There was a great push and pull of what Blink-128 should sound like all the time. Travis Barker comes from a different background than I do, and Tom DeLonge comes from a different background than either of us in terms of what we write and what we think a song should be. Tom pushes me out of a box that I put myself in.
Mark HoppusWhy do scuba divers fall backwards off a boat? Because if they fell forwards they'd still be in the boat.
Mark HoppusThere's no doubt that the ready availability of music online has created a thousand more opportunities than it's destroyed.
Mark HoppusI still feel like we're the underdogs, but I feel like people respect us now. People might not like our band or love our music, but I think people respect the fact that we've been doing this for many years and are still doing it and still able to play three giant New York City shows and have people come out.
Mark HoppusThen when we did the untitled record, we just didn't feel like putting joke stuff on it, so we didn't. It wasn't really a deliberation or a real introspective thing like, "Are we going to joke on this one, are we not going to joke on this one?" We just didn't feel like it on the untitled one, so we didn't.
Mark Hoppus