By Joshua Ryan Hall

Blink-182's Mark Hoppus finds me attractive. I know because I asked him and I've got the answer on tape. Of course, Mark revealed much more than a penchant for chubby, corn-fed Midwestern types during our impromptu pre-show interview. But it was this affirmative reaction to my very first question that taught me two indisputable truths: a lot can happen backstage at a blink-182concert and I have the coolest freakin' job in the world.

Money, fame, gnarly lights and gnarlier pyrotechnics have all befallen blink-182 since Enema of the State made them international pop-punk superstars. But Mark, Tom and Travis still deliver the same incendiary brand of aural pleasure laced with potty humor and anatomy jokes that first brought them hordes of angst-filled and well-adjusted fans alike.

Fellow Klipsch employees Don, Scotty, Eric and I traded "brush with fame" stories while impatiently waiting atop a bright green picnic table backstage at the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Indianapolis. (By the way, Don, I still say I won this contest. I don't care how sincere you act when you claim to have met Bono, I really did meet Cher. And Cher is the infinite trump card.) After being greeted and treated to a tour of one of the blink-182 busses by Mark's wife, Skye, it was time to meet the band.

Discography and History
Information gathered from CDnow.com and blink182.com

Originally known for a very short time as El Cuatro and the Cajones and then simply as Blink, Mark Hoppus (bassist), Tom Delonge (guitarist/vocalist), and original drummer Scott Raynor (replaced by Travis Barker in 1999) formed blink-182 near San Diego, Califonia, debuting with the self-released EP, Fly Swatter. After releasing the album Buddha in 1994, the trio signed to Grilled Cheese/Cargo Records and released Cheshire Cat in 1995. A similarly named Irish band threatened a lawsuit, so the guys added "182" to their moniker. Despite rumors that the "182" in blink-182 stands for the number of times Al Paccino says "fuck" in the movie Scarface, the "182" is actually just a random number. The third blink-182 LP, Dude Ranch, was released in 1997. Dude Ranch expanded the group's audience and won the attention of major labels. blink-182 wound up signing with MCA, who released the band's fourth album, Enema of the State, in the summer of 1999. Travis Barker, formerly with the Aquabats, later replaced Raynor who left the band amicably. After selling over four million copies of Enema of the State, the trio offered the limited edition release titled The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back) in fall 2000. The album featured the band's radio hits on a live setting intertwined with their quirky sense of humor as well as the new song "Man Overboard". Take Off Your Pants & Jacket, issued in spring 2001, is the band's newest album featuring The Rock Show, Happy Holidays You Bastard, Stay Together For The Kids, and the new single, First Date.

In the recent past, blink-182 won a Teen Choice Award, a Blockbuster Music Award, and appeared on the MTV Awards '00 where they performed "All The Small Things" and won Best Group Video. In Europe they received an MTV Europe Award for Best New Act. They performed on Saturday Night Live and the Tonight Show (twice), appeared in the movie American Pie and opened the Billboard Music Awards. The band also graced the covers of Rolling Stone, Alternative Press (twice), Teen People, Teen and CosmoGirl, just to name a few.

The Interview Begins

Lame and stumbling over every other word, I make small talk with a casually clad Mark as we wind our way through narrow halls to the Green Room. In addition to the flip-flops, Mark is sporting a pair of long black shorts and a black T-shirt that shows a stick figure tossing a Swastika into a trash can and the words, "KEEP YOUR COUNTRY NICE AND CLEAN." Chad Gilbert and Jordan Pundik from opening act A New Found Glory are with us and they chime in as the interview unfolds.

After the ice-breaker question about whether or not he finds me attractive, I ask Mark what his pre-show routine is usually like and if there's anything special he does to prepare for facing thousands of screaming fans.

"I complain a lot right before we go on stage," answers Mark. "I say everything sucks and I whine about having to play another show, and then I walk out on stage and have the time of my life. Mostly, I just hang around back stage or walk around looking for something to do. Bored, really. I'm here. I'm ready to go, but I have another three or four hours before we go on. I just want to get out there and do it. Headlining sucks because you're the last band to play. Chad, Jordan, how 'bout you guys?"

"Before we go on, don't you always feel you gotta pee?" Says Chad. "I gotta pee real bad then. What happens is I feel like I have to pee, then I go to the bathroom and nothing will come out. Then I go back on stage and five seconds later I feel like I have to pee again. So I just stay out there and hope I don't pee my pants. No matter what I do I always feel like I have to pee before I go on stage."

Sensing that the conversation is getting a bit more personal than necessary, Mark says, "I'm sure this is exactly the concept Klipsch is looking for in a story on their web site. There's nothing quite like a story about urination habits to help sell speakers."

"With the explosion of pop-punk and your love of new music, is there a blink-182 record label on the horizon?" I ask.

"No," Mark replies. "We've actually been offered labels before, but it's just too much work. We want to help out new bands, though. We feel it's our duty and responsibility and obligation to help up-and-coming punk rock bands. It's not like we invented punk rock. We're just following in the tradition of bands like Green Day and Rancid and Bad Religion and NOFX and Pennywise, all these other great punk rock bands that have blazed a trail. They helped us out when we were first starting. We wouldn't be where we are without the help of those bands. That's what I love so much about the punk rock community. All the bands help each other out and support one another. So rather than start a label. I'd just rather bring bands on tour and show them to the kids; show their stuff to people that come to see us and show them how cool the new guys are."

I ask about the ups and downs of being on tour for long stretches of time and what it is that Mark finds most challenging.

"The travel and the repetition suck. Everything about touring sucks except playing shows. But it's stupid to complain because, to be honest with you, we get to travel so comfortably. We have, how many personnel on this tour?"

Guitarist and vocalist Tom Delonge, who has entered and joined the interview answers. "About 38."

"Thirty-eight, almost 40 people on the road that do nothing but work for us," continues Mark. I don't have to do anything. The only thing I have to do is walk out on stage and do exactly what I love, and that's playing my own show. I don't even have to tune my own instruments. I don't have to lift anything. I don't have to drive anything. I don't even have to talk to anybody. All I do is walk out on stage and play a show. So, yes. The repetition sucks. But to complain would be like having someone hand you a thousand dollar bill and then getting pissed off because it's not crisp enough."

As a pop-culture fanatic, I watch enough MTV to know that blink-182 didn't always travel in the lap of luxury and I ask about the differences between touring now and touring 10 years ago.

"When we first started, we played shows and while on stage we'd ask the audience if we could stay at somebody's house," says Mark. "We toured in a van. We lifted all our own gear. We stored all our own merchandise. We tuned everything ourselves. We played little clubs, too. When we first started, Tom used to call clubs every single night in San Diego and ask if we could play? He'd call up high schools and tell them we were a motivational band with a strong anti-drug message. They'd let us on the campus and we'd go and play songs until they kicked us out. And we used to sleep on the side of the road or sleep in the van or whatever. We'd have to drive overnight taking turns at the wheel. And now we just get catered to."

Mark's mention of touring in a van reminded me of The Rock Show video and I asked if the van in the video is the original tour van. Further illustrating how much things have changed for blink-182, Mark was telling me that the van in the video was a rental when Skye came back into the room with pictures of the band's newest tour bus. Complete with a leather bed, DVD player and a Tivo, Mark told Skye that if she liked it, he was fine with it.

Because the boys of blink-182 have a reputation for the unexpected, fans at their live shows sometimes give "the unexpected" right back. I ask Mark to describe the craziest thing a fan in the audience has done that he's witnessed.

"Last night, there was a guy in the audience that was completely naked. He was 100 percent naked, not even socks or shoes or anything," answers Mark. "He was totally naked jumping up and down in his seat. That was kind of weird. The other day, in Seattle, a girl ran up to Travis and tried to handcuff herself to him. People are funny."

"What is it about nakedness and little people that you guys love so much?" I ask.

"I don't know, I just think it's funny," explains Mark. "I don't think there's anything more disgustingly funny and laughable than a naked man. It's so funny because a naked woman is beautiful, voluptuous and tender. But a naked man is funny, laughable, disgusting and hairy."

In addition to winning Best Group Video at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, blink-182 performed "All The Small Things" accompanied by an unruly band of little people, some were even suspended by fly rods above and behind the band. I ask Mark what it was like performing with little people flying and gyrating nearby.

"Dude those the little people that joined us on stage for the MTV thing were out of control," remembers Mark. "They actually had a dressing room in a basement of Radio City Music Hall that was all theirs. We went downstairs right before the show to say thanks for coming out, have a good time, we really appreciate it. We walk in there and every single one of them is completely shit-faced drunk. There's fuckin' pizza smeared across the walls. There are pizza boxes everywhere, beer bottles, and broken glass everywhere. They're all completely drunk. They all had to fly over on the same plane and they got super drunk on the plane. They're just way gnarlier than anything I've ever seen in my life."

"What is it that you like most about live shows?" I ask.

"The energy that I get from watching people watch us is so amazing," says Mark. "And when a show goes really well, there's no other feeling like it in the world. When you're just up there playing music. There's so much energy and it's just, I can't even describe it. It's indescribable, so I'll shut up."

Chiming in, Chad from A New Found Glory says: "I might not know you or any of the other 18,000 people that are watching us, but those kids go home and they'll remember us and they'll remember our music and it's like we're part of their lives. It's just so crazy to know that you're gonna be a part of some person's life because of your music."

"Yeah," agrees Mark. "It's just strange when people react to your music so strongly. Music is the one thing that people define themselves by. Songs bring back memories. There's a certain song that makes you remember the day you graduated from high school. And there's a song that makes you think of when you broke up with a girlfriend. It's just amazing how people are so passionate about music and songs. They define themselves with it and it's the story. The story of their lives. Just think, something that you write becomes something that helps somebody through a hard time. It's just a really amazing thing."

"What are you thinking about right now? Music-related or non-music-related, what's on your mind these days?" I ask.

"It's depressing, the state of music out there today," says Mark in a tone that is altogether serious and matter-of-fact. "There's so much manufactured music out there that music isn't even about music anymore. It's so much about celebrity and style and beauty. I've been saying for a long time that there needs to be another Kurt Cobain. Someone needs to come along and make it less about theatrics and more about the actual music. There's so much fluff and bullshit in the music scene. I want more bands out there. I want people to write their own music and play their own instruments and let the chips fall where they may. That's something that's been bothering me."

The "what's on your mind" question really got Mark going and he continued sharing his personal take of the state of the industry.

"Another thing that's bothering me is how people always go after the entertainment industry and rock bands and movies when somebody does something idiotic," says Mark. "Like people come after Eminem because he sings about killing somebody, so we gotta keep that away from our kids. But a kid can walk into a Borders and buy the writings of the Marquis de Sade, where it says how to have sex with dead people. But he can't walk in and buy an Eminem CD. It's so ridiculous. What I want to know is if a kid gets bit up by an alligator, are they gonna turn on the Crocodile Hunter? Parents aren't raising their kids responsibly anymore. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their own actions. It's always somebody else's fault. It's just a very litigious country right now It's not a place that conducive to creativity or expression."

"So you've thought about becoming a parent?" I ask.

"Yeah, totally," replies Mark, looking at Skye. "I want to be a parent soon. Ready? Let's go." Turning his attention back to me, Mark continues. "I just think that people need to be responsible for themselves. There was a shooting recently and the kid was listening to Linkin Park, so people are saying not to listen to Linkin Park. If your kid is going to get pushed over the edge by a song then you've really failed in your job as a parent."

I ask Mark how he feels about reviewers talking about him and the band as cartoonish and how he reacts to it.

"It doesn't piss me off. I try and not let stuff you know?" says Mark. "Everybody's gonna have their own vision of blink-182. I mean, the kid that's been following us for the last 10 years is gonna know what we're really all about. Somebody that's only seen a couple of our videos is gonna have a completely different idea of what we're all about. And people are going to have their takes and their own perceptions of our band. If I worried what everybody thought, I'd drive myself crazy. We are what we are, and I think we are cartoon-like in a lot of ways. We're silly and we're very animated and we have a bright colorful presence. We're always very upfront about everything. So I guess we are cartoonish in that way."

"For somebody who knows you and knows and listens to albums from the past, what are they going to like or what are they going to notice that's different or new in the new album?" I ask.

"I think all of our albums are really personal. I think that this one is just as personal as any other ones," answers Mark. "I just think that we've gotten a lot better as lyricists on this record. I think that the songwriting has improved and I think the lyrics have improved. I mean, the lyrics have always been simple and honest, but I think on this one they're very honest and they're a little more complex and little more well thought out.

"But still irreverent," I interject. "Like with Happy Holidays, You Bastard."

"Actually I wrote that song to Skye on Christmas Eve," confesses Mark. "She was wrapping presents and she wanted help. But instead of helping her, I picked up a guitar and started mocking her because she hadn't wrapped any of her presents in time. And I just started writing disgusting lyrics."

Turning back to my written questions, I ask Mark to describe blink-182 as he would to a new fan or to someone who had never heard his music before. "What would you say you're all about?" I ask.

"Blink-182 is about honest music," states Mark. "I think our lyrics are very genuine. I think our music is very genuine. It's all direct from the heart and it's all exactly what we are and the scene that we came out of and our experiences through life. I think that people can easily relate to the genuine nature of our music. I have a lot of respect for bands like Rage Against The Machine or Pennywise, which have answered a really strong political message. I think that there's definitely a place for that, but I think that people relate more easily to music that's personal in nature. One of the biggest compliments we get is when people say that our music helped them through a hard time, or they felt like we wrote that song about their life. That's a huge honor to think that something you write affects somebody on the other side of the world like that."