's just what you do. It's just the rad part of being in this community. I will jump to a segment called What Would Feldy Ask Mark Hoppison, and the writer is, and he has a few questions for you. Okay. One, he says, do you want more coffee?

Always, yes. See, that question in itself is offensive to me, because when we first started working with John, he would always ask me, you know, we were recording California, and John would say, would you like another coffee? And eventually got to the point where I'm like, dude, don't ask me if I want another coffee. I always want another coffee.

If you're getting a coffee, just bring me one. He also, he's the first, what was the, it was like, I think it was from Alfred's where he'd get the 10, whatever, the $10 latte, which is like four shots of espresso. And you're like, it's, it's, you know, this is your fourth coffee at this point. And he's just piling. It's so much, he drinks a lot of, he also, he drinks a lot of coffee. I also asked, would you like another donut? Do you feel the same way about donuts? No, I do not. I don't want another donut. Donuts are good. I think donuts are good for one or two bites and then you're done. For me. Nice. Like the, what's it called? What's the economic theory? The, like, diminishing returns. I hit diminishing returns really, really quickly on donuts.

He asks, do you want more coffee? And then he says, and then he says, can you sing it again? with more grit in your voice. Oh yeah, that's something that I always ask as well. He always wants the, he always wants the, that's what's great about John Feldman, is that he wants that performance. He wants that realism, that immediacy.

He won't let you get by with like an okay vocal. For him, it's really like all about the vocal take. Put the emotion in there. Put that grit in your voice. Push your voice to further than you think you can. Get that performance in the can and then move on from there. One of the things I really like about your band, though, is that there's this, like, your voice has this clarity to it that is really, like, it's really refreshing.

It's why I feel like it cuts through. I feel like you don't have, you need that honesty, but I always like that your tone is, I know who's singing when you sing. You have such an identifiable tone. You can't teach that. Like, you can't, and that's the thing with, like, singers. like good singers are ones with good tone, not necessarily ones who can sing like arias where they sound like the next person who's singing in an aria.

No offense. I mean, there are great people singing arias too. Of course. But, you know, I don't know. I don't know that I push. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I have doubt about my voice all the time. Seriously, the entire time that I'm gone on tour,

all I do is stress about my voice. From the second that I leave home until the second that I get back home at the end of the tour, all I think about is, losing my voice. I'm losing my voice. You know, it's good because it got me to quit smoking cigarettes decades ago. It's good because I drink

a lot of water. I don't go out and party. I don't, you know, do all these things. But it's just a constant source of stress because I hate that feeling when you're starting to get sick on tour and you go to your tour manager and you're like, dude, I feel like hell today. My voice is scratchy. I have

a fever. I just sweating. I feel awful. And your tour manager's like, okay, well, there's 15,000 people coming tonight. Do you want me to tell him to come back later or what do you want me to do? I mean, everyone thinks that being a singer in a band is a good idea until you're a singer in a band and you're like, this fucking sucks because you

do stress and it's loud. After the show, everyone's like, come and hang out and you're like, hang out. I need to go to the hotel or the bus and say nothing until tomorrow's show. Yeah, and you know, yeah, it's true. It is.

And I felt that way when we were touring and playing to 100 people a night and I feel that way when we tour now and we play for thousands of people tonight. It's just that thing. And it's so interesting because you talk to all these other singers and nine out of ten singers feel the exact same way. Everybody's, you know, when we tour with Green Day, me and Billy Joe, we're talking about how do you save your voice, how do you do this? You know, talking to Adam from taking back Sunday. What do you do about your voice? You know, you scream every single night. What do you do after a show? It's really like the drummers and the bassists that don't sing that get to go out and party and have the best fun.

100%. There's a big break, you know, between 2003 and 2011 as far as the band goes. And then you guys get, you know, then it's like the trains back on. Why did you guys, why bother after, you know, seven, eight years of not releasing an album? Why even release an album at that point? What was, what drove you to get back into it? So after we toured the untitled record, like Tom was done.

He was done. He didn't want to do anything. He wanted to be home with his wife and his kid and not tour and not be in the studio and he was over it. And Travis and I wanted to keep going. We're like, you know, we just recorded what we thought was the album of our career. We spent a year recording it.

We put everything into that record and wanted to go back and do it again. And Tom was like, I don't want to do it again. And so we were getting in these fights about what the direction of the band was and what we were going to do and blah, blah, blah. And so we had decided that we were going to take a break. Like, we were just going to take everything's cool. Let's take six months off or whatever it was. Or a few months off.

And then there was a tsunami and there was a benefit concert for that tsunami. And I said we should go and do this benefit concert. And so it got us all back into a room together and all the same arguments started over again at the rehearsals for this. for this fundraiser. And, you know, we were at a rehearsal spot in the valley and in this room, and we were arguing about everything and the fate of the band. And I remember Tom saying, well, if that's how you guys feel, I guess there's really nothing left to talk about.

And he left and got in his car and he drove home to San Diego. And I got up the next day and I was driving to the, because we were supposed to rehearse the next day, and I was driving to rehearsal and our manager called us halfway through my drive. I was on Laurel Canyon and he said, Tom's not coming to practice today. I was like, okay, is he late? What's the deal?

You know, we have a show in two days. What's the deal? And he goes, no, Tom's done. Tom's not coming back. What do you mean he's not coming back? Like, he's done? He goes, yeah, he's out. And I was like, okay, let me call you back.

I'm going to call him right now. He goes, don't even bother. Like, he's done. And so I was like, oh. And I continued, I went to the rehearsal spot and Travis pulled up and we were all there and we're like, shit, I guess, I guess we're not doing this anymore. And everybody just went home.

And that was the way that blink ended the first time for me. Yeah. So, okay, so then we didn't talk for like whatever it was five years. Like, you know, there was, I didn't talk to Tom. He didn't talk to, like, you know, Travis and I said, we want to continue making music together. He and I went on, we did plus 44, had a great time doing that. Tom was doing Angels and Airwaves.

And, you know, then Travis had his awful plane crash. And from that, Tom reached out to Travis just to call and say, hey, I love you, I miss you. I hope you're okay. I'm glad you're okay. How are you feeling? And then, you know, we started reaching out to one another and talking and hanging out. And it was always kind of this thing in the room.

And after a couple months of talking and chilling together, somebody, I don't know if it was me or Tom or somebody else, is like, well, should we do some show? Should we write some more music? I don't know. I just felt like there was this whole future that was unwritten at that time. Blink 182 had been kind of cut off in what I thought was our prime and it felt good to be talking with one another

and so we decided to get into the studio and tour and all that stuff. Yeah, I mean, you guys did another album with Tom, maybe two. Breaking up that last time with him is that, you know, what did it... Having someone like Matt Skiba who becomes, who's like a legend guitarist, joined sort of like another super group. Did it feel closer

to like the way Travis joined you know back in the day or was it, you know, how does it feel, you know, the band now is so tight. Not that it wasn't tight before, but how does it feel? It's like still, you know, I guess it feels great. I mean,

you know, so we were, we toured, we recorded neighborhoods, we toured neighborhoods. We did an EP called Dogs Eating dogs. At that point, Tom was very much into this company that he was building called Mod Life. But I think that that company and Angels and Airways were where his heart really was at the time. And we had some more arguments over, you know, it's kind of part two of the exact same arguments. What are we going to do with Blink? Where are we going to record? How's the band going to work?

How much are we going to tour? How much are we going to record? and then it was Christmas Eve 2014 or maybe it was New Year's Eve 2014 I got the same call from a different manager saying yeah Tom's out and so that was the breakup part two we had shows at that point

kind of like we did when Scott left the band we wanted to not cancel those shows so we asked Matt Skiebo you come and fill in for these shows and Matt just killed it I mean, he's a friend of ours, great singer, great guitarist, super cool friend. And he stepped in, killed it on those shows. And we, Travis and I looked at each other and like, we should keep making music.

Let's talk to Matt. And so we got in the studio with Matt, hired Feldman as a producer and started writing California. Yeah, I mean, these last few albums are awesome. Why are you still making music as a human who, like, you're, it's not like, there are, you must have written thousands of songs in your lifetime at this point, you know? I mean, like, what do you have to say now? I'm a junkie for that feeling of driving home from the studio with a song that didn't exist that morning. I'm a junkie for that feeling of coming out of the first chorus, settling into

the second verse, where as a listener, you get what the song is about. And that moment, out of the first chorus, into second verse, is where you, you're, you know, you, you feel like you've hit home, or that section of the song really cements the idea of what you're setting out to do. I love working with other people who will take a stupid germ of an idea that I bring into a room and help create that into something that's 10,000 times better than I could have done it on my own. You know, I always thought that writing with other people greatly

increases the value of what I bring to something that a song is always greater than the sum of its parts when things work out correctly. And I've never thought another person coming in and working on a song with me diminishes my idea because I have to compromise on something that I thought was really important. And this person putting their hands on it,

ruin my fucking art! It's not like that. I like other people coming in and working like that. And I'm a junkie for it. And I love that feeling. And I love playing music and I love touring. and looking out and seeing people's smiling faces. All right, simple creatures.

Yeah. In this next segment, what would Alex Gascarth ask Pappas on his and the writer as he says, when you wrote the lyric, salt the earth so nothing grows. Yeah. What does that mean?

That's the end of the question. I don't know if that's a good question. Alex and I were working on this song idea for somebody else, and we were just throwing ideas just for the start of the song. And so I threw out this lyric idea that I had one night, and I said, how about starting a song with salty earth so nothing grows? And I didn't realize how morbidly nihilistic that sounded at the time and just how defeated and depressing and gnarly that lyric is.

and Alice just laughed and thought it was the funniest thing that he'd ever heard. I still think it's a great lyric and I'd love to use it in a song at some point. Yeah, man, I love it. I think it's cool. Yeah, I mean, you know,

you guys are doing that also. I mean, you're constantly creating so much music right now. At least that's what it appears to be. Do you write every day? Are you in a studio every day? I mean, you're home now, but... You know, I am...

physically in a studio most days of the week. But I would say I write songs probably, I probably write two or three songs a month, is what I would say. Overall, I would write two or three songs a month. During quarantine, that has been all over FaceTime and Zoom and sending files back and forth. And it's been strange,

but I am so lucky to get to record music while I've been in lockdown this whole time. So that's been about my output is probably two or three songs a month. Okay. this last segment we're going to do a five for five. I'm going to name five things and just tell me what comes off the top of your head. Okay.

I want to go through your bandmates, past and present. Okay. So we're going to go in order of appearance. Let's go Tom DeLong. Am I supposed to say one word? Am I supposed to go on a diatribe about each person? Really, honestly, I still haven't figured out what the rules are

and we're like 150 episodes into this thing. Okay. Tom is brilliant, impetuous, impulsive, creative, kind, all those things. Scott Rayner. Scott Rayner, I mean, it's been so, it's been literally almost 20 years since I've spoken to him. I would say Scott is hopeful, a decent person, good, good-hearted, good drummer.

Travis Barker. Driven, ambitious, genius drummer, genius at marketing, friend, loyal, talented. Matt Skeba. Matt Skeba, dark, funny. he is this strange combination of morbidity and kindness and smart artistic sky hoppice sky hoppus smart driven organized kind beyond all meaning lovely woman

well thank you for doing and the writer is you know, I was so excited. Feldy hit me up. He was like, do you want to come to the Valley and just work on a project? And I was like, yeah, sure. Anytime he hits me up, well, he wouldn't tell me that it was you guys. So I didn't know, I didn't know what I was walking into. And it was nice to walk in there and be like, oh, fuck yeah.

That is not what I, like, you know, I mean, I just view it like you want to write with friends for a day. So when your friend hits you up and it's like you want to write, you go, yeah. Like it doesn't matter what you're doing. So it's like, you know, and then when you get a sign off, you're like, oh, cool, these are friends of my friend. And you're like, oh, this is a fun day. And it's, you know, I like that you come with lyric ideas in a, and that you're into

meaning of songs. And you're not trying to write a hit. for the sake of writing, hit you're concerned about making sure that it represents who you are right now. And I just thought it was a really inspiring day and it just felt good to be in the studio with you. And I mean, it's so rad to have somebody

to be in a room with someone that is so inspiring, not just to me, but I can't tell you how many people I could have hit up for, I hit up a lot of people. when we do interviews for, you know, do you have a question for this person? I don't know that I've gotten responses faster than I did. Like within seconds, they all were like, okay, give me one second. Let me think about it.

It was like there's this fucking excitement and this joy around you. And when you think that you have this, when you talk about self-doubt a lot, I can't tell you that behind your back, you are on such a pedestal because of who you are honestly as a musician. Oh, thank you so much. I'm very moved by that. I hope that that relieves some of that self-doubt. I feel like I'm fortunate enough enough to talk to the best musicians of a generation, and you're just constantly brought up.

And I just hope that that sinks in a little bit because you've earned all that. Thank you, man. I'm humbled. That means a lot. I'm kind of choked up. Thank you. Well, I appreciate you doing this and excited for all the projects you have that I don't even know about, I'm sure. But I'll see you in person someday in the studio. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer is.

If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist. Or visit our website and And The Writer. is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London and published by Big Deal music. A special thanks to David Silverstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Golden.