For Travis Barker, the most exciting part about releasing new Blink-182 music was getting to reconnect with bandmates Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus.
“I think for me, it was always heavy on my heart that our friendship wasn’t mended, and that heaviness weighs on you when you have something that’s important to you in a relationship with somebody and you don’t really fix it, it’s just kind of lingering,” Barker, 47, shared during the band’s interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, which premiered on Wednesday, October 18.
The drummer explained: “Having the ability to come together and fix the friendship and come back together as the brothers we are is so important to me because it allows me to be so insanely grateful for this and how it touches other people now. There isn’t this aura of toxicity that might’ve been in my heart for reasons that weren’t even really valid or maybe somewhere, it doesn’t even f—king matter.”
Barker asserted he’s ready to put the past behind him and move forward, adding, “All I care about now is now I can really stand within this thing and also look outside of it, and look within, and see what it really is and what it’s doing for people and what it’s done for people.”
Blink-182’s classic lineup — Barker, DeLonge, 47, and Hoppus, 51 — reunited for their upcoming album, One More Time, which drops on Friday, October 20. It marks the trio’s first new music since 2011. (Previous Blink-182 members include Scott Raynor and Matt Skiba.)
Barker and his bandmates experienced several ups and downs together through the years, including their 2005 hiatus, Barker’s 2008 plane crash, DeLonge’s 2015 exit from the band, Hoppus’ 2021 cancer diagnosis and more. The three joined forces again in 2022 to release their single “Edging” and performed together at Coachella earlier this year.
The group needed to heal as “individuals” before their reunion, Barker said on Apple Music 1, adding that he is happy to see the growth they have experienced in their time apart. “I just think having that weight off my heart and feeling closer to these guys really makes me able to see what this is and value it so much more and be so honestly happy for what it does for people,” he shared. “I’m just genuinely happy for the personal growth and then being able to see everything in a new light.”
DeLonge, for his part, called his bandmates his “brothers,” adding, “We’re having fun and we’re making what I consider some of the best songs we’ve made, and playing some of the best shows we’ve ever played. It doesn’t ever feel like work. I feel like that’s the definition of the best thing about Blink-182 right now.”
Upon learning he was cancer-free in September 2021, Hoppus said the only thing he wanted to do was “make music with my best friends in the whole world.”
“That’s all that I f—king want to do, and that’s all that I get to do,” he continued on Wednesday. “The smiles on people’s faces and the feeling of being in this band are beyond anything. I was just hoping to get better enough that I would get to see my wife and kid, and to walk out on stage, like I said, and see the smiles and the tears and the people singing along. I literally just cry on stage every night.”
As Blink-182 gears up for their latest album comes, Barker is preparing to welcome his first baby with wife Kourtney Kardashian. Last month, the band postponed some shows on their U.K. tour after Barker rushed home to support Kardashian, 44, who required emergency fetal surgery.
“Kourtney had a very scary medical situation, she is so happy to be past it now and relieved it’s all behind her,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly on September 8. “Travis is now back on tour because Kourtney is much better now [and they] are very relieved that this has passed.”
