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So a bit back I posted that my buddy sold something on eBay to Skiba and requested a sketch. Coincidentally enough a couple months later Skiba bought something from me as well so I went ahead and requested a sketch too

This just reminded me of the random noob we had here a few years ago who claimed he was related to Jen and absolutely insisted Tom and Jen weren't getting divorced.

I’d like to submit these:

the deluxe edition release of a book is such a stupid idea (cash-grab)

I think mark was doing deadpan/awkward humor there about the dead dogs. Typical intrusive thoughts too. I did not come away from the book Mark was on the spectrum of autism, but obviously OCD and just being in control of certain things/thoughts. I know that typically goes hand in hand with people who can be really hard on themselves and Mark seems like the type where he struggles with self-worth along with cynical aspects of themselves (this is kind ironic considering he's an unabashed Disney adult, but it sounds like a nice reprieve from dark thoughts and makes sense when openly has some arrested development). I don't remember if he firmly states it, but Tom being in his life gave him an outlet to be the blink 182 "Mark" and probably let him escape the side of him that dwelled on negativity and stuff he can't control. Almost like the friendship/competition between them gave Mark a form of regression therapy of sorts. You stay young/free and you don't have to deal with the problems of being an adult as much and never confront the hardships of childhood. Then you write a bleak song like Adam Song because you've been shielding/medicating yourself with friends/girls/bandshit for years and you just got into a huge fight with a true friend like Scott. When I got to the part where he was not sure what he was gonna do with his life until he met Tom/Scott and that propelled him, it felt like that was a pretty low point in his life/self-worth and that lasted until he was threatened by BCR (as far as we know). I think that was a hook for me with this memoir. I could very much relate to all of that.

Toby Morse is clearly not a great interviewer haha, I'm an hour in now and it is still basically: TOBY: "So like, you guys toured in a van and shit right?" MARK: "Yeah!" MARK: "Sooo sick bro, damn! That shit was crazy right?" The Travis and Tom interviews were a lot better, if I remember right they were both friends/acquaintances with Toby from over the years but it doesn't seem like Mark is. That probably has a little bit to do with it.

That farewell tour was a big deal and Cheerio (we miss you) went to a lot of shows. But some bands are just burned out from touring so they call it quits and then a few years later they reunite because they've run out of money.

Bottom right is “felt cute might delete later” energy

Depends on who you ask in terms of being "interested" also. M+T went to Rolling Stone and openly speculated that Tom was disingenuous about the band since the reunion and only did it for the fame/money/opportunity and was essentially using it as a lazy payday. Still kind of blows my mind it got that bad and they had the balls to do it. I mean, why not? It was widely speculated in the fandom for some time. While refreshing in its honesty, it's pretty aggressive for them to do so openly in the press, unprecedent in the blink-verse. Just challenged his entire prerogative in the matter too. Tom then hit back with a "Well Mark and I were just discussing kicking Travis out" and that was a misrepresentation of their talks according to Mark (letting Tom vent was as far as it went according to Mark). I don't see Mark leaving Travis out ever considering how big Travis is a member and how they both stonewall Tom in his ideas (this is really the overall problem with the band for Tom "I can't be apart of something I can't control" Delonge. Travis is also smart enough to know that Blink will be legacy and loyalty means a lot to him. I'm sure there were more petty shit going on in the background too. But this was about as nasty/messy as it got. For all the shit Scott gets, he never seemingly went around moaning about it all unless asked specifically about it. I'm gonna rant again, but putting the break-ups in context is kind of hard unless you know a lot little details. I think Mark's book at least gives you a rough idea of that and I appreciated any and all details he put in there. I personally remember in 2005 was the first time I had heard how much they were fighting and it was quite shocking considering how successful the band was operating. It was also the first time any legit info came out and people were on record saying "they hate each other". I still can't quite imagine these fights but Mark even mentions how bad they were during this period. I also do remember people saying in 2002-03 that Mark hated BCR, felt slighted, and I always thought it wasn't exactly true, I mean he was ON the record. Also I remember the Conan fight was used as a way to joke naive fans too, but people actually persisted they did in fact hate one another and the band had tensions. Now we know that the speculation was at least somewhat accurate. How much was all that legit is interesting. It was a big rumor that Mark/Tom would go on the blink message boards/chats and fuck with people. BCR was sometimes presented as a diss to Mark in some weirrrrrd way and nobody understood why either, maybe not even himself. I think that would be a great question to ask Mark, if at the time he felt BCR was some kind of passive "this is the real me and not the blink me that Mark wants me to be" kind of creative fulfillment that Tom just didn't want to own up to. Tom of course has rebuked this, but he seems to think Mark thinks so. Them in 09 signing to a major label for the reunion was supposed to be a way for them to not go to Modlife and I think force Tom to prioritize the band in a fair way. I think Mark used that as a way to usurp any of Tom's ideas about them being part of that fold and allowing Tom being the means of production. I'd imagine Tom knows Mark is apprehensive to his ideas/businesses being right for blink and resents he has to go through so many people for his ideas to work in blink. Unfortunately Interscope/Universal was pretty inept in of itself with knowing how to book the band outside of their name recognition/already laid groundwork and Tom used that to prove they weren't going to get Tom 100% unless they go with Modlife (Dogs Eating Dogs/Modlife couldn't even handle an EP according to Mark). That test was a failure, at least in Mark's eyes and that was that. Neighborhoods as a whole also proved two major things; they still had it but weren't cohesive enough to make it all work. It's such a 3/4th of a great record. It needs that Jerry Finn touch so bad. Mark probably can hear this still and the way it turned out is like watching a parent blame the other for not caring about it enough. I think blink had so much go right for them for a very long time they didn't have the tools after something like that to guide them through these growing pains. They didn't have a manager (they all have managers now) to give them the real feedback they need. Mark is down to earth, but hard truths are easy to lose perspective of until it's really a problem. That's been the problem with this band since 2009 really. But if you had to surmise the bigger problems with the band, it was that it had 3 huge stars in it that somehow had to coordinate around their wants/needs. Also they had a lackluster live show that embarrassed the others. AKA Tom was drunk and under-performing. Watching the old sets online and you get how much Tom feels the need to be tore up to do his job. I think that Mark/Travis really carried him and felt like fans could come to resent how much they paid for a mediocre performance. That's also the big money maker, which you should probably still be able to sing/play somewhat competently. I think that tension made Mark crazy considering his OCD/anxieties. I think Mark ultimately challenged Tom this time and won. Of course they had to come together and allow blink to exist for the whole Skiba-era. So I guess it wasn't super, super bitter. Tom kept saying he was still in the band too, which is kind of hilarious. ---- I'm kind of looking forward to a Tom tell-all. Or at least a rousing session on Hot Ones.

I once dreamed of a blink song called Timothy and it was so amazing in the dream (they were playing it live) but I just couldn’t even hum it when I woke up because I didn’t remember it at all.

I liked the book. It found a good balance of catering to casual fans while giving hardcore fans some new tidbits. Would I have liked more? Of course, I could have read 4 volumes, 800 pages each on this guy. But the casual fans would have been bored. I do wonder if Mark is a bit on the spectrum, his writing style is very matter of fact about stuff I felt should have been more emotional. I especially found the photo of him and his dogs weird where he wrote something like "those dogs are dead". It was also odd how he referred to being alone after Travis left the Plus 44 tour meanwhile he has his tons of fans and other bandmates. This was the unscripted Mark I saw during the Blink soundcheck in 2016. Very detached. Very professional and emotionless. Tom has his faults, but after reading the book, he isn't as much of an ass as we thought all those years. Finally he talked about the TOYPAJ album signings being absolutely miserable. That was something that got lost for so many years. But I remember the posts from fans back in 2001 about it how terrible it was. 7/10

i had to put that shit on like 1.75x speed to get through it, just to see if there were any interesting bits. mark gets better as the interview goes on. i've literally never heard someone talk more than toby. it's like he's nervous to let the other person get a word in edgewise. mark sort-of picks that up and just lets him go, but it's soooo awful. add in "oh so sick dude", "fuck, that's crazy", etc and he's absolutely insufferable. you would think being in a band like h2o would have made him more relaxed around other pro musicians, but i guess that's not always the case.

God I listened to the first 30 minutes in my car this morning and I turned it off because I thought it was unlistenable. Toby is basically reading the book back at Mark with some nice comments but Mark’s answers are only “yeah” - “right”. The conversation was way more fluid in the other interviews.

Tickets is 🔥 it’s like pop punk mad libs. It’s a fun retro pastiche altogether with some great guitar work (courtesy of whoever) and strong melodies. The rest of the MGK punk pivot sucks but there’s a cadence and consistency to tickets. It’s a really solid record. this is coming from someone who hated the manufactured Feldy era. I guess the difference is that prime blink actually had agency/originality, and MGK had none of that. He was, as @Champ182 once put it, putting on a pop punk Halloween costume. I guess not taking it seriously is why I’ve enjoyed it.

Tom shared a video of Toast and Bananas on IG 🥹♥️

Vanilla white girl selfies + worst duck lips attempt ever

This is a SCANDAL

That laminate floor was my old house lmao. I purposely took the nice clips I was sent and made shitty video recordings for reasons I don’t entirely remember. I think it was to see who would betray me and also prevent them from getting picked up by YouTube scanners for leaked music. Pretty sure I was the one who sent you those boxelder. I only sent them to a few people because everyone else here was still spending their days bagging on Skiba and California so I didn’t really want to share anything with them. I remember posting actual lyrics from songs no one had heard and no one had any idea or ever noticed after the fact 😂

Click on the top part that says Tom delonge thread. Took me a while too

I can't believe Jen ruined our band. Singlehandedly.

Jen is a freak who believes in healing crystals. I'm gonna guess her and a guy with an ego the size of the universe who believes in aliens waging wars above the Arctic and the FBI wiretapping his phone were not a good combo.

i don't think he's necessarily on the spectrum; his joke about the dogs being dead is just the type of typical dark humor you find in a lot of gen x-er's. as for the +44 winter tour anecdote, i feel like he was just trying to capture just HOW lost he felt. two years before, he was touring arenas and guesting on MTV. now he couldn't he count on travis -- he was stuck in germany, with some bandmates he (barely) knew playing some pretty negative songs. as for the soundcheck memory, i definitely know what you're saying -- he was super all-business as i recall, when they let fans see them at soundcheck. but the thing is, i feel like if i were a musician, it would be super annoying to have fans there when you're just trying to get the volume/mics right. they're all expecting a performance and engagement but you're just trying to get something done. it turns performing into a multi-part affair, which i might find annoying too. seems like something management may have talked them into during that era, given how little they've done it since.

So this is really sad news for the music world. May his soul rest in peace. What a loss. His music plays a huge part in my life since I was a teenager. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/11/brian-wilson-beach-boys-dies

But he paid to hang out with him, what do you mean they aren't friends!?

I’m so sad about it. A true genius. Changed the sound landscape in the sixties, challenged the best songwriters in the world to do better, RIP.

The Starting Line are now Dad rock and I fully support this.

They are so much better than this, I wasn't expecting a hardcore album by any means, but they were supposed to push boundaries and they ended up rehashing their last album with the same melodies, a different guitar tone and some delay effects here and there.

He wasn’t bad with Tom, I loved that interview, I just can’t get through this one.

isn't he a seasoned musician? why is this news? did he think our band could be your life was fiction?

He still owes us a full unfettered interview. Maybe in 10 years. With @Ghent as the interviewer.

I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling this way. I think those 30 minutes were the worst interview I’ve ever listened to. Toby is terrible but Mark isn’t helping him either. When Tom was on, it still felt like Toby was reading his life off wikipedia, but it worked because when he mentioned some facts like “you got your first guitar” / “you got kicked out of school” / “you started listening to the descendents” then Tom went on a tangent and was great at keeping the conversation going, with Mark its jarring. Why did he even go to the podcast if he didn’t wanna expand a little bit on the book 😂 but I’ll give it another try during the weekend and I hope it gets better at some point 😂

toby morse can be an irritating interviewer -- has anyone ever talked MORE? but there were some amusing relevations from this back and forth: Tom and Mark shared a bus for a leg of the one more time tour. i dont know why i was so shocked or surprised by this, but for two guys who would travel separately on buses, the idea of them SHARING one, especially with their wealth, shocked me. it just goes to show how much has changed -- or perhaps the insane cost of touring nowadays. the official meaning of the "vagina exploding" story from the book: mark's wife had an ovarian cyst burst. he just found it funny in the context of the big VMA success to juxtapose it with a story like that. mark flew so much when making his fuse show and living in london that he was offered american airlines concierge key status — the highest level they have lol. it's so elite that it isn't even publicized. royalty!

Oof those songs blow.

Still one of my absolute faves. What a voice ffs

You can barely hear it because of Travis though, it feels like a deliberate joke to cover up the only thing that makes you figure out this is Yellowcard and not 25 other different bands.

Ya sounds exactly the same as all the other stuff Travis produces. Think he learned way more from Feldy than he ever did from Jerry Finn.

Didn’t know it was out yet. Will have to listen later just because I’m curious of the production quality. I’m sure the drumming is solid, what does the production sound like? edit- just stumbled upon a clip of “Better Days” on IG…and yup…sounds like the stereotypical Travis production, right down to the flanger on the drums smh. Dudes gotta learn some new tricks

This song sounds like it should be performed by Halsey or some pop singer. Whoever writes her songs definitely wrote that. Not good I still stand by my original opinion that Tickets to My Downfall is good as fook though

Ugh, I was hoping he was not but I figured he probably was sounded pretty Travis-esque, but it's super duper poppy and was afraid to look. I hate to say it but I'm convinced they are running some of this shit through AI. Every song is started to sound really samey by Travis and generic as hell, not to mention the video itself is clearly AI (and not CGI) on the train scenes. Same with the higher MGK voice. MGK already looks like an Anime character, I'm not sure why they need to use his AI. I fucking hate AI with anything music/movies.

the only "blink" riff on the album.

I do wonder how long people keep this up and how they skirt around in life. Like does this interfere with his friends/family? Does he not have a job he has to answer to? Will he give me a refund me for his disappointedly chaste onlyfans account?

Looks like a giant baby that just woke up, beanie baby

I always assumed he was just constantly high as fuck during that strange selfie era haha

Of all the albums this couldve happened for, and its Cali Deluxe lol

I bet Mark has been here at least once. And I bet he hated it.

let's have a blink182online meetup at her ranch and I'll fight diddy.

lol I was busy with work bubs, calm down. Dude leaves the band stating he needed time off to be with his family. We now know he was being bitched out by his wife on the phone while on tour for not being around. Separates from said wife years later and seems more invested in Blink and making new music and touring than he has in a long time. once again, not saying she was the main reason, but I think it’s plausible she played a role in his souring opinion of Blink. Like I said, Tom is just as much to blame, we all know he’s a bit of a loon.

That was a pleasant read, @_Kyle_, and I agree with a lot of things you say there. Also, I think there's something more to Tom that it's not been said yet. Maybe because I refuse to think he was that jerk back in the day. My speculation is he had some serious problem dealing with his first kid, Jen and blink being at its peak. Also, probably, some sort of anxiety or much likely depression going on. But that's totally speculation with any evidence. My perception is that Tom's personal life was basically starting to tear apart since then. Or maybe it just was ego. On the other side I can feel too the need of Tom to do BCR to fulfill his interest in exploring a different side of his music coin. I feel like Mark was way too insecure to accept some drifts in blink's sound, and maybe Tom though "ok, I'm gonna explore by myself". As far as it looks from what Mark says on the book, it started as a small thing which ended up being big and recruiting Travis and all. So even if it was Tom's valve to explore other sounds, he didn't handled it very well towards Mark. In the end, he being featured on Elevator sounded more like a forced consolation price. I don't think we're gonna get much more insights on the story, unless Tom speaks by himself and, even though, that's what we're gonna get so far. I mean, I bet there are tons of shit and details that will be unveiled, unless closer people starts to 'talk', you know, as happens with some classic bands, This is fascinating, ain't it? EDIT: oh, and then we have the Modlife affair. Tom was really intelligent on that idea, but again... it was not very well handled, specially with his interest in putting blink in. Anyways...

My new single is out today I’m quite proud of the video considering it cost literally nothing, but songwriting wise its one of my favourites of mine, especially lyrically.