No Filler Music Podcast - Blink And You'll Miss It: Our 182nd Episode!

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

In the early 2000s Mark, Tom and Travis were the kings of pop punk. And we knew them all too well: three goofballs who ran naked through the streets of California and sang about masturbation and diarrhea. But the boys of Blink-182 were ready to break out of that box and finally be taken seriously. So when they went into the studio to record what would become the untitled 5th record they only had one rule: there were no rules. And the result was their most ambitious and personal album yet, with songs that pushed the trio into new styles, experimental effects and recording techniques, and even a guest appearance by the one and only Robert Smith. With the untitled record, Blink proved they were destined for more than the mold we had put them in. Tracklist: Feeling This Obvious Violence Stockholm Syndrome (w/ Interlude) Easy Target All Of This (feat. Robert Smith) The Cure - The Lovecats Fallen Interlude This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We didn't really have intentions we went in. We had like these ideas that we wanted to try and pursue.

The only thing that we really went in saying was that we weren't going to second guess ourselves on this record at all. That if we liked an idea, we weren't going to worry that it sounded too different than what people were used to hearing from us. We weren't going to worry that it sounded too strange or whatever. We really wanted to try and push ourselves to do different things and try these different ideas. And welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin.

I've got my brother Travis with me. As always. And this is our 182 episode, my friend. So it's time to jam out to some Blinkwinquen 82. What better time than now, dude? This is the only episode where we could say, you know what? It's time to talk about Blinkwony and 22, even though we've done an episode on them in the past. I don't know when we would have circled back to them, dude.

Right. But this is a good reason to do so. And this was not our idea. We can't take credit for this stroke of genius. All credit goes to friend of the pod, Ronnie, who we've talked about before. We were talking with her one day and she was like, episode 182 is coming. I think we were just trying to figure out like how many episodes we've done. She's like, why don't you guys talk about Plank 22?

And we're like, man, no doy. Of course. You know what I mean? Yeah. And what's even better, even though we'll get into this because there's some, there's a story behind this. But a lot of people say that this is the self-titled record that we're talking about. technically it's not a self-titled.

It actually has no title. But this is the, you know, for all intensive purposes, this is a self-titled blink 182 record. And that's what we're going to talk about today. This is kind of like peak Blink 122 in my opinion. I think so too. In a lot of people's opinion, I think. Because, you know, they stretched themselves like they were saying in that intro.

They went into this record wanting to essentially throw out the, the blink formula, you know, that they've been relying on in the past and just, you know, experimenting and not having any sort of like plans even as to how they were going to approach their record. They didn't even have all the songs written, yeah. Yeah, they went into it. And then nine months later, they were doing something completely different because they didn't have any set like agenda or theme or whatever.

And that's why this record is so great because they, they showcased themselves as, as musicians, right? Because, like, you know, if you're a pop punk band like Blink was, song structures are pretty basic. You know, power chords galore, you know? Right. And there's plenty of power chords on this record. Sure, there are. But they stretch themselves and did a lot of really interesting and cool things. And we're going to cover, I think, two of the more, like, standout tracks on the record,

the ones that I always remember because of how, like, how experimental they were and how different they were. from what you knew before this record as to what and who Blink 22 was. Like, you know, they challenged those notions on this record for sure. Yeah. So there was this great little 42-minute documentary on MTV called MTV Album Launch. Basically, they just had a guy with a camera just hanging out with Blink for the entire recording process. Can we just stop and appreciate how this would never happen on MTV nowadays, right? Anymore?

Yeah, you're right, dude. Yeah, it's crazy that MTV essentially had a documentary crew follow a punk rock band while they were recording their latest record, you know. That's really cool. That's, you know, 2003, MTV was completely different than it was now, you know, before all the reality shows came on. I feel like 2003 was like the beginning of the end for MTV 2. for MTV. I feel like that's when those reality shows started cropping up. Yeah. Really cool doc. I didn't actually watch the entire documentary. I got up until they finished the

album. But I learned a lot, man. And they're pretty adamant about making sure that, you know, this is not a self-titled. It has no title. It's untitled. Reason being, I'm going to quote Tom DeLange here. He says, the worst thing in the world that could have is people think we are trying to make some big bold statement. That's why we try to say it is not self-titled. It is just untitled. We didn't want to label it with anything. We didn't want to label it with a joke title that people might expect.

We didn't want to label it with some serious phrase that the whole record would have to somehow relate to. We left it untitled so it would speak for itself. And man, does it speak for itself, dude. What an album. Yeah, it definitely does that. Yeah, that's interesting. I think they're saying that like, you know, self-titled, that's just kind of like pretentious. Yeah, but we've talked about, we've talked about how, at least with a couple of bands, I think, we've talked about how a self-titled record is a good way to, if it's not their first record, it's a good way to, like, pivot and, like, change and reintroduce yourself, you know?

And it's a very good indication that that album's going to be different and it's going to be a standout record. Like, you know, we're thinking about Phantom Planet self-titled, which to me, hands down their best record. And we're talking about Mr. Twin Sister. Yeah. Now, of course, they renamed the band. They went from Twin Sister to Mr. Twin Sister. So they were kind of reintroducing themselves. But yeah, I like the notion of it not having a title either.

I think that's cool as well. Because, you know, maybe they don't want to say, Billink, 22, this is us now. This is our record now. because that almost negates what they did in the past, right, if they try to go that route. Yeah. And so a lot of things had to happen in their career up to this point for this album to even have happened in the first place, the way that it did, the way that they were able to approach it. So Mark is quoted here, and I'm just all over the place with these quotes, but these are all from around 2003. Mark says here, when we first started out, obviously we couldn't afford studio time.

so we had to have everything written and planned out before we went into the studio. We did that for Cheshire Cat, for Dude Ranch, for pretty much all of Inima of the State, and take off your pants and jacket. All of their albums in the past, they went into the studio with everything planned out, ready to go. Okay. So this really was a drastic change of how they approached making music together. Yeah. And they also ran it out.

They were basically living in a super fancy, like, mansion. It was converted into a home studio. But, you know, so they were living where they were recording. So MTV was able to do an episode of MTV Cribs while they were doing this, basically, is what you're saying. Did they really? No, no, no, I'm just saying. MTV's used to walking around mansions, right? Right.

I remember seeing Travis Barker's MTV Cribs episode. Didn't he have a reality show? Yes, I think he did, yeah. Isn't that funny? that that's that's exactly what we were talking about like this was really cool the mtv did this but after that it just went to nothing but reality shows and so after blink disbands here's Travis with the MTV reality show you know what I mean it's kind of funny yeah he's like well I guess I can make a little extra money yeah exactly because I know the MTV will have me exactly so there's way more to

get into with the recording process and all that do you want to jump right into a song dude yeah man let's do it now what is the first track because um it's going to be be obvious. It's going to be obvious. I mean, it's not going to be obvious which one we pick, but it's going to be obvious. So we're going to play six tracks, actually. It's technically kind of five songs, but it's six tracks on the record. So this one's going to be music heavy, but we couldn't narrow down the list to like four tracks. So yeah, so we wanted to make sure that we showcased, you know, the wide range and sounds. And like you said, how much they really stretched themselves and, you know, just kind of tried to break out of that pop punk box that they,

like, I don't even think they meant to be put into that box, but they got put in that box because they're goofy dudes, you know. I was going to say, I mean, it's not, it shouldn't be a surprise that they got put in that box. I mean, when you think about the antics that they would do and the music videos that they, that they did, if that was their decision, maybe it wasn't. But like, yeah, I mean, I don't think they can be like, how did we end up in this box? You know what I mean?

Like it's pretty clear where else would they fit, right? But yeah, this is what I like about this record so much is that it's blinkery to trying to break outside of like the mold that everybody had put them in, you know? Well, yeah, you know what, dude? Before we play the first track, I think we're teeing ourselves up nicely to play this clip. I wanted to play from this documentary. It sums it up really nice to what we're talking about here. So here's Tom just kind of talking about, you know, how they've kind of evolved and how they're trying to move past the dick jokes. You know what I mean?

All right, here we go. When we first had our first amount of success, things kind of spun out of control and we didn't have control of anything and people would run with stuff. We would show up places and see how we're portrayed and it wasn't the way we wanted to be, you know, but we didn't have control of it. I think that on this record we've really wanted to keep everything very close to us because this record is so personal to all three of us that we really wanted to be involved with every single. aspect of it, from the enhanced CD stuff to the songs, to the photographs that we have. Everything about our band now, I just feel, is really legitimately us. I love the look at this picture. I love this, dude.

I didn't know this about the untitled record that they had their hands in every single decision that says a lot, dude, because everything about this album, it's, you know, there's no, like, funny album title. Yeah. I think that lyrically it's a little bit more serious too. It's more dark and mature. Yeah. Well, the funny thing is like, I guess if you read between the lines there, right, probably their record label had a lot to do with

the way that they were being portrayed or presented. You know what I mean? Because that's what they're saying. They're saying we didn't have control over it. They kept saying that. What's interesting about this time, though, and how huge MTV was on like shaping what was popular, right?

Because who are they up against, right? They were up against the Backstreet Boys and InSink videos. They were up against corn, right? And so it makes sense that like a label is going to try to make them stand out as, you know, in the left field against all these other very distinctly packaged groups, you know what I mean? And it's so obvious that for, For a mega pop punk band, of course that's the route they're going to take, you know, as, as like the label and the, and their managers. And plus, they're singing about, they're singing about ejaculating into a sock and like, you know, all that kind of stuff.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, it fit the brand for sure. All right, let's listen to a song, man. Let's jump into it. All right, here we go. Track two. This song is called Obvious. That's a pop punk song, dude. It is.

It still is. But it's got the bones. But it's like, it's a refined pop punk song, you know. Yeah. And you know, dude, it's funny to say it to use a word like refined when talking about a Blink 1-82 song. I know, but it makes it. But it's true.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's what everybody liked about this record is that it's like blink matured. You know what I mean? It's blink with pretty much unlimited money, unlimited studio time. Yeah. At this point, they were able to just take their time. And another thing that, that's really cool. So Travis apparently

Used to Get all the drum stuff recorded And just bounce And he'd be done with the process Oh man Because you know think about it They used to go in With everything already written and done

Yeah yeah sure So he hung around And he So a lot of the process and stuff Yeah Which is cool to think about Yeah Apparently he shows up on this track

He's the guy in the background That's saying yeah Over and over again Which is cool But yeah If he bounced before the vocal tracks were laid, he was never able to be on the record in that way in the past. It also proves how important he is as a member of the band. And you can see it in the documentary.

He helps flush out riffs, you know, guitar riff ideas. I mean, that kind of makes you sad a little bit because like how much, how many awesome creative tweaks and decisions and stuff would he have made to make an him of the state better than it was? Yeah, but that's the thing. They just, they weren't able to do that back then. He could have stuck around, man. He didn't have to bounce after the drum tracks were late. But they went into that studio and, you know, boom, boom, boom, we got to get this done. Yeah, yeah, sure.

So it didn't matter. Yeah. But yeah, no, that's cool, man. That's really cool. And there's a really cool shot in the documentary where, like, Tom's trying to figure out this guitar riff. And Travis is helping him through it in a way that, like, he's. He's trying to help him like, like he starts like playing the drums on just with his hands, you know, playing the beat on Tom's legs so that Tom could, you know, feel the rhythm that Travis had in

mind while he's fleshing out this guitar riff to kind of like morph it a little bit to go along with the beat. It's really, it's a really cool moment. And I love that kind of stuff, dude. I love that kind of like creativity, like teamwork. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Lyrically, you know, it does sound like a breakup type of song again you know so in this particular song it's not that much of a departure from what they used to sing about well you're not going to get on this record though is songs about dysentery you know what i mean or boners you know what i mean which again it's kind of like this is them a little bit more refined and mature you know they wanted to it sounds like they were tired of being portrayed as like, you know, the goofy, uh, you know,

chuckleheads or whatever. So yeah. And that's, you know, take a look at the album art and the, and the CD, you know, the insert, the inlays all, none of that's in there, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, here's one quote from, from Travis, uh, about this song. He says, obvious was a really dark song on the album. We were thinking failure meets Led Zeppelin meets the police. Interesting. Yeah, that's really John Bonham feeling. Yeah. So I brought a failure song to one of our What You Hear'd episodes.

It was called Another Space song. Just throwing that out there. But yeah, it's not your typical power chord type structure on this song, right? So that's one thing that's a little bit different. And I think that that's probably what they were alluding to because there's nothing Zepplin about the guitar riff and stuff. But maybe like a failure type band, I could see that guitar riff being maybe I'm nod to failure. So yeah, I think it's cool that they went into the studio with just ideas for songs and they hashed it all out and, you know, through ideas around. They spent like three

hours one morning, like first thing. They wake up and they spend three hours experimenting with different guitars with different amps, you know, let's let's see how this guitar sounds through this amp. Three hours they did that and they didn't even press record want, you know, like that kind of stuff. You'll spend, you'll spend three hours just agonizing over what guitar to use and what amp to feed it through. That kind of stuff. Yeah, you don't, you don't get that as a new band, you know? Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. All right. So, Q, our next track, if I remember correctly, is violence. Is that right? Yes. I wanted to play this one because, for multiple reasons, too. This is one of my favorites

on the album. I think the intro is really cool, the way they draw the intro. out. And there's like in the background, you'll hear kind of these interesting, these interesting elements that kind of contribute to the beat a little bit. Really weird stuff going on in the background during the verse of this song. Yeah. But yeah, everything about this song is cool. And like it's almost a complete 180 from what you're going to hear on Inima of the State, you know. Yeah, yeah.

All right, let's tune it up here. So this is, this is violence. Let's talk about the, like you said, during the verse, it sounds like it's Mark in the background. And he's kind of like almost like spoken word saying the words, which is cool. Really cool. But yeah, it's about, so I'm looking at the liner notes here. It's about, I'll actually, I'll just say what Tom said here. I thought of one thing in my head, a scenario at a bar late at night when a pretty female walks into the building during a fast-page,

hardcore dance song. I thought of every guy in that room looking at her and lusting after her. Each one not paying attention to any detail present except her. So violence in this song is supposed to be like a metaphor, apparently, of like this woman that he's talking about

breaking all of these guys' hearts because, you know, she just walks right on by or whatever. Kind of corny. Cheesy. But... Just a smidgey. A little bit. Cheesy lyrics or not, dude, like, what a cool song.

Yeah, I love the way that the, it almost sounds like he's, it's not like your typical, um, drum, uh, snare or something like that in the very beginning and the intro, he's hitting. He definitely switches up his snares all the time. It's something, yeah. Maybe he has the snares off or something. We haven't even really, do we need to limb off the roster or just, you know what? If you're listening to this episode, you're a blink fan, even if you're, even if you, If you're not a Blink fan, you know the member is so planktonated too.

Yeah. And honestly, everybody knows who Travis Barker is nowadays. The guy has had quite the Phoenix moment, I think. You know, he's everywhere. Like, you know, he's everywhere. But anyway, everybody knows, but if you don't really quickly, Mark is the bass player. Tom is a guitar player.

Travis is the drummer. Mark and Tom sing. They trade singing. That's it. It's all you got enough. So I got a know. And so I want to play the second half of this song because I love the way that it ends. It's a little like, I don't know.

Bridge. It's a bridge. Yeah, it's a bridge. It's a bridge. I like the way it changes up a little bit here. So here is clip two from violence. I think what I like so much about this album is that the songs are still like simple in, you know, it's still just a pop punk album.

You know, like it's very repetitive, right? He's repeating the lines over and over. Same with obvious, the first song we played. But then they take it and just take all these left turns and do things you're just not going to ever hear on a pop punk album. Yeah. So here's a quote from Mark about that left turn that you're talking about. He says, this song is a pairing of seemingly incompatible musical styles. I love the bridge.

It takes the listener to such a different place, very smooth and beautiful. So yeah, like he basically, you know, cuts the distortion, which is not, you know, too unlikely. That's not all that different from some of the stuff they did on their other records. They would do sort of those clean guitar riffs. Think about Adam's song, man. You know what I mean? Yeah, dude, I was just thinking about Adam's song. Again, it's it's what you're used to with Plank, but like, you know, refined a little bit.

I'm just going to keep saying that. Well, let's talk about Jerry Finn a little bit. the producer. So he's recorded a lot of stuff with these guys. So he's no stranger to the band. They refer to him as the fourth member. It's just like George Martin. Yeah, yeah.

You know, that happens a lot with producers. But, dude, this guy has produced for some 41, Green Day, AFI, Newfound Glory. So this was his, this was his time, man. Yeah, dude. Yeah, but, you know, like before I did research into the album, I kind of just assumed that, for one thing, I did not picture them recording this in a house. You know, like, sure, it's a mansion, but it's not your music studio, you know, with sound booths and everything. Like, it's all kind of open.

Now, I will say that they did not actually complete the album in this mansion. Apparently, they got kicked out. I don't know how much of that is worded in a way for the press. What kind of antics did they get up to, cute? Right, right. Um, but they, no, they, they, uh, reached an end to their, uh, their welcome. But anyways, I always, I just imagined it in my head as, as an album that was, you know, produced by a handful of people, you know, with like lots of people's hands involved.

I don't know. I should have given them more credit, dude, you know, the three, the three boys. I just, yeah, um, I wonder how much of these really unique, um, you know, transitions and, and effects and everything. I wonder how much of that was Jerry Finn's ideas, you know, or how much of it was theirs. Yeah, you'll never know. Well, what's cool is also that Jerry Finn has been with them since, I think he did. I think he started on Enmo the State for them. That's another thing I assumed. Maybe they brought in a new producer or something, yeah. But no, he's been with them since, actually, I think take off your pants was the first one he did for them. And I bet you he was just as excited to change things up a bit, you know what I mean? Especially if all he does, all he's

doing back then is pop punk bands, you know what I mean? He did all killer, no filler. Hey, now. No filler. There you go. He also did box car racers self-top. Okay, yeah, cool. So, yeah.

Yeah, this is his wheelhouse. Yeah, and, and, you know, they're all good buddies. Yeah. Anyways, so, yeah, love that song. We're actually going straight into the next track, dude. It's next on the record. And this is, this is like the climax. Yeah, this is something really unique and original.

The story behind this track, it's Mark's favorite Blink 182 song that they've ever done, probably because of how personal it is to him. So the story is, and we're going to play, so this is what I was saying earlier when I said, we're playing six tracks, but technically five, because we're going to play the interlude, which is listed as a separate track on the record. Not a song, though. Not a song. But we're going to play the interlude, and that's going to play us into the song itself.

So we're talking about Stockholm syndrome. So the story behind at least this interlude is that you're going to hear an actor. Her name is Joanne Talley or Thalley. She's going to be reading this letter. And so, or I think it's made up of multiple letters. And these are letters that Mark's grandfather wrote to his grandmother during World War II. And when you hear the lyrics, I mean, I shouldn't say lyrics. When you hear these letters read, it's like...

So beautiful, too. Poetic and like... Oh. Yeah, it's just... Gut puncher. And the piano that plays in the background, too. Yeah. It's played in reverse in some instances and stuff.

It's really cool stuff that they did. So anyway, let's listen to this interlude first. So again, this is the Stockholm Syndrome. My dearest. I've missed you very, very much since that last night we were together. And we'll hold that night, especially in my memories for years. to come. I've been turning it over and over in my mind lately. I've read your letter through at least four times. We'll probably read it more times before I'm through. I've been sitting here, looking at your picture, getting more homesick every minute.

I've wanted that picture more than anything else I know of except of course, you yourself. Keep wishing I could be home with you in the worst possible way so I can come home. And come home to see you, but this don't look so good on that subject. But this war has spoiled a lot of things for everyone, I guess. I've never been so lonesome in my life as I am right. It's crazy. I mean, it's hard to... It's upsetting is what it is.

It's a little upsetting, yeah. It's... It's... Especially during World War II, right? Yeah, dude. There is no connection with the outside world. You know, nowadays, you know, you can do Skype calls as, a soldier right to your family you know what I mean you can talk on the phone with them you can

probably have access to email maybe depending on where you are like if you if you're at the base or something like that and there's an internet connection he was probably protecting that photo and that letter that she sent him with all his fucking heart dude when you hear these words from from this guy just talking about how like uh you know the notion of just being so homesick right you're off world war two for current outload you know what I mean yeah the the stuff that these guys were seeing the level of violence and he's just looking at this picture of, I don't know if they were married at that point or not, but it's just, you can't even, you can't even get your mind around it, you know. And to think, to turn this, to throw this on

the record, it's, it's brilliant. You know what a great decision. And very personal. Like, this is Mark's granddad writing to his grandmother. I mean, it's, it's so personal. It's very cool that he has these letters, you know. Yeah. Such a connection to have, you know, to be able to read those. Right. It's really cool. But anyway, so that's the interlude, and then we get into the song.

And the song starts off very strong. I love the drums and the guitar and stuff that start. Yeah, I'm going to fade us in at the end of the interlude. Okay. Yes, we can hear the transition. All right, so here's track six, Stockholm Syndrome. It's such a killer track, man. It's so good.

Yeah, dude. I could see why this is Mark's favorite record or favorite song. Probably one of my favorite songs, too. We mentioned this when we covered Enema of the state, but you and I are huge Blink fans, dude. Like, when Enema of the state came out, I picked up a pair of drumsticks and started playing drums because of Travis Barker. Yeah, that's true. I think the same goes for me for guitar, picking up the guitar.

Yeah. And, you know, Blink, not for the drums at least, but for the guitar, it's a very. pretty, it's a good band to pick up a guitar and start picking around with because, like I said, it's power chords, right? It's pretty straightforward. I will say, like, once my age again, it's kind of a hard song to play. But no, I mean, it's easy to start with punk, you know, anybody can pick up a guitar and play some power chords and start to sound like your favorite punk band, you know. Dude, even if I had another two lifetimes worth of practice, I, there's no other, Travis, no one can ever be as good as Travis Parker.

You know what I mean? Yeah, no, he's, he's one of the best drummers of all time. I played very simple versions of his beats. Yeah, yeah. When I was learning how to play. But I think it's really cool that our generation, if you liked Blink 282, you may not have realized it at the time, but you were hearing one of the greatest drummers ever, especially out of that era, at least.

For sure, dude, for sure. So I could look up the lyrics, but I don't have them in front of me. Is Stockholm Syndrome about his granddad? I don't think so. I think the song itself is about something completely different. The reason I say that is because Mark kind of says it explicitly that way. He says, the beginning of the song, he's referring to the interlude, has letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother in World War II. The song itself is about paranoia.

Being afraid of the outside world convinced that people. can hear your thoughts. So I don't, I'm, I, I can't really connect those two things, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. But you could read into some of these lyrics as maybe like, um, maybe thoughts that could be running through a soldier's head maybe. But I, I, yeah, because like, I like some of, and let me just step back and say, this song

is the perfect example of how well Tom and Mark's, uh, vocals work with each other. Like, they're so different too. Yeah. And that's, that's what's made Blink. great is that they have very different singing styles and very different voices, too. And in this song, they literally are going back and forth in that chorus, right? I think it's cool that they start with the chorus. And then that transition that happens almost sounds like a, some of the emo bands that were out at that time, like the stuff that Jimmy World was doing and stuff like that.

I feel like that guitar riff was definitely kind of an emo thing. Even the way that, even the pre-chorus, when Mark's like, it's hard to say the lyrics, but there's a, right before they go back to the chorus, there's this moment that sounds very, very emo, early 2000s era emo. So yeah, this is them stretching themselves a little bit, right? Yeah. For sure. I mean, this song is a huge experiment, especially from the interlude with the letters to this, right? But you still get that, and the bridge, you still get that chugging like power cord, you know? Right. That's what's cool about it's still there. Right, exactly.

What's next, dude? Easy target. Yeah, so we're going to spread it out a little bit here because the next one that I think has always stood out to me is the last one that we're going to play. But easy target is a good one. And then that actually, I think here's a thing. We're going to have to do similar to what we did between these two tracks. We're going to have to play the end of easy target and let it transition into the next

track because they have this really cool transition that happens between the two tracks. But anyway, yeah, so let's do Easy Target. I like how they still stuck to the really short song format. Most of these tracks are still like... Two and a half minutes. Yeah, two and a half minutes. Some of them are under two minutes. Anyway, all right, so yeah, this next track here is called Easy Target.

So here's the interesting thing. This song and the one we're playing after it are... This is why they transition between themselves. they're about the same thing. They're both about the same exact story. So Easy Target is based on a story from Jerry Finn, the producer, from his middle school years. So he was in love with this girl. Her name was Holly.

And she's named in the song. Listen to this. This is like Carrie. You know the movie Carrie, right? Yeah. The horror movie. So Holly, she invited him over only to have her. her and her friend

drench him with a hose when he showed up. What the fuck, man? He rode home on his bicycle, soaking wet. Dude. So that's why, if you look at the lyrics,

Southern California is breeding mommy's little monster. She's a little monster. Holly's looking dry, looking for an easy target. Damn, dude. So this poor guy, the producer, I mean,

he got the last laugh, obviously. Like, what the hell's Holly doing right now, right? You know what's great about that, dude? I'm thinking about this now. Uh, since they're, you know, they, they go into the studio without even all the songs written.

Mm-hmm. Probably like in, in downtime, they're just sitting around, you know, sharing stories and stuff. Jerry probably told them about this. And they're like, I'm going to write a song about that, man. Fuck Holly. Let's call her out. Let's write a song about it. Exactly.

Um, anyway, this next song, all of this. Uh, like I said, it's a continuation of the story of him getting humiliated by this girl, Holly, right? And so, you know, Easy Target describes what happened, I think. And then, you know, it's basically these two songs about this man and this case, I guess the producer, but I think it's kind of, you know, there's some liberties taken here. Loosely. Yeah, this man's inability to move on and get over this girl once he's realized that he's been completely used by her. So what's important about this next track, Hugh, is that the main lead singer of this next track is, Robert Smith of the cure.

Who's that? Yeah. And the story kind of goes, apparently they had like a shared staff member between the cure and blink or the studio or something like that or the record label, something like that, right? They didn't anticipate that he would go for it when they reached out to him to see if he would join the record. And the reason they didn't think that he would go for it is because of the band's reputation

up to that point. Like they didn't think that Smith would waste his time with his. with this goofy band that runs around naked, you know what I mean? Right. But what Smith says is that, you know, he heard a couple of their singles prior to that, right? So he couldn't see how his singing would lend anything to kind of what they do, right? But then he heard that some of the demos, I think they sent over some demos from the record, the new record, right? And he said that, you know, what he heard was fantastic.

And then what he says is that, you know, he says, I think they suffer in a way that the cure suffered and that people weren't allowing them to become something else. If another band put that new CD out as their first album, people would go crazy. Yeah, dude. Such kind of words. Yeah, and he gave them some advice. He says, nobody knows what kind of songs you are going to write in the future. And nobody knows the full potential of any band.

I really like the music that you sent me. And then, of course, he joins them. And they didn't think that his track was going to make it into their record. Apparently, like, hours before they needed to send the Masters over, he sent his track to them. So he didn't come into the studio and record it with them. Like, he recorded it in his own studio. Wow. But anyway, they said that they were hearing his vocals about a song that they wrote.

They said it was just, like, they got goosebumps and, like, it was amazing. and like it was cool to them because it sounded like a cure song, but it was a song that they wrote. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's such a good song, dude. Man. Yeah, it's really cool what they did with this.

It's kind of like it goes from distorted guitar to acoustic guitar. Same riff. Really well done. So here we go. This is, again, this is the end of Easy Target transitioning into all of this. This pumps, dude. It's a great track, man. Yeah.

It's so good. And yeah, there's Holly again. ended use me holly come on and use me yeah i'm just a fucking joke to you yeah what am i some sort of chump but dude those are kind of those are the kind of moments that leave an impact dude you know oh yeah dude you imagine that you're you're you know you're a kid you're teenager or whatever you got this you're crushing on this person and then ride right over on your bike so cruel dude and they just spray you with a hose dude kids kids are the worst man That bike ride home, dude, can you imagine the embarrassment, the heartbreak?

He says, I'll show you, man. I'm going to go on and produce Plinkly 2 records. I'm older. Like I said, he got the last laugh probably, right? I hope that Holly realizes that EC Target and all of this is about her. Me too. Me too. Anyway, yeah, Robert Smith.

I mean, how awesome is that? It's kind of a, you know, the, cure in the 80s was pop, right? I'm trying to draw some sort of parallel between the two. I can't do it. Well, but I think for sure that that new wave sound was a huge influence on this era of punk, you know, or like pop punk. Yeah. So what's interesting, actually, and we're going to have to play a snippet of this cue, but there is a cure song that the music was inspired by. So we should cure it up real quick. And just see if we can hear any different, similarities. Okay. But

according to the guys, the song Love Cats by The Cure, inspired the music, which is a pretty well-known song. You know, this is always fun to see if you can hear the influence. All right, dude, let's play some of it.

Hey, two, tigers and this through the streets while everyone snoops getting bigger and stinker and wide and pride to be bite and stretch and scream all night. Let's go and throw. I could see it cut from the same cloth. Yeah, a little bit.

It's kind of a, yeah, if you squint a little bit. So like they wrote, so here's, this is what I wanted to know, and I just found out, I looked at it up. I wanted to know, did they have in mind, hey, let's see if Robert Smith will join us on a track and then they wrote the song. Yeah. But no, it sounds like they were inspired by the Love Cats when they wrote the song. And then they said, hey, why don't we see? if Robert Smith will sing it, right? Well, that's even cooler then.

That is cool. Because, I mean, that's why it's interesting that they're like, I guess it's not, when they're like, you know, it sounds like a cure song. Well, yeah, but that's because they were inspired by a cure song. But then you get Robert Smith to sing it and then a song that was inspired by the cure suddenly becomes a cure song, right? Yeah. And that's the cool thing about music, dude.

I love finding out who influences bands and what they're drawing from. Yeah, and like you said, I think the cure probably was a huge influence on these guys and other pop punk and probably, you know, emo bands and post-punk bands from from 2000s and stuff. Now, according to this, what I'm reading here, the song I Missed You was also inspired by that song, The Love Cats. So there you go. Wow. So it must have been listening to a lot of a lot of the cure back then. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, that's all we got, brother.

Yeah. That's it. That's, yeah. Again, what a great record, man. I know I've talked about this before, but, you know, the band actually did break up after this record. So, probably a lot of people thought that this was the record that they were going to go out on. And I think, speaking for myself, at least, I kind of wish that this was the last record that they put out. Because I haven't really enjoyed much of what else they put out after they.

this, but for a while, this was the last Blink22 record. And they really did go out on a high note. You know what I mean? They wrote such a great record. And that was the last record that they put out. And I thought that was a great way to end it. And the fact that it was such a labor of love and that they put all, you know, it's all them. It's just so cool about it. Yeah. And that's, to me, I mean, I kind of like referring to this as the self-titled Blank Choirantorne two record. I know that that's not what they wanted it to be referred to as, but I feel like it's a good way because it was so personal, because they had their hands all over it and made all of the decisions. It, you know, it makes sense to refer to this as the Blinko Rain 2 record, the self-titled record. Not just untitled. Yeah, this is who they are, you know.

They wanted to let the music speak for itself, and it sure as hell does, man. It definitely does, yeah. Yeah. So it took them a year to record for several reasons. they had to, you know, move to a different studio. Travis Barker actually went on tour with the transplants during the recordings. And we saw that. We saw it.

Yeah. They opened for foo fighters. We saw cave in. Yeah. And the transplants. Yeah. And food fighters. Yeah.

It was nothing you could do about it. You know, the tour was happening. And he's the, you know, he's the drummer and the transplants. He was already spreading his wings and starting to collaborate with other people. Yeah. And not too long after this or maybe during the same time. Tom was starting to write his own. stuff and he later did boxcar racer.

Yeah, you know, it sounds like this is just the natural, how else would this have, you know, if you think about it, you read between the line, you hear what they're saying about how they were tired of the box that they were put in as Pink 22, so they put this record out. Obviously, they were all probably just trying to, wanting to stretch themselves and explore other creative outlets, you know what I mean? And so it makes sense that they broke up out after this record. I'm just really happy that they put this record out because we got to hear, to me at least, like what true musicians they were, right?

Like what did they do when they really stretched themselves, when they really wanted to experiment and make decisions on their own and take themselves out of the box that we all put them in? You know what I mean? Yeah, and when they weren't crunched for time, you know, there wasn't any pressure. And I just love the fact that Travis stuck around and helped out in the songwriting process.

That's really cool. I think it makes it that much more special. Yeah. I bet you we wouldn't have gotten that track. which one was it where it's just drums? You're talking about the awesome little interlude? Maybe we close with that song. Yeah.

Good call, dude. I love that. Yeah, what is it? The Fallen Interlude. Yes. It's so cool, dude. I bet you if they, you know, when they sat down to plan out these records, the ones they put out before this one, they probably never thought to do a drum track.

I wish I looked into it, man. I'm so curious about Sick Jackin. Okay, there's another guy named Sick Jackin. hip-hop artist. Maybe he helped lay down and produce that song because it's different, dude. And like the guitar,

it's not, nothing about the fallen interlude is punk at all. It's, you know, it's an instrumental interlude. Yeah. But it feels kind of like a hip-hop

produced song. It's so cool, dude. I've always loved the fallen interlude. And if I remember it correctly, it features a lot of Travis, right? Oh yeah, lots of drum fills.

Yeah. stuff. Really cool. So you know what's interesting actually now that I'm thinking about it. So in that documentary Travis is talking about I you know I have to leave. I have to go on tour. So he laid down a bunch of drum beats. He laid down a bunch of drum fills in hopes that they would be able to, you know, grab a drum fill from here or grab a beat that he did. You know, because they still were working on songs. So he just left them with a bunch of beats hoping that they could, you know, make songs from them. So maybe, maybe part of or all of this little interlude is just one of the beats that he left behind, you know? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. That's a great way to

close us out to really bring home the fact that this is a totally different blink. Yeah. And it's just, this was their last statement of music for a while, you know. Yeah. So they went on hiatus as a group, but they've put out three records since then. The most recent was a couple of years back. But yeah, anyway, what a great record. It really is. It's a start-to-finish record. I know we say that a lot,

but it's just under an hour long. As you heard from the songs that we played, there's a lot of different things happening on this record, a lot of really cool things that they experimented with. Yeah, so give it a listen. All the way through, it's definitely worth a play-th Yeah, if you thought in your head, oh, Blink 192, those guys just sing about prepubescent stuff and, like, diarrhea and boners, this record will probably change your perception of them if you had never listened to it before. So check it out.

This is the untitled Blink 122 record, probably often referred to as a self-titled record. But anyway, all right, Q, that's all we got for these guys on our 182nd episode. That means we're coming up on 200. We're going to have to do something. I don't believe it, dude. We're going to have to do something special for that one. Yeah. We need to do some thinking on that.

Yeah, we've got to do something fun. But next week, we're going to cover Block Party and their album, Silent Alarm, that came out in, I want to say probably around this time. What was it, early 2000s? 2005. I'm super stoked about this, dude. Yeah, this is such a great record. So this is so funny because, like, I've been one. watching this Netflix series that I highly recommend to everybody listening to this show called

This Is Pop. It's great, man. It's a little mini series on pop music. So there's an episode on Brit Pop from the 90s. So it talks about mainly Blur and Oasis, right? There's an episode on all the boy bands and stuff, right? So they kind of take different topics about pop music in general. So there was an episode on auto tuned, like the auto tune craze and stuff like that.

Nice. I'll have to check it out. Yeah, I've seen it in my feed. So yeah, there was an episode on like music festivals and how that, basically the history of music festivals. And they interviewed the lead singer of Black Party. So didn't think, I mean, I haven't seen or heard from that kind of long time. And there he was on a documentary. And we had already talked about covering them next.

So that was kind of serendipitous. It's a sign, bro. It is a sign. So yeah, that's going to be great, man. to talk about some killer riffs on that record. Dude, yeah, the drummer's insane. Yeah. Yeah, the riffs are killer.

I love his voice and his lyrics are dope. I'm stoked, dude. I can't wait to listen to this. Yeah, dude. So yeah, that'll be next week. Block parties, Silent Alarm. And then we'll be bringing another What You Heard episode after that. That's right.

And then, yeah, who knows after that, man? We'll just keep this train rolling. That's all we can do, man. Just keep rolling. That's all we can do. We've been rolling for 182 episodes. What have we covered? How?

It's kind of crazy. But that's why, you know, just about every episode, there's a moment where we can say, oh, yeah, go back and listen to our episode on that band. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or go listen to our, you know, I dropped that band. I know what you heard. You know what I mean?

We're getting to that point where we can just about reference any band can tie back to some episode probably, right? because we've done Blink before. Go back and listen to our episode on M.M. Of the State because we've talked about this band before. Right. Yeah. And when you get to that section of our episodes, that was our back to school, dude.

So we covered no doubt. We covered Phantom Planet. We dove into some like emo pop from the early 2000s. There's a lot of great episodes around that time. That's right. So I was going to bring this up, actually, now that we're closing out here. That is something that we're going to try. to start doing with our Twitter feed is start linking back to old episodes with bands that we

think you would like either bands in the same vein or previous episodes where we've covered an artist just to share some more music that we've covered unless you listen to older episodes in hopes that you'll discover some albums and artists from us that you've never heard before at No Failure podcast, jump on there. And yeah, at least we're going to try to post at least two or three times a week, linking back to old episodes. That's one place you can find us. You can also find us on the Pantheon Podcasts Network. We are part of a ever-growing family of music-centered podcasts.

Happy to be part of the group. That's Pantheon Podcasts.com. and we'd also like to thank AKG for supporting the show and for letting me rock these dope-ass comfy headphones and speak sweet nothings into this awesome microphone. If people wanted to get their hands on that exact pair of headphones and microphone, how could they do that? I mean, how?

What would you call it if you were to try to find this online? I mean, I would probably type in something like, like podcasters essentials kit. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. In fact, you could type that exact thing into Google, AKG, podcasters essentials kit. You can get your hands on the exact pair of headphones and microphones

that Quentin himself uses week in and week out on this podcast. If you're thinking about starting a podcast, it's a no-brainer. It also comes with the light version of the latest Ableton live. which is what I use to piece together the episodes. It's an awesome music editing software program. Big fan of it. I've been using it for years. And it comes with a light version of the software in the podcaster essentials kit.

Yeah, jump on there and take a look at these beauties, man. These headphones, this mic, they're just gorgeous, man. And these headphones, no joke, the comfiest headphones I've ever worn. Love this mic to death. so there you go. Everything you need to get started. That's the AKG podcaster essentials kit. All right, Q. So like we said, next week, block parties, silent alarm. That's going to be an awesome episode. So tune in next week for that. In the meantime. So we're going to

close out with, again, like we said earlier, the fallen interlude from Plink 22's untitled record. And yeah, we'll talk at you guys next week. My name is Travis, and I'm Quentin. Bye-bye. Holiday Magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point.

Visit our Holt's holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Carroll, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks, like glass animals, I guess that was the idea was to try something personal and see what happened.

And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.