Real Detroit Weekly Interview With Mark

From RealDetroitWeekly.com:

Blink 182
Hit The Stage Again

With the cinematic world choking on the painful process of remaking everything in sight, it’s truly refreshing to revisit a tried-and-true pop punk legend in the form of Blink-182. The band has gone under many transformations — from personally calling fans to thank them for attending their small club shows to disappearing for the past four years and reconnecting through drummer Travis Barker’s severe trauma and once again becoming a juggernaut, headlining one of the biggest summer stadium tours this year. Real Detroit caught up with Blink bass player/singer Mark Hoppus in between tour stops to talk about the band’s renewed bond of friendship, their newly renovated stage show and Hoppus’ budding career as one of pop punk’s most sought after producers.

Let’s take a moment and reflect. Obviously, a ton has happened since Blink-182 called it quits nearly four years ago — numerous side projects, a near-death experience and the rekindling of friendship. But I’ll start out slow — how is touring with the newly reformed Blink-182?
So far, it’s been super fun. This tour right now is probably the most fun I’ve had in the last ten years.

I was excited when you guys first announced it back in February at the Grammy Awards. Is there a certain way this all came about, or was it a collective agreement between all of you?
It was a collective agreement between the three of us. We started hanging out just as friends after Travis’ plane crash last year, and even before that, we were at a place where we were ready to hang out as friends. There was no speculation about the band at that point. But we started talking, hanging out, letting the past be the past. There felt like there was this gigantic elephant in the room when we were hanging out. We were in the studio, and Tom asked, “What do you guys think about Blink?” I said that we should really get back together and do our thing. Do what we do best, you know. And everyone seemed to be in the same mind-frame. It was really easy and natural to get back together, and it was really positive.

I would imagine with yourself and [Barker] doing +44 and guitarist Tom DeLonge doing Angels & Airwaves that it would take a while to get back into the groove of performing live again.
Well, we actually jumped into the studio right away to start recording … started bouncing ideas back and forth, and we decided we wanted to go back out on tour. We were really tight as friends and a band. Getting back together after four years, everyone is being respectful and polite to one another and trying to keep things even. Back in the studio though, you have to be able to speak your mind and such. So, we decided that going on tour would bring us together and make us tighter before we would go back into the studio and finish an album.

The cool thing about the band is talking to all the listeners on the air here in Detroit. I grew up with Blink, so it’s a hit with the generations like myself, but also with the younger generations. The band seems to cover the whole spectrum.
Yeah, it’s really amazing to us that we can go back on tour after four years of not being around and the response is incredible. It’s a huge cross section of people — people that were there since day one, people that hooked on at the end of the career and people that are there for the first time ever. It’s really humbling and amazing.

While the side projects are well-publicized, it is not so well-known of your production work, working with bands like All Time Low, Motion City Soundtrack, even a few Panic! At The Disco cuts … not to mention your remix of the Jackson 5’s “ABC.”
That was huge for me. Just being asked to be a part of the Michael Jackson tribute was so amazing. I thought to myself, “Are they sure they called the right guy?” It was really fun to do. I was glad to be apart of it and I hope it did justice to the song. God help me if I made the song worse, you know? … I actually got a press release today that had all the pictures of artists involved, and I was like, “Oh man!” Those are some incredible and ridiculously talented people to be apart of.

Will your production work play a role on the next Blink-182 album?
No, I don’t think that will be good for one of us to be the producer. Either all three of us would produce it together, or we would go to an outsider to do it. I think that one of us having that power would go against what Blink 182 is all about. It would be a huge honor if Tom and Travis wanted it, but even still I think for the good of all of us and the good of the record it would be different. When I work with other bands, I’m an external entity working with the band. When I’m in the band, I don’t have the separation or distance from the project to be able to effectively produce.

How has the writing process been going for the new album? Have you been working on the road?
Not too much actually. Everyone is more focused on the live show, and we have our families out here. We’ve been doing some remixes on the road, and it’s not really a place where Blink writes music. We save Blink for when we’re on stage so we can give it all we got.

And what can fans expect from the live show?
On this tour, we’re doing probably the most advanced production. We’ve been working with different people, and the stage show is ridiculous. Everyone is always so serious on tour, and when we get on, we have a great time. We can mess things up, but the lights are still shining. The stage itself is pretty bare. We have the lights, but we don’t have big set pieces. Everything that’s going on behind and around us is beyond anything we’ve ever had.