Blink-182 - Mark Hoppus
By: Dominick A. Miserandino
After a few years together Blink-182 is still trying to do things that are exciting, fresh and new. They've tried recording the record a new way, and a new tour that costs only a dollar.
DM) How is the Dollabill tour going?
MH) It's going great. We're paying for everything ourselves. All of the tickets are a dollar.
DM) What made you think of doing that?
MH) It seemed like a fun thing to do. We've been lucky with our band and our fans have really supported us, so it seemed like a fun thing to go out and play shows for a dollar. We're really stoked because all of the venues on the tour let us use the rooms for free for the night. They've been really supportive of that. We're paying for everything else right out of our pockets. It will be a lot of fun.
DM) Was this hard to plan?
MH) It was a little difficult actually. I thought it would be a lot easier. Everyone came together and there's been a lot of help from a lot of people.
DM) You're newest album is untitled, and I read that you worked on it a little differently.
MH) Yeah, we were working on it for the past 10 months. We approached the songwriting, recording, everything about the record, in a completely different manner than before and we're really excited about it.
DM) How did you record it differently?
MH) We recorded it in a house, and then we moved into a regular studio. On previous records, we had everything written before we went into the studio. This time we walked into the studio, writing and recording at the same time. Not like on previous records, where we recorded all of the drops for the entire record, and all of the guitars for the entire record, and all of the bass for the entire record... we went in and worked on each song individually as we were writing it. If we got bored working on that song for the day, we would move on to a different song. We're doing everything piece by piece all over the place. We would record guitars on one song and pianos on another song and maybe vocals on another one. It kept everything really fresh and all of the ideas were active, instead of an assembly line of recording.
DM) Was the song writing process that different, having the microphones on?
MH) I think all songs come down to, when you're all playing together, and something sounds cool, you can build off of that. But the way that we recorded this album, rather then having a specific picture in our head, we would allow the songs to take different directions. Maybe go in and say, "Instead of bass guitar for this part, lets try it with piano. Well, that sounds cool with piano, but now lets try bells behind that." We would use all kinds of different instruments on this record and it would take the songs into a different direction.
DM) It sounds like you worked off of each others reactions on this record. Have the inter-personal dynamics of the group changed over the years?
MH) When we were recording this record, everybody felt like they were on the same page. Everybody was really excited and open to each others ideas. We were encouraging each other to try something that we've never tried before.
DM) Is that a result of having been together for so long?
MH) Yeah, sure. After playing together for years, I think that we're able to communicate with each other better as time goes on.
DM) You make it sound like a marriage in a way.
MH) It kind of is. You end up living together for six to nine months out of the year. It's like a family.
DM) You guys have to then know each other musically, but outside of music too. Does it ever get hard to work together, when you're together so much and so intensely?
MH) We're pretty respectful of each other and when we do have disagreements or arguments about things we're usually pretty good about talking about things. We'll say, "This is the way I think this part should be" or "this bummed me out." We're pretty respectful of each other and we really try to listen in that way. We try to understand each other's points of views.
DM) Is there one person who tries to resolve such things more so than others?
MH) I think we all sort of do. I think on different points on different days, one is the mediator between the other two. The roles constantly are changing.
DM) Has your music gotten better, the better you guys were able to work together?
MH) I think so. I also think that we allowed ourselves more time on this record to explore different things. When we first sat down and started talking about this record and all of these things. We didn't want to second-guess ourselves. We didn't want to constantly ask ourselves, "Did this sound too different or too the same." Travis said it best when he said, "We shouldn't think of this as the next Blink-182 record, but we should think of this as the first Blink 182 record." Where you just go in and write songs for the joy of it and not second guessing yourselves. If something sounds cool you pursue it. That's how we approach the record without looking back and going somewhere that we've never gone before.
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