Blink-182 Celebrate Rebirth at Goofy L.A. Karaoke Bash

Mark Hoppus doesn’t do karaoke, but he was beneath the spinning disco ball Thursday night, welcoming guests to sing Blink-182 songs at an Asian-themed bar on the Sunset Strip. The occasion was a party to announce the band’s summer tour, which begins July 22nd, and a new album called California, their first with singer-guitarist Matt Skiba.

“We can’t wait to see you all on the road,” Hoppus says to the packed Blind Dragon bar, where members of the tour’s three support acts – A Day to Remember, the All-American Rejects and All Time Low – are scattered around the room.
           
First, the new album’s silver-haired producer John Feldmann takes the mic, dressed in a pin-striped suit, as the anxious pop-punk sounds of Blink’s 1997 hit “Dammit” (a.k.a. “Growing Up”) fill the room. “Mark Hoppus is definitely in the top three of my favorite Blink-182 singers,” Feldmann jokes, then stumbles happily through the song with the help of the crowd.
           
The 16-track album is the band’s first without co-founder Tom DeLonge, following his acrimonious split with the band. The recording of California last year was a way for Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker to push Blink-182 into the future.
           
“To be honest, the last couple albums were, in my opinion, phoned in,” says Barker, sitting with Hoppus in a back room. The last album, he says, had the three longtime Blink members working in different studios. This time, the band wrote in Barker’s Los Angeles studio, then approached Feldmann to produce, and the difference in energy and output was immediate.
           
“We did 28 songs in a month and a half,” says Barker, a baseball cap tilted on his tattooed scalp. “It was awesome. The chemistry was great. Everyone was in the studio putting in work, being creative. When you get that momentum going, the possibilities are endless.”
           
Initially, Skiba’s role was simply to fill the space left by DeLonge for three shows. But soon the band was at work on new songs for a new album, and Skiba was asked to stay. “There were a lot of times I’d be in the vocal booth or in the control room and Mark or Travis would be tracking, and I would have to remind myself where I was because it felt so natural,” says Skiba, best known as singer-guitarist for Alkaline Trio. “We all put a lot of effort into this and a lot of heart and thought, but it fit together like Legos.”

This week, the track “Bored to Death” was released as a first hint at the sound of the new album. Within the band’s traditional pop-punk sound were some noticeably modern textures and beats, owing something to Barker’s work outside the band. “John would be like, ‘Trav, do some of that weird shit you play with EDM or rap artists.’ And I’d be like, ‘OK,'” Barker says, as Hoppus cracks up. “So there’s drum ‘n’ bass in the verses of ‘Bored to Death,’ but it’s in a rock song, so it’s kind of masked. There’s stuff like that all over the album.”