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thank the barnes and noble gods for giving me the experience of buying this book a week early. fahrenheit 182 is a standard rock bio to some degree — it hits the highs and lows, enough for fans and casual readers to enjoy in equal measure. the bulk of the book focuses on the band at the peak of post-Y2K millennial fame, which is both to be expected — it’s all he ever wanted — but it means the second half of the book can feel like diminishing returns, in a way that mirrors the band’s career. that means the skiba era gets the shaft, a dick joke i hope we can all appreciate. the way the book is broken up into very short chapters surprisingly serves it well, giving mark spaces to relish in fun anecdotes and stories, some of which he’s told before and many that are newly public. much like the band name “blink” was imagined as a fast action noun, mark initially bounces from memory to memory rapidly in a way that might leave some readers overloaded, like a sugary soda or an ADD gen-Xer flipping cable channels. but it’s in wise service of the point that his life breaks with his parents’ divorce… a trauma that refuses to heal, and manifests itself through his story. from there, mark dives deeper, despite the conversational tone. to this end, it exceeded my expectations… as a longtime fan with a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of the band, i knew the story of writing “carousel”, or “rock show”/“first date” would make it in. but there are some bombshell revelations across this tome, far more than i had anticipated. among them: mark has severe anxiety and OCD that has worsened at points in the band’s history. his childhood fear of things that fall apart put his role in the trio as mediator, analogous to the role of the bass in any rock lineup. mark likes order, and hates disorder. without blink, he has no identity. his cancer diaries, abridged in this release, are deeply dark and revealing — a truly raw insight into his thinking and lack of respect for himself. and not as often, mark’s history as a bookworm gives rise to a writerly style that truly shines… how the shag carpet of his childhood home he would lay on listening to records “betrayed him” as the apple juice soaked into it in the midst of a fight. or how the light from the lamppost outside the studio during the breakup brought to mind the lamppost he climbed at the start of the band. for me, the harrowing story of the domestic abuse he witnessed that manifested itself later in “go” is an extraordinary highlight. the stories of the breakups aren’t as vitriolic or intense as a fan like me might savor, but it doesn’t need to be at this point, in 2025. he says plenty without saying too much, on subjects of interest like BCR, modlife, wives, and more. and some moments don’t make the cut: he never mentions his brief career as a producer, and +44 comes and goes (on chapter 44, i might add) without much background. but almost everything is here: the jokes and tears, the summit and the bottom. even stories told elsewhere, like the punk days of starting the band, or shooting the music videos, are riveting and given new energy. all of the photos are culled from mark’s personal collection, so there’s a few new shots, and they’re thoughtfully dispersed throughout the text. also: the story of mark meeting his wife is EXTREMELY cute. altogether, it’s about as honest on most things as a fan could hope, but more pedestrian and less viscerally exciting as travis’s gun-toting, gangsta memoir. but his trials with cancer and self-doubt make it far more down-to-earth than its counterpart, and more likable overall. it’s the bio we “always” wanted. and while the focus on the limelight of the past can feel like a concession — to the reader, to the publisher, to everyone — it simply makes sense. in truth, blink is an old band now, and they’re squarely in the rearview. but after all: the past is only the future with the lights on. now for the juicy tidbits. if you would rather wait and read the whole book, PLEASE ignore what’s below in the spoiler tag. but given how avidly i’ve waited and other fans have waited, i wanted to collect the most surprising, shocking reveals, especially for those that simply can’t wait:

I loved Mark's book, it's so well written, and it's an emotional roller coaster that hooks you from page one and doesn't let go. The highs are really high and lows are way lower than expected. The recurring “one in a million” theme ties it all together beautifully, and I love how the story starts from Mark's desert town roots and then circles back to the desert for their triumphant comeback at Coachella. As diehard fans/self made blink historians, don't expect to find things you've never heard of, but the chapter on Robert Smith caught me off guard in the best way lol And as Kay noted this morning, the story behind "Go" was horrifying. I think Mark had to hold some juicier details from the TRL era and I'm sure he has a lot more to say about the pop disaster tour, but I understand why he didn't do it and kept telling us that Billie Joe and Mike are nice guys. Scott's complete absence from the book is another thing that wasn't unexpected. As someone who has always seen Scott as a core member despite lacking Mark and Tom's “IT factor,” I’m left wondering if maybe we should reassess his role in the band at this point. I'm just rambling- let's say thinking out loud but in this case typing lol. I woke up at 5:30 am because my cat was crying and instead of going back to sleep I started reading the book, finished at around 11:30, it was a great full immersion, loved every second of it. blink life. for life. 😭🩷

Yeah, this is not true at all. When they played Apple Shampoo out of nowhere in 2013, the crowd went crazy. When they played the little acoustic set in 2012 with Give Me One Good Reason and M+M’s, everyone was singing along. When they played Easy Target at my show in 2014, people started moshing. They can afford to play 2 or even 3 deep cuts, their fans in the audience are not a bunch of stupid people who don’t know shit about the band they’re seeing live, they would love it, but Mark doesn’t want to.

So underrated. That chorus is gold. Drums are so good, Travis rips.

That's our Mark! haha

Is the Kansas Krew finally getting to see blink live this time?

Will be quick if Travis has already written everything with other randos

So I've been avoiding this thread because of spoilers, but I read like the first 5 or 6 chapters of this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. So well-written and an inside glimpse of his childhood that was pretty much all news to me. I thought he was an LA suburbs guy. Had no idea he was a small town desert kid or that he grew up with that much turmoil. But in addition to being kind of heartbreaking, it was also really funny and heartwarming at the same time. I can't wait to get back into it tonight.

Just finished this. It’s fantastic. I’m now a markbot. I love how he’s blinks biggest fan. The heartbeat of the band. I felt fucking sick all the way through the cancer chapters, I’m heartbroken he went through that but my god thank fuck he’s still here and cancer free, the last chapter got me teary eyed. I fucking love this band, what a story ffs. I love that instrumental he made too for the audio book. I think it’s an old demo? It sounds very plus44, I hope they use it for a future blink song.

Two pit tickets secured 🔒 Checking account depleted ✅

"hey tom, how's it going?" "i'm good man" "hoooly shit. holy fuck, man! that's crazy."

Green Day is great live if you like the lead singer yelling “WHOOOAAAA” and then holding the mic out so everyone else can yell “WHOOOAAAA” for 2 hours.

Barnes and noble here in the states have been putting the book out early and it doesn’t appear to be street dated. I’ve got my copy and am reading now. I’ll post a review later. So far it’s good!

crazy how he overuses the drum quesadillas on OMT. he's like "people think it's programmed!" that's cause the drums sound like shit, take a hint lol

You really feel for him during the box car chapter. I’d be devastated if my two best mates started another band without me. You can’t really blame Tom either imo, I think the whole project kinda snowballed and wasn’t meant to be as big as it was. I’m still devastated that album isn’t a blink album, imagine those songs with Mark on them

that was a boring read, you both need better hobbies. any idea when we're getting new music? I don't use social media much at all these days.

He’s clearly not ready to talk about it. The slightest hint — that he had initially expressed skepticism at inviting cowriters into the once insular process — is perhaps as close as we will get for now. Was it Travis steering the ship? An evident lack of chemistry with Matt? Mark admitting he felt washed? We won’t know the answers for this until years from now. He compresses 2017-2020 into literally a page and a half. The fact that he outright admits that NINE “didn’t connect” is about as far is he willing to go. He somewhat hints he was just going with the flow with the label’s interests — considering they’re presumably still with the same execs/team, maybe he doesn’t feel like trashing the process? part of me wonders if the entire concept of accepting cowriters was an early, tacit acknowledgement that nothing could replace the true blink — Mark, Tom and Travis — and that the new era should be graded differently.

It also could be completely innocuous at the end of the day — Tom was busy on the road, or on a preplanned vacation, or something. Maybe he and Finn weren’t that close after all and the bond was stronger with Mark. Who knows. It tracks that Mark would let it incense him at the time, but who knows what was happening.

they lost their way when they stopped playing Carousel at every show

So my book was supposed to arrive on the 16th but it’s actually getting delivered tomorrow, I’m so happy ♥️

At least we recently had American hero and icon Kid Rock in the White House helping Trump sign an executive order to stop ticket price gouging and fees. These prices should drop any day now, kiddos!

indeed, plenty of it: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/GMA3/video/mark-hoppus-blink-182-talks-new-memoir-120598696

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2025-04-07/blink-182-mark-hoppus-surviving-cancer-book-fahrenheit-182-band-reuniting Another cool piece

The thing with Nirvana is that the profound cultural influence of their music justifies all the attention they receive. No one at the time wrote a single song that reshaped culture or evoked even a fraction of the intense response Kurt Cobain achieved. His melodies stirred deep emotions, his raw vocal delivery amplified that impact. Like them or not, Nirvana’s recognition is well-deserved imo.

The sound of TOYPAJ is absolutely perfect. When it comes to instrumentation it has to be Finn's finest hour for blink. That shit was absolutely dialed in front to back.

Great call on the drums. The fill at 2:35 broke my brain at age 13 and it never healed. Fucking incredible. Love this song.

this is like getting a second angle of the JFK assassination. legendary video!

I absolutely love One More Time, favorite album since Untitled easily. I just wish the mix was better. It's so harsh that it's hard to listen on repeat as much as I would've wanted to haha.

Yeah, like Mark says, Tom was the grandiose one. He had a penchant of wanting to do wild, big, audacious things and Mark had to figure out how to do that and make it work. In terms of success in the music industry, Tom and him won the lottery 5 times in one lifetime. After Enema came out and did what it did, Mark had been the lead singer for 5-6 of their singles by this point. Only ATST was Tom's. Was that song a giant ploy by him to write a big hit? ATST seemed so calculated and perfect. I always wonder if that friendly rivalry was there at that point. Take that, add a prescription drug addiction, every album is consistently popular, business ventures like loserkids and atticus doing super well, mobs of obsessed kids, a wife with newborns who would prefer you had nobody to answer to for your job, waning interest in the "punk" genre, your best friend and bandmate not loving all your ideas, the last time you stepped out of his comfort zone with your career he freaked out, and the paranoia/disillusionment of being a rock star with people judging every thing you do, and I think you get why Tom was difficult/secretive. I always sided with Mark in the sense that Tom took much needed time off and decided to start a new band and that's fucked up when you bitch and moan about touring too much or missing your family. The duality of Delonge.

"Let's talk about AI...."

I loved the chapters on his childhood in that desert town. I think his childhood and all those worries and insecurities he had because of his parents’ divorce play a huge role in understanding why he feels the way he does in the band—like he’s always battling this sense of not being good enough, or how he was so lost when the band broke up.

Blink’s return on Coachella was by far my favorite part of the reunion minus the actual album drop (sort of - 6 songs dropped prior was a bit much) Also hearing Anthem 3 on the stall

The fact copies of the book handed out were not pre-signed is a little crazy, honestly.

Great memory everybody! Now that I re-read this I do remember it and remember feeling really happy for them as people/friends. “in the midst of everything else that has happened lately, tom, travis, and i have all spoken together. first through a number of phone calls, and then a couple of weeks ago we all hung out for a few hours. they’ve all been great, very positive conversations. we’re just reconnecting as friends after four years of not talking. it’s a good thing. obviously the first question for a lot of people will be “does this mean a blink-182 reunion?” the answer is none of us know. we haven’t talked about it at all. right now it’s just good for the three of us to see one another, reconnect, and let the past be the past. the events of the past two months supersede everything that happened before. life is too short.” https://www.altpress.com/archive_5119/ Also the fact that things went to shit AGAIN and then they were able to pull it together AGAIN in an actual real way, is incredible haha.

Looks like they went out of their way to reschedule the shows they canceled when Tom faked sick. The St. Louis and KC venues don't match any of the others on this tour. Appreciate that for sure

Felt pretty stoked for them seeing the dates. Them making it up and doing so with Alk3 is fucking wicked.

Mark did an interview on Pardon My Take. Sort of wild to see this, but I know commenter especially is a massive blink guy. Starts at 1:46 - can't timestamp it on my phone. Apologies. Excited to listen to this on my drive today.

I hope this becomes an expression!

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/arts/music/mark-hoppus-blink-182-fahrenheit-182-memoir.html neat article

Dookie usually comes out very early in life.

dude. go listen to Nevermind please. In Utero is better, but it is a reaction to Nevermind and it's better when you know this and see "yeah, this is the band at it's best". incredible band

Good point, it would actually be more edgy and contrarian for him to start taking a more mainstream view now

I noticed from the interviews with Travis, Skiba and now Tom that he's always going through the life of the person on the podcast in chronological order so he's probably following wikipedia 😂 Toby's entire personality is being 100% POSI that he always comes off like a yes man. It's the kind of podcast where if he has a guest you care about, the podcast is good because of the guest and the things they tell to him, not because of the host.

I was front row at a blink show during the first reunion, Doug (Tom's tech who passed away a few years ago) was handing guitar picks to everyone and he started talking to the people next to us, they asked him about some tour memories I think - and I really don't remember the conversation, but I do remember that at some point the pop disaster tour came up and Doug told them that Tre Cool was absolutely hideous to deal with, he also used the word resentful, while Mike and Billie Joe were good people, very down to earth, so it checks out.

Essentially says the obvious — that GD was on the downswing and blink were on the upswing, and Mark surmises they hated them for it. Questions why they agreed to it in the first place. Blink was contracted to close each show, but it got complicated because GD violated aspects of the contracts — they had included some sort of stipulation that they only would go on at dark, and in some areas they played that was very late, pushing Blink’s start time later and later to where on some nights they had to cut their set short to avoid curfew in some cities. And there were other weird power plays too. additionally, says that backstage Billie Joe and Mike were super kind, but it was like a switch flipping at showtime — they were super competitive and aiming to show Blink up. Mark concedes that Blink were less impressive live and had grown stagnant. Says Tre Cool was super pissed though because it was obvious Travis was a technically gifted drummer and it invited comparisons. also says they’ve asked for a rematch multiple times but GD rebuffs them every time

I desperately need the Robert Smith tea.

I asked the director of American Pie on Twitter if he still has that lost footage and said that he doesn't have it I posted proof of that Mutt video from an article from MTV News back in the day (September 1998) where you could download a Real Video from that Mutt video shoot, so yes footage exists! From the Creative Creature podcast (source) : Turns out they weren’t just making a cameo — they were also filming part a lost music video as a cross-promo with the film.

Not at all, but it is probably their weakest album lyrically. The music is top tier though.

Tom recording some stuff for the boys of Kut U Up. Great to see Can't believe him and Cote are cool after the wife swap

I know exactly what you mean by this lol. Hard to put it into words though.