LiveDaily Interview: Mark Hoppus of Blink-182

by Christina Fuoco
LiveDaily Contributing Writer


In the last couple years, Blink-182 has gone from being generic punk rockers to the court jesters of pop music. They've appeared nude in videos and, according to bassist-singer Mark Hoppus, offended everyone possible.

So it makes perfect sense that "Cosmo Girl," a seemingly innocuous teen girl magazine, would ask Blink-182 to give dating advice to its readers.

"It's so strange, because we get on stage and say the most offensive things we could possibly think of. We write songs about having sex with your family, we say jokes about Satan having sex with people. And then they put us on the cover of 'Cosmo Girl,'" Hoppus said with a laugh.

But humor is the key to Blink-182 and, presumably a big part of its forthcoming album, "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket," due on Tuesday (6/12) on MCA Records. The label has dubbed it a "security release," meaning no advance copies are mailed to the media or radio.

Hoppus spoke with LiveDaily contributing writer Christina Fuoco about the record--the band's first studio album since 1999's "Enema of the State"--and the band's fans.

LiveDaily: Your label has declared your album a "security release." That says a lot about your popularity and success.

Mark Hoppus: Well, I think it's because we have such a computer-savvy fan base. Most of our fans are teenagers and people in college. Most adults aren't going to download a Mary J. Blige album two weeks before it's released. [laughs] It's just that kids are computer-savvy that way.

Tell me about the new record.

I wouldn't say that it's the same as "Enema of the State." I would say that it's the next step for Blink-182. There's songs on this record that sound like they come off of older records, like [1995's] "Cheshire Cat," songs that sound like they come off of [1997's] "Dude Ranch," songs that sound like they might come off of "Enema of the State," and songs that are the next step altogether. I think it's a lot lighter scope than what they might expect from Blink-182. We have some real fast songs, some slower songs. Travis [Barker, drummer] wanted to try some drum loops on this record. [We tried] different vocal effects, different arrangements, different rhythms. I think that this record will probably surprise some people.

How so?

I think lyrically it's a lot better than other albums the band has done. I think that musically it's a lot more diverse, and we bring a lot more elements to this record than we have before.

Did you record this album any differently than you did the last couple?

We actually did this album exactly the same as we did the last album. We wrote the songs in San Diego in the practice studio here. We wrote the whole record in three weeks. Then we took the next three months to record it. We recorded it at the same studio that we did "Enema of the State" ... a place in San Diego called Signature Sound. It's a studio in a non-descript area of San Diego, in an industrial park. It's cool because there's nothing around it to do, so there's not a lot of distractions. We get the work done.

You spent a lot of time on the road. When did you write the songs for the record?

We've been touring pretty much since "Enema of the State" came out. But then, we write songs during soundcheck, or we'll have different ideas for songs. When we're at home, we're always playing our guitar anyway, so we write songs that way as well. ...

We wrote all of "Enema of the State" in two weeks, and this whole record in about three weeks. We do our best when the time element is kicking down on us.

Who has the most songwriting credits on the new record?

This record is the most collaborative of any of the stuff we've ever done. We've always been a real collaborative band. ...

There were songs that were just an idea, maybe just a guitar riff, then we worked it up and put a whole song together. It's very equal. We just do a strict democracy. There's three of us, so there's definitely going to be a majority.

Do you think that lends itself to your longevity?

We're pretty easygoing with the way that we handle things. We respect each other. We're friends, and we're all very lucky to be in a successful band, so we don't argue about things.

Although you have plenty of songs that deal with serious issues, humor is Blink-182's strong suit. That's one thing that's missing in music these days.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of bands take themselves way too seriously, and try to make a serious artistic statement with every song that they make. That's not a bad thing. That's just not what Blink-182 is about.