Interview from cacophony.com (cacophony.com)

how did you guys hook up and form what the world knows as blink-182?

well, tom and scott met at a party a long time ago and started talking and decided that they wanted to start a band. at that same time, my sister was going out with one of tom's best friends, so she introduced me and tom and we started writing songs together, and it just began from there.

for a while, it was just "blink", not "blink-182", correct? any comments on that?

we used to just be called blink, and then about a year and a half ago, we got a call from a lawyer from an irish band called blink, who had prior usage on the name, so we were forced to change our name. we decided just to add the number 182. there is no reason for the number, we just picked one at random.

at the warped tour show in san francisco, scott russo of unwritten law said: "too bad blink-182 isn't playing, 'cause that would have been a fucking show." two things: why didn't you play in san francisco?

we weren't asked to play that show.

...and what's the deal with you guys and unwritten law? you thank them in the liner notes of cheshire cat, and they give thanks to you in oz factor.

unwritten law are probably our best friend band in the whole world, along with pennywise. we have toured more with them than with any other band. we live in the same city, and hang out all the time. they are really cool guys and i love their band.

what are some of the other bands you guys are into?

there are a million bands that we are into. too many to list here.

how much time is spent touring out of the year?

six months out of 96, and it looks like we'll be gone for about seven months out of the next year.

how was the warped tour experience? were all the bands cool? was there anyone on the tour that you've always wanted to play with? wait, i think that came out wrong. "play with" in the sense of being on the same stage, or playing before or after. not "play with" in the sense of.... well, you know.

the warped tour was definitely one of the best tours that we have ever been on. all of the bands were cool, and everyone hung out together during the shows, watched each other, etc. dance hall crashers were the only other band on the tour that didn't have a bus, and we caravaned with them nearly every night, getting lost together and ending up at our hotels at like four or five in the morning. none of the bands had rockstar attitudes, and everyone, including the athletes and skaters, were very supportive of each other. in fact, after the shows on a few occasions, everyone had these huge barbeques where everyone came and hung out and drank and had a great time. the tour was a lot of work, but well worth it. i actually miss that tour.

anything really embarassing or strange happen to you, or tom or scott, for that matter, while on tour?

one time we were playing somewhere and tom made some joke about wheelchairs, and of course, there in the crowd was a kid in a wheelchair, wearing a blink t-shirt. he really felt like shit. one time i made a joke in south carolina, saying, "this song is for all of the ladies here, it's called 'too bad you're all inbred.'" it was just a joke, but nobody there thought that it was funny. we do shit like that all the time. tom and i are always sticking our foot in our ass. wait, is that how the saying goes?...

why was the album called cheshire cat?

i love the story of alice in wonderland, and especially the character of the cheshire cat, and i thought that since we had such a twisted sense of humor, it just fit.

do you have a favorite blink-182 song?

my personal favorite is a new song called "apple shampoo," because it is a song that means a whole lot to me.

why are "ben wah balls", "just about done", and "depends" in purple, as opposed to the yellow-orange that all the other songs are in on the back of the cd case?

those are in different colors because they are joke songs, and we wanted to separate them in some way from the "real" songs on the album. ironically, those joke songs are more popular than some of the others, which i think is rad.

what's the story behind "the blink-182 dancing rabbit"?

tom came up with the idea, and our roadie's brother did the drawing. we really liked the way that it came out, and somehow it has become our logo or whatever. but some people are bummed on it because it isn't tough or punk enough or whatever. but i still think that it's cool. in fact, several times kids have come up to us at shows and showed us tattoos that they got of the rabbit, which really stokes me out.

how did "waggy" end up on the mom:music for our mother ocean cd?

tom whalley, who helped put the whole thing together, liked our band and asked us to be a part of it, which we were more than happy to do. it really is a great cause, and the surfrider foundation does some great work, so we were stoked to help out any way that we could.

about the mom cd: in an ad for the cd in rolling stone, out of the twenty-one bands on the cd, nineteen were mentioned in the ad. how does it feel to be screwed by being classified as "and many more"? (i can't find the magazine, so i don't know what other band wasn't listed along with you guys)

actually, it doesn't bother me. i mean, look at all of those bands that they did advertise. they're all huge. of course they would list silverchair, beastie boys, and everyone else before they would list us.

did you ever see kevin smith's film clerks?

i saw it and loved it, but i really prefer mallrats to clerks. in fact, mallrats is one of my favorite movies of all time. so funny and cool.

since you're the oldest, do you get to "lay down the law"?

no, our band is totally run by democracy. everyone has a say and we try to respect one another. of course we get into fights like any other band, but no one has more power than anyone else.

if i paid ten bucks, could i have my name in your next album's liner notes?

no. that was a joke, and lots of kids have asked the same question. i was going to mess around, and say "who is the person in the picture that is four across, seven down in the collage in the cheshire cat liner notes", you know, just to see how much work you'd put into this, but then i noticed something else. in the middle of the top row, there is someone, i can't tell who, kind of laying on the ground, wearing a blue-striped shirt. what the hell is the picture of that is right under that picture? it's like a dog's ass (not that i've studied dogs' asses enough to be able to spot them)

it is a picture of a bronze statue, right at the dick area. i could go into the various freudian implications of you mistaking a male penis for a dog's ass, but i won't. i think that maybe you have some issues that you need to deal with....

uhhh... no... no comment. moving on... did tom ever finish paying off the local bath house?

no, he is still totally in debt, and he added more to it by that sex change operation he keeps trying to get, but it never works. most of tom's income goes to his addiction--estrogen. he just can't seem to get enough. it's sad to watch your friends get addicted to female hormones. i mean, his breasts are growing, and his voice is getting higher, and he cries a lot. sad, huh?

any plans for www.blink182.com?

i'm not that organized, but it would be cool. a lot of people have put together blink-182 pages of their own, and that rules. if people are willing to take the time to put something like that together, it is a real compliment, and we honestly appreciate the effort.

some things i forgot:
any compilation appearances in the near future?

the song "wrecked him" came out on a comp last week called... shit i forgot. but that's it, i think.

are you working on a new album? if so, when is it expected to come out...

yes, most of the new song for the next album have been written, and we even demo'd nine new songs last month, and we're really excited about them. we hope to have the new album out at the beginning of 97.

how many songs, etc.

between 12-15 songs, depending on how much we get our shit together between now and when we go into the studio.

is O producing?

no, he isn't. we're not sure exactly right now who is going to do it, but we are going into the studio in twelve days [from 20/nov/96] to begin working on the next album, so wish us luck!!

stay away from flyswatter, right?

yeah, please. it sucks. trust me. we sucked way worse then than we do now.

would you like to say anything else before we end this fiasco?

i want to say thanks to all of those who support us and come to the shows and make this all possible for us to do. i honestly think that we have the coolest fans in the whole world, next to Yanni's fans. they're pretty cool.