How Blink-182 Went To The Top of the Charts by Keeping Their Minds in the Gutter

On the Loveline soundstage, there's a graffiti-covered wall that serves as the designated autograph area for visiting celebrities. Hoppus adds his name and the message, "Does this look infected?" Before the show starts, the band's record-company escort chides DeLonge, "Try not to say 'cocksucker' every five words, Tom." DeLonge nods in agreement. On the air, Barker and DeLonge periodically clap like seals, and Hoppus offers this insight: "I think sex is a race to orgasm — and I'm undefeated." During commercial breaks, the MTV stagehands joke about how the girls in the studio audience are staring at the band with unblinking concentration.

This is all mild compared with some of Blink-182's other MTV appearances — like the time they had an indoor BMX race in the Total Request Live studio. In the middle of the race, Hoppus decided he could compete better if he was unhindered by clothing. He stopped his bike, stripped and then resumed the contest, which he won. TRL host Carson Daly was supposed to interview the victor but declined, saying, "I've never interviewed a naked man in my life, and I'm not going to start now." "Those guys are awesome," says Daly. "They're really unaffected. I'm from Santa Monica, so I used to hear stories about them playing parties in San Diego and how they sucked. Their whole story was that they got in it just to have fun, and then they accidentally got really good."

Hoppus, born March 15th, 1972, grew up in Ridgecrest, a California desert town so small that when it installed its second traffic light, Hoppus jokes, there was an official unveiling ceremony and town barbecue. His parents divorced when he was fourteen, and he moved to Washington, D.C., with his father, Tex. Mark loved music, especially the Cure and the Descendents. "He helped me paint a house when he was a sophomore in high school," says Tex. "So I bought him a bass guitar and an amp. He started a garage band, and all the neighborhood kids would line up outside, sit on this brick wall and listen."

After high school, Hoppus returned to California, where he went to community college for a couple of years. "I was very directionless and stupid," he says. In 1991, deciding he wanted to be a high school English teacher, he transferred to Cal State San Marcos, just outside San Diego. Hoppus met DeLonge the second day he was in town and immediately knew he had found a kindred spirit. "We make the exact same jokes," Hoppus says. "Honestly, it was kind of creepy."

DeLonge, born December 13th, 1975, grew up near San Diego and started skateboarding in the third grade; as he got older, it was all he thought about. In school he would work just hard enough to get a C, to conserve his energy for skateboarding. In the seventh grade he visited a friend in Oregon who expanded his musical horizons by playing him Stiff Little Fingers, Dinosaur Jr and the Descendents. Previously, DeLonge had thought punk was just fast noise, but now he fell in love with it. Then he went to church camp, where a kid had a guitar in his bunk. DeLonge picked it up — and couldn't put it down.

Hoppus and DeLonge began writing songs and playing together as Blink, and were joined a month later by a friend of DeLonge's, drummer Scott Raynor. Their initial goal was simply to play in public. So DeLonge would call up local high schools and tell them, "We're a band, and we tour high schools with a positive message for kids. And we're really anti-drug." Four high schools even believed him, which meant that Blink were soon playing songs like "Ben Wah Balls" and "Does My Breath Smell?" for San Diego teens during their lunch hour.

When the three found out that there was another band named Blink, they knew they had to modify their name. They considered Blink Jr. and Blink U.K. but ended up picking a number at random. "We just pulled it out of our ass," says Hoppus. "A lot of people think it's from Turk 182!, but why would we take the number from a terrible movie?" The band recorded a demo tape and played tiny San Diego clubs, attracting the interest of Cargo Records, which put out the 1995 album Cheshire Cat, recorded in three days.