On the Blink-182 menu in the year 2000: catchy pop-punk songs about immaturity, suicide and alien abductions. Customers served on their headlining tour this year: more than a third of a million. Live albums released documenting that tour: just one (The Mark, Tom and Travis Show). Number of fart jokes told on that tour: beyond human measure. Event that belied the band's lovelorn lyrics: the Thanksgiving-weekend wedding of bassist Mark Hoppus to Skye Everly. Number of dogs that drummer Travis Barker owned when he sat down for an interview contemplating the past year: three.
What's the worst thing that happened to you last year?
Probably me breaking my hand [in a fistfight outside a Taco Bell in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio]. That was a wake-up call: You idiot, you've got to use your head a little more. You can't ride a skateboard. You can't fight anymore. I never want to break my hand again ? or any of my body parts ? because my only livelihood is playing the drums. The hand's pretty much 100 percent better now. The day I got my cast off, I was supposed to go to physical therapy, but I never showed up ? I just started playing the drums.
What's the oddest purchase you've made this year?
I don't like to dress nice. And I don't like to wear iced-out watches or rings. But I do like to buy things for my house. So I spent a shitload of money on furniture. Ever since I was seventeen, I had been living in a bachelor pad with my friends. So you get furniture from Goodwill ? you can just trash the place, no worries. Now I got the raddest furniture I could buy. I have a white Italian leather couch that's all straight lines. It's super-rad. It's really expensive, but you can't buy one like that for cheaper.
How much was it?
[Pause] It was $10,000. I can't tell my friends how much it cost. My friends who I grew up with, they're hoodlums. I have respect for that couch. I don't even sit on it.
What's the best thing you heard this year?
Probably the Deftones album. And the new Black Eyed Peas album is fucking ridiculous.
What are your plans for the next year?
We'll start recording our new album in January; it'll be out in July. We're going to try to get a house in San Diego and all be together, instead of having to go through the trouble of getting a rehearsal studio. Last time, we got together for two weeks straight at this rehearsal studio and threw ideas at each other ? that's how we wrote the album. I don't write lyrics, I don't play guitar, but I arrange everything. I decide what tempo a song will be, and I arrange how verses, choruses, breaks happen. When I first got in the band, I wanted us to write songs that were more clever and less repetitive. And that's what we did.
What is your secret fantasy for the coming year?
I want to beat the world record for the number of beats per second on a drum pad. You've got sixty seconds, and the world record is 1,200. It was set by some guy in the Midwest. I'm gonna kick this guy's ass.
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