Blink-182: The Half-Naked Truth

Although Hoppus and DeLonge are unable to answer a question seriously if the other is in the room, their music is not a joke. It's full of adolescent aimlessness, broken hearts and general confusion over the care and feeding of girls. "Anthem," the last song on Enema, is about being trapped in the suburbs, longing for the freedom (and beer) that your twenty-first birthday will bring. Young, snotty, angry, but with more brains and heart than they let on — it's no wonder an audience of millions identifies with them.

After years of playing music in front of friends at parties, working at hateful day jobs and touring the Southwest in vans that were barely streetlegal, Blink-182 can't quite believe the success they've achieved: platinum records, multiple hit singles, soldout arenas. After all, Blink's catchy punk sound has been around for more than twenty years. Bands like the Buzzcocks (in the Seventies) and the Descendents (in the Eighties) also wrote great fast songs about teenage confusion, and they never hit America's pop charts. Then again, those bands never had onstage repartee like, "You might touch my balls, but you're not my dad."

"Everyone who starts a band dreams of being successful," says DeLonge. "But never do you dream of this. When it comes, you don't know how to deal with it." It's not that they once lived by a credo of "no sellout" — their philosophy has always been closer to "Where's the party?" It's that their brains still can't quite process the extreme contrast between their workaday lives and the spectacle swirling around them on a nightly basis. An hour after one of their biggest shows yet — 8,500 people at their hometown arena in San Diego — Hoppus was cooking scrambled eggs for his threeyearold nephew.

DeLonge has been finding the silence after a show spooky and alienating. "We're still suburban kids," says DeLonge, 24. "I feel like I'm a small part of a big show. I've got to do something every night to make it happen, but it's not my show."

Blink-182's greatest indulgence is in rude jokes. They say they don't use drugs. Their tour rider mandates a supply of beer, which they routinely donate to the road crew. DeLonge is the only member of the band to have an occasional beer. "I used to drink," says Hoppus. "But it got boring. And on tour, you wake up, you feel like shit, and you've got to travel. But I'm not straightedge — I have no problem with what other people put in their bodies."

Hoppus' and DeLonge's antics mask a mature streak that, given their fondness for fart jokes and references to one another's penises, in itself seems shocking. They're sober, they believe in God (Hoppus prays every night), they work hard (Hoppus complains every day), and they no longer chase girls. All three members have serious girlfriends. Barker, who used to date the most, has spent the last six months with psychology major Melissa Kennedy, who shares his quiet intensity. She's taken some time off from college to travel with the band; similarly, Everly has taken a leave of absence from her job at MTV. Hoppus is so excited to be marrying Everly that he routinely refers to her as his wife, although the wedding won't take place until Thanksgiving weekend.

While Everly doesn't trade fart jokes with Hoppus, she's goodhumored and easygoing. On the band's tour bus, Hoppus announces, "Wednesday is Hump Day. And Tuesday's Oral Sex Day."

So what's Thursday? I inquire.

"Mutual Masturbation Day."

"That's not true," says Everly and gives him a gentle shove.

"She's really cool," Hoppus tells me later. "She puts up with a lot of shit."

Hoppus and Everly have been together for about a year; before that, he was unhappily single. "Adam's Song," Blink's current single, is a suicide note set to music, but Hoppus says he wrote it about being lonely on tour. The couplet "I couldn't wait till I got home/To pass the time in my room alone" originally ended "to get off the plane alone."

"Tom and Travis always had girlfriends waiting back home, so they had something to look forward to at the end of the tour," Hoppus explains. "But I didn't, so I was lonely on tour. But then I got home and it didn't matter, because there was nothing there for me anyway."

DeLonge has been with his girlfriend, Jen Jenkins, for nearly four years. Jenkins isn't with the band in Texas because she's in the final days of course work for her B.A. in art. "She's way smarter and a better person than me," DeLonge says. "I just lucked out and got to play in a band."

Their first Valentine's Day together, Jenkins staged a worldclass seduction involving large quantities of roses and candles, plus lingerie. Unfortunately, DeLonge was watching a TV show about his obsession, space aliens (he's 100 percent convinced that the U.S. government has concealed information about the existence of aliens). As he tells it, "There were aliens on TV, but my chick was right there, almost nude, you know? I couldn't decide what to do!" Fortunately, he made the smartboyfriend choice. "If you can get me to not pay attention to the UFO show on TV, you've got me for life."

Blink-182 Play Word Association, Part Two:

"Aroma"
Barker: Mark.
DeLonge: Mark and his gas.
Hoppus: Vanilla.

Backstage in Austin, Tom DeLonge has commandeered the walkietalkie of longsuffering road manager Alex MacLeod and started giving instructions to the technical crew. "Apparently people don't realize I'm serious!" he barks into the mouthpiece. "I want everyone to take off their pants!"

A weary voice crackles, "Dude, we're walking around without any pants."

DeLonge grins and nods. His next instruction: "Everyone report to the dressing room and give Tom a blow job." He pauses. "This is Alex. I like to watch."

The venue is the Erwin Center, where the University of Texas' basketball teams play. It seats about 12,000, which makes Hoppus' eyes goggle. "It's not right that we're playing this venue," he says. The band has been given the locker room of the women's team, decorated with posters of Lady Longhorns squads of years past. The trio has a few obligations today — a live radio interview, a meetandgreet — but the afternoon is an exercise in combating boredom.

DeLonge and Hoppus spend a while brainstorming on what their first line should be when they walk onstage. Among the contenders: "We came here to kick ass and eat pussy." "We love you guys, but if any of you are from Texas, fuck off." "Hello, my penissucking friends!" Hoppus is particularly fond of this last one and experiments with saying it in a German accent and then an Indian one.

The hours pass like, well, hours. Hoppus and Everly decide to surf the Web on Everly's laptop; Hoppus takes over the keyboard. "You always drive on the Internet," she pouts. DeLonge kills some time by drawing obscene cartoons on drumheads the band is supposed to sign. First Big Weiner the Gay Pirate comes to life, followed by Naked Man the Superhero. "Notice how I made his penis crooked?" DeLonge asks. "That's part of the art. I always start with the dick and then work around it."