48 Fun Facts About Blink-182

Blink-182 formed in 1992 in which Southern California suburb?

Poway. Tom DeLonge remembers skateboarding from one end of the suburb to the other with his friends, knocking over department-store displays on the way and getting arrested for it.

Who introduced Mark Hoppus to Tom DeLonge in August 1992?

Hoppus's sister, Anne. She was dating one of DeLonge's best friends, heard that he was looking to start a band, and brought her newly arrived brother round to meet him.

Why did Blink add '182' to their name in 1995?

An Irish group already called Blink objected, and rather than fight a legal battle the trio tacked on a number that, by Hoppus's account, was picked more or less at random.

Which drummer played on Blink-182's Cheshire Cat and Dude Ranch before being replaced in 1998?

Scott Raynor, the band's drummer from its first rehearsals. He left in 1998 amid heavy drinking; by some accounts he was fired, while Hoppus's memoir says he quit when handed an ultimatum.

Travis Barker was drumming for which tour-mate band when he first filled in for Blink-182?

The Aquabats were Blink-182's tour-mates in 1998, and their drummer Travis Barker learned the whole set in under an hour before his first show; he joined the band for good that summer.

Which Blink-182 song's first video, a wrecking ball tearing through a house, was reshot after 9/11?

Stay Together for the Kids. The wrecked house stood for a broken home, since Tom DeLonge wrote the song about his parents' divorce, and after 9/11 the band found the image too close to the towers' collapse.

How long did Blink-182 have at Hollywood's Westbeach Recorders to record its debut album, Cheshire Cat?

3 days. That was all the budget allowed, and the rushed tapes needed overdubs and a fresh mix back home before the band was happy with them.

Which San Diego independent label released Blink-182's first two albums on its Grilled Cheese imprint?

Cargo Records. The San Diego independent took the band on only a 'trial basis', created the Grilled Cheese imprint to house them, and put out Cheshire Cat in February 1995.

Which country took to Blink-182 so early that the band toured there before it could afford the flights?

Australia. By Mark Hoppus's account the trio could not pay their own way on that first trip, so the members of Pennywise, who were taking them on tour, bought their plane tickets.

Blink-182's 1996 bidding war came down to Interscope, Epitaph and which label, which won?

MCA Records won the 1996 bidding war by promising the band complete artistic freedom, though parts of the punk scene accused them of selling out anyway.

Which Dude Ranch single gave Blink-182 its first radio hit in 1998?

Dammit. Hoppus has said it is about seeing an ex around town with someone new; it climbed to number 11 on Billboard's modern-rock chart and was a fixture of Los Angeles radio all year.

Which producer made three studio albums with Blink-182, starting with Enema of the State, before his death in 2008?

Jerry Finn, the band's producer and mentor from 1999. He refereed the studio arguments between Hoppus and DeLonge, and died of a brain haemorrhage in August 2008, weeks before the plane crash that reunited them.

Who appears in a nurse's uniform on the cover of Enema of the State?

Adult film actress Janine Lindemulder posed as the nurse on the Enema of the State cover; later pressings changed her red-cross insignia after the Red Cross objected.

Told their new songs lacked a summer single, Mark Hoppus went home and wrote which hit in ten minutes?

The Rock Show. Stung by their manager's verdict, Hoppus set out to write the cheesiest, catchiest summer single he could; DeLonge did the same with 'First Date', and the two throwaways became the album's hits.

Which Blink-182 hit was called 'Peter Pan Complex' until the band's label changed the title?

What's My Age Again? The label thought the original title would go over the audience's heads and changed it during production, to the band's annoyance; the song grew out of Hoppus being told he was immature.

Tom DeLonge, who wrote Blink-182's 'Aliens Exist', co-founded which company in 2017 to investigate UFOs?

To the Stars. It published three cockpit videos of unidentified objects, and in 2019 the US Navy confirmed that they were genuine footage shot by its own pilots.

Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001) achieved which chart milestone?

First punk album to top the US Billboard 200, which it did in June 2001. The punning title came from a guitar tech, who heard a mother say it to her rain-soaked son at a ski lodge.

Which post-hardcore side project did Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker release an album with in 2002?

Box Car Racer, DeLonge's darker side project with Barker and guitarist David Kennedy, released its only album in May 2002; leaving Hoppus out bred lasting tension.

Blink-182's 2003 untitled album introduced which new band logo on its cover?

A smiley face, with Xs for eyes and five arrows at its side. Travis Barker wanted arrows because his favourite band, the Jam, always had them, and the emblem was revived for the band's 2023 album sleeve.

Which two songs were the first singles from Blink-182's 2003 untitled album?

Feeling This and I Miss You. For the first, Hoppus and DeLonge wrote their parts in separate rooms and found they had both written about sex; the second swaps power chords for stand-up bass and brushed drums.

A February 2005 press statement described Blink-182's break-up as what?

An indefinite hiatus. In truth the three had fallen out over their schedule and how to record, and Hoppus and DeLonge did not speak again until Travis Barker's plane crash in 2008 brought them back together.

Which band did Tom DeLonge form after quitting Blink-182, describing it as a 'multimedia project'?

Angels & Airwaves. DeLonge pitched it as a band that would also make films and interactive projects, while Hoppus and Barker answered his exit by forming +44, which lasted one album.

Which DJ survived the 2008 plane crash alongside Travis Barker?

DJ AM, Adam Goldstein, Barker's partner in the duo TRV$DJAM. The two were the only survivors of the six on board, but Goldstein died of an accidental drug overdose eleven months later.

Where did the reunited Blink-182 first appear together in public in February 2009?

Presenting at the Grammy Awards on 8 February 2009, Hoppus, DeLonge and Barker walked out together and told the crowd they were playing music together again; a reunion tour followed that summer.

Which 2011 album was Blink-182's first after the 2009 reunion?

Neighborhoods, released on 27 September 2011. It was the trio's first album in eight years and the first they produced themselves, because the producer of their last three had died in 2008.

Which Alkaline Trio frontman replaced Tom DeLonge in Blink-182 from 2015 to 2022?

Matt Skiba was brought in to 'fill in' for three shows in 2015 and stayed seven years, recording the albums California and Nine before DeLonge's return in 2022.

Who produced Blink-182's 2016 album California?

John Feldmann, the Goldfinger frontman. The trio played him some 30 songs they had already written; he suggested starting one from scratch the next day, and within two months they had more than two dozen new ones.

Blink-182's 2016 album California earned the band its first what?

Grammy nomination, for Best Rock Album at the 2017 awards. After nearly 25 years together it was the band's first, and they lost to Cage the Elephant's Tell Me I'm Pretty.

In one of Blink-182's best-known videos, from 1999, the band do what through the streets of Los Angeles?

Run naked. The trio often stripped off on stage in those years too, though by 2001 they were telling interviewers they had grown weary of getting naked in public.

In a famous video from its 1999 album, Blink-182 spoofs which kind of act?

Boy bands. The clip sends up the Backstreet Boys, matching white suits and dance routines included, yet the trio was soon baffled to find people taking it for a boy band too.

In June 2021 Mark Hoppus revealed he was being treated for what?

Lymphoma, a stage 4 diffuse large B-cell form. Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker visited him before chemotherapy began, the three's first time together in years, and he was declared cancer-free that September.

Which Blink-182 single accompanied the October 2022 announcement of Tom DeLonge's return?

Edging. It was the band's first new song with DeLonge in ten years, after a reconciliation that began when he visited Mark Hoppus before his cancer treatment.

Which 2023 Blink-182 song says it 'shouldn't take a sickness or airplanes falling out the sky' to reunite friends?

One More Time. The line points at the two shocks that pulled the trio back together, Barker's plane crash and Hoppus's cancer, and each chorus asks, 'Do I have to die to hear you miss me?'

Which Enema of the State track, written by Mark Hoppus about loneliness on tour, takes the form of a suicide note?

Adam's Song. Hoppus was the one member with nobody waiting at home when a tour ended, and he gave the song a last verse in which things get better.

To land lunchtime gigs at high schools, Tom DeLonge told staff that Blink was what?

An anti-drug motivational band, or so he assured the schools he rang in the hope of a slot at lunch or an assembly. He pestered San Diego's clubs for stage time just as persistently.

Kevin Lyman was told to sign them for the 1996 edition of which touring festival?

Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman added the band to the 1996 line-up; Blink-182 became a fixture of the skate-punk festival, returning to headline in 1999 and at its 2019 anniversary shows.

Which reality-television star did Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker marry in 2022?

Kourtney Kardashian. They went through three ceremonies in under two months: a Las Vegas chapel with no licence, a legal wedding in California, and a third in Portofino, Italy.

Which clothing company did Travis Barker found in 1999?

Famous Stars and Straps. Barker started it the year Enema of the State came out, selling belt buckles and other gear styled on hot-rod culture, while his bandmates launched an online shop of their own.

Mark Hoppus's 2025 autobiography is titled what?

Fahrenheit-182, written with Dan Ozzi. It began as therapy: during his cancer treatment he was advised to write down how he felt, and the pages grew into a memoir.

In which animated series did Blink-182 appear as themselves in 2003, alongside skateboarder Tony Hawk?

The Simpsons. In 'Barting Over', Bart wins legal independence from Homer, moves into a loft of his own and finds that the band and Tony Hawk hang out in the same building.

In which 1999 teen comedy did Blink-182 make a cameo appearance?

American Pie. The trio turn up among the viewers when Jim's webcam accidentally broadcasts from his bedroom, and they recorded a new version of their song 'Mutt' for the film.

In 2019, Colorado Avalanche hockey fans adopted which Blink-182 hit as a home-game singalong?

All the Small Things. Tom DeLonge wrote it as a deliberately simple ode to his girlfriend, and put in the 'na na na' hook as a nod to the Ramones.

With which band did blink-182 co-headline the Pop Disaster Tour in 2002?

Green Day. The two were billed as equals, but Blink-182 closed every night, which Mark Hoppus later called a strange sensation, headlining over his idols.

What kept Travis Barker out of Blink-182's Soundwave festival dates in 2013?

His fear of flying. Barker had not boarded a plane since surviving the 2008 crash, so Brooks Wackerman played the shows in his place, and he did not fly again until 2021.

Which band joined blink-182 in headlining the 10th Honda Civic Tour in 2011?

My Chemical Romance. The tour ran from August to October 2011, so most of it was over before the album Blink-182 was meant to be promoting, its first in eight years, came out in the last fortnight.

Which song on Blink-182's 2003 untitled album features the Cure's Robert Smith?

All of This. Mark Hoppus had been a Cure obsessive since high school, walking the halls in black clothes and eyeliner like Robert Smith, who recorded his vocal in England from a hard drive the band sent him.

What is the title of Travis Barker's memoir?

Can I Say, written with Gavin Edwards and published in 2015. In it Barker reopens an old fan argument, reporting that Mark Hoppus has always insisted the band's 2003 album has no title at all.

Which Chicago festival did blink-182 co-headline in September 2025?

Riot Fest. The band was due to headline it in 2018 but pulled out with a week to go, when doctors would not clear Travis Barker to play after blood clots in his arms, and was back atop the bill a year later.