Zane Lowe Interview Official Discussion Thread

[Monkey Chips]

14 minutes ago, boxelder said:

i also wish they would do more press for the album but ill take what we have

You know, I'm kind of curious to see if they will even perform for late night shows at this point. Especially since they did say that now they're carrying the band they want to be carried and maybe some of the late night performances could have been forced on them (unless I'm wrong and they enjoy doing those, just not doing the interviews?)

[Monkey Chips]

Also throwback to the old interview they referenced in this new one if anyone is curious at all.

[Knapppers]

Had to lol a little bit when he talked about Cali and Nine were him proving that he didn't need Tom to write good songs, and then with One More Time coming out, it's pretty clear he did need Tom. 

[Monkey Chips]

7 minutes ago, Knapppers said:

Had to lol a little bit when he talked about Cali and Nine were him proving that he didn't need Tom to write good songs, and then with One More Time coming out, it's pretty clear he did need Tom. 

Yeah, if anything I'd argue +44 did a better job at that, but I guess he meant popular in pop culture zeitgeist kind of space?

[Ghost]

I could never imagine Travis will end up being some sort of glue for this band. We can't complain when it come to twist plots, huh?

It's logical if I think about it, because as they said in the interview, he always was somehow surfing in between two fierce oceans. It had to be like that after all. Also, I love he was the one who spoke up about blink being ONLY the three of them. So, the decission to keep up doing blink with Matt was some sort of ego thing coming from Mark as it's been revealed by himself in this interview when he says he wanted to prove he could write good music without Tom. About this I only have one objection: that was extensively proven when he and Travis created (+44) and released "WYHSB". It was not necessary to prove anything else. So I assume that it all was a Mark's reaction -in a bad meaning-, which to be fair is absolutely understandable at that point, but it connects with that feel a lot of us have about that period. So, from a personal point of view, despite the fact that I barely like those records, I absolutely respect that decissión and Matt's work, but in the end they basically admitted that in the bottom of their hearts, they knew that was not blink. 

I LOVE the recognision for Jerry Finn and Matt Skiba. They both deserve it. But pay attention to this: Feldy was not mentioned at all.

Also, I absolutely respect and understand their decission about not doing any press and all. Yeah, we all would love to see them more, but I think this way it's better for them to keep this band in a healthy mental space.

Well, there are tons of little details that I love on this interview. It deserves several views. Overall, I love the feel. And yeah, I've seen a few Zane interviews and I don't get the hate for this guy. 

[NotNow]

The one thing that stuck out to me in the interview was not acknowledging nine and Zane saying one of the two was a major success. I got the impression Travis was ready to pull the plug whether Tom was coming back or not. It seems like post nine they had clarity this wasn’t working, all of the subtle comments or lack thereof from the last couple months. I assume nine did commercially bad for blink’s size, critically was not well received by major fans the good will that people were supportive through California as things were new was gone, seems like the live shows really fell off in quality and attendance in 2019. I wonder if people close to them actually said hey this isn’t that good or at least this really doesn’t sound like blink at this point, knowing marks stubbornness I don’t see how there was any other way he was going to snap out of doing it with Matt and pushing through other than people around him he trusted telling him to stop with it.

i don’t mean this to stir more controversy, I’m just trying to read between the lines here and curious on how we got to this point because mark seemingly was Matt skiba for life and anyone that doubted it or questioned it was an asshole. Was it Travis alone that helped him see the light? They supposedly had almost a whole album recorded with Matt post nine.

[2point5]

No one loves Blink more than Mark. He never wanted it to stop and who can blame him. It had already been taken away from him once before.

But yeah, blink really is the 3 of them and having them back like this is something I never imagined could be possible.

[Scott.]

Just finished this. Such a great interview. I fucking loved it. Was gutted when it finished. We need a proper Netflix blink doc. There is so much story to be told. There’s no other band like it ffs. Zane was great btw

[Resident Zoomer]

1 hour ago, NotNow said:

It seems like post nine they had clarity this wasn’t working, all of the subtle comments or lack thereof from the last couple months. I assume nine did commercially bad for blink’s size, critically was not well received by major fans the good will that people were supportive through California as things were new was gone, seems like the live shows really fell off in quality and attendance in 2019. I wonder if people close to them actually said hey this isn’t that good or at least this really doesn’t sound like blink at this point, knowing marks stubbornness I don’t see how there was any other way he was going to snap out of doing it with Matt and pushing through other than people around him he trusted telling him to stop with it.

It didn’t really help matters when the release date kept getting delayed, so I believed they launched a 20th anniversary Enema tour instead, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that made more casual or older fans OOTL wonder where the hell Tom was. On top of that, they took the risk of co-headlining(?) with Lil’ Wayne, which didn’t go well as fans HATED the WMAA? remix, and I think Lil’ Wayne bailed on a couple shows. 

Once they finally started the rollout for NINE, they picked the weakest songs from that album to be the singles. I love NINE, but I about gave up on it until I checked out the deep cuts. I came around to the singles but they were a bad representation of the album. I know they were trying to reel in that pop crowd with songs like IRWIHY (which could’ve been bigger with Miley Cyrus) but I think it just pissed everyone off. BIOMY was cliche, Happy Days was boring, Generational Divide was too short, and Darkside was decent until the music video came out, which put the nail in the coffin (I personally don’t care but it seemed to scar some blink fans lol). They could’ve gone with Darkside as a safe lead single, release PTG or NHTSO for the diehards, and still choose IRWIHY for the experimental pop collab. I think they’ve would’ve been able to appease most fans while still appealing to potential new listeners. I will bet that the only thing casuals will remember from NINE are kids doing Fortnite dances. 

Oh yeah, once NINE released they only bothered to play the singles live, if at all. And it’s not like they were gonna tour in 2020 lol.

[Lauren]

I agree with @NotNowthat it sounded like Travis was about to end it when he was saying to Mark that blink really is him, mark and tom. 
 

i love Matt Skiba but i never really thought he was a great fit. Maybe they should have started a new thing. One thing is for sure though. If Tom leaves again. Its over. 

[2point5]

We never ever got to the see the best of Matt so we'll never know their true potential as a threesome, but theres no way it ever had a chance of living up to blink with Tom. It should have been under a different name but thats all irrelevant now. If it wasnt for Matt we might not even have blink anymore so I'm thankful for his time with the band.

[Coightstradamus]

It was always still blink to me. Skiba is a fantastic musician/songwriter. Always feel like he gets the rough end when people talk about the skiba era because everyone blames their grievances on him when in reality it was most likely Mark. Still I enjoyed everything they out or during that period.

What we’ve got now is way better than anything we’ve gotten since untitled. Feel we couldn’t have gotten here without everything in between. 

[prankerd14]

Skiba gets alot of flack but they scrapped all his song ideas and brought in feldman and im pretty sure that was travis idea not mark, its just mark loved feldman blowing smoke up his ass and taking control i think.

The fact they dont mention feldman at all must mean they know it was all just a cash grab and not authentic blink, wasnt his line like it got to the point where we knew its only blink with the 3 of us...

Knowing this band i bet they didnt even tell skiba ?

 

This interview and the album leak totally blew my mind last night, i feel like if you got rid of neighbourhoods and had this after untitled its the most natural progression of their sound.

[Kay]

36 minutes ago, Russel Coight said:

It was always still blink to me. Skiba is a fantastic musician/songwriter. Always feel like he gets the rough end when people talk about the skiba era because everyone blames their grievances on him when in reality it was most likely Mark. Still I enjoyed everything they out or during that period.

What we’ve got now is way better than anything we’ve gotten since untitled. Feel we couldn’t have gotten here without everything in between. 

As much as I hate the era, I don’t remotely blame Skiba. I was all here for skiba meets +44, I don’t recognise his writing with blink and I imagine his influence was heavily watered down.

Skiba is an absolute legend, he came in to help. He knew his place. He respected the fans and Tom. He did what he could. 

[Monkey Chips]

6 minutes ago, Kay said:

As much as I hate the era, I don’t remotely blame Skiba. I was all here for skiba meets +44, I don’t recognise his writing with blink and I imagine his influence was heavily watered down.

Skiba is an absolute legend, he came in to help. He knew his place. He respected the fans and Tom. He did what he could. 

I'd honestly be down to hear Skiba collab with Tom and Ilan... Which I doubt they'll ever do at this point, especially with people wondering if Tom's hinting at AvA ending and him giving all musical attention to blink (thanks to Tom saying the music with blink is now open and no longer considering them pigeonholed into a sound)

[Ghost]

I'm on the same wave as Kay regarding Matt.

Skiba was PERFECT in the first moment. I still remember all the Youtube videos from 2015 when he joined to keep on touring. He was fucking fire. Learned the songs really well and ofered fantastic powerful performances. Now, looking in perspective, it may have ended there. 

And I think he would have shown his songwritting better if Feldy didn't happen and if Mark and him decided to go on not under blink's name (as he did in Simple Creatures). They both are such great songwriters and the potential was inmense. I still think they have something great under the sleeve. And hey, this diesn't mean they didn't do good songs on that period, but I feel like they lost tons of potential there.

Right now we are in a really different spot. This is inmense now.

[Low Value Boy]

No fucking chance was the Skiba era Blink, it was in name but that's where it ends for me.  

I don't blame Skiba either though, he was dealt a rough hand (although probably made some serious $$$) - was a poisoned chalice, everything happens for a reason though and I think seeing that bastardised +Skiba4 band has made me appreciate this new era even more so it's all good with me. 

[Chewy030]

2 hours ago, Kay said:

As much as I hate the era, I don’t remotely blame Skiba. I was all here for skiba meets +44, I don’t recognise his writing with blink and I imagine his influence was heavily watered down.

Skiba is an absolute legend, he came in to help. He knew his place. He respected the fans and Tom. He did what he could. 

Yup it's just a total night and day difference from Blink Skiba to Trio Skiba and you clearly see it on the new Trio track too. 

[Rickay]

I definitely think we would have got better music (or should I say music I would have enjoyed more) if they made the albums under a different name without them having to feel like they needed to meet any expectations of being blink. 

[Chrisx37]

While I enjoyed blink with Skiba, he was never going to be able to completely fill Tom's shoes if they were going for a return to the classic blink sound. I wish Mark would've channeled that anger towards Tom in making something completely different that effectively utilized Matt's talents. It would've been a cool and unique chapter in the band's history even though he'd still inevitably get compared to Tom. That being said, it's very understandable why Mark went the route he did.