Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 on surviving cancer, the battles of the group, the new book

It was in September 2021 and Mark Hoppus had just completed six months of aggressive chemotherapy. Blink -182 had formed and the stars were aligned for Hoppus, the guitarist Tom Delonge – who had left the group in 2015 – and drummer Travis Barker after a tumultuous decade.

Hoppus had been diagnosed with a type of non -hodgkin's lymphoma In June 2021, resulting in intensive treatment before being declared without cancer. To deal with stress and exhaustion, his doctor suggested that he write. What started as a form of therapy transformed into a book “Fahrenheit-182”, which tells of his life, from a military kid to a punk teenager who loves skateboarding to a rock star with millions of fans.

In memories, the 53 -year -old man tells the devastating impact of his parents' divorce and falling in love with punk rock through groups, including social distortion, bad religion, dead Kennedys and NOFX. The true love story of “Fahrenheit-182”, in the end, is the trio behind Blink's success: Hoppus, Delonge and Barker. However, these relationships have been tested and tense several times, and by recalling these tribulations, Hoppus tried to be empathetic with all the people involved.

Hoppus says: “It was really cathartic to write everything and try to be just for everyone in the book. All my goal with the book was not to demonize anyone. I wanted there to be nasty in the book because, now that we have crossed everything, I don't think there are bad guys. I have the impression that Blink-182 is a blessing.”

He explains: “When my cancer came into remission and I felt like I dodged a ball, I wanted to tell the story of Blink-182 and not necessarily just my story, but the story of someone's group In the group. I love Tom and Travis so much, and everyone just wanted to tell our story as it is, so far: all the ups, all the stockings, the fraternity, the friendships, everything. “”

He does not hesitate to tell the ruptures, make -up and legal and personal battles between friends and group comrades, but there is a patina of sadness on these anecdotes, rather than bitterness or blame.

“I had to write about things that Tom and I disagree during the day, but I also wanted to put his point of view.

Hoppus has a talent for narration, which will not surprise fans of the eminently target words of the group.

Born in Ridgecrest in Kern County in 1972, Hoppus writes: “To survive in the desert, a shot in a million. In this environment, nothing grows. Nothing lasts. There is nothing to do with it or prosper.

Hoppus was a high -level student and a large efficient until his parents' divorce. This resulted in being rebounded between the different homes of his parents, getting used to their new partners and often living outside her beloved younger sister Anne.

In 1992, the skateboard, a teenager with thorny hair, finally listened to his parents' pleadings and signed up in college, which brought him together with his mother and Anne in San Diego. Having tried in various high school groups, Hoppus was determined to “be a guy in a group. My friends and me against the world. Like a ramone ”.

Anne's boyfriend presented Hoppus to the local guitarist Delonge, who was also determined to be a guy in a group. The two recruited a drummer who would finally be replaced by Barker in 1998 during the tour of the group's second album, “Dude Ranch”.

“It gave me a lot of closure on many old animosities and resentments. It was very healing to write like that, “says Mark Hoppus about his memories,” Fahrenheit-182 “.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Hoppus remembers the book: “Tom and I have become rapid friends and group comrades. He had a whole social circle, a group of rats of mechanism without God. They were my people. I fell well. We spent these weeks in sweat and carefree terrorizing the residents without mistrust of San Diego. We were young and stupid and not stoppable. “

Blink-182 has made its famous name on a brand of buried and humor punk songs that challenged the grunge trend in the early 1990s for high display tables and make platinum sales. The trio has led more than three decades of personal and professional tumult; Hoppus and Delonge's relationship was sometimes as rocky and passionate as a marriage. For decades, they have experienced tour vans and hotel rooms next to the road while climbing the roller coasters of popularity and bringing the weight of requests for record companies, responses to unpredictable public and Delonge fascination for extraterrestrials and UFOs. When Delonge started other groups, Box Car Racer in 2001 and Angels & Airwaves in 2005, it seemed to be intended that Blink-182 would not survive the group's personal and professional divisions.

Fans have maintained their fervor, regardless of the internal friction of Blink-182. Teenagers who had discovered the group on tiny steps at the back of the bars or through word of mouth and cassettes during the holidays remained with the trio for decades, and hoppus also remains faithful to them.

Hoppus says: “From the start, I had a box of PO that people would send an self-aded and stamped envelope, and I would put stickers or, as a group, we constituted an idiotic newsletter that we sent by post to people.

He adds: “What I like about Blink is that there is no hierarchy between the group and the people who come to see us playing. I don't even like to say our 'fans'' because I have the impression that Blink-182 is a big party and that everyone is invited. And I like that people feel this kind of owner of our music and our group.”

However, this was not fluid in the musical press. The humor of Blink-182 has long rubbed certain criticism in the wrong direction, but it is the dismissal of the group's punk rock credibility which really exasperates Hoppus. In 2023, the Guardian rejected “their shtick sometimes wears out”. A year later, a critic described the group's closing set in Lollapalooza as “worthy of grumpy and repugnant”.

Today, they are always unstoppable as aness. Hoppus says: “Blink-182 is the heart of all of us, and I think that over the past 15 years, from the rupture of the group the first time until now, everyone had the impression that they had blinking that was caught in one way or another, and felt the loss of what Blink-182 is. Feel like that in the world.

Released in 2023, the group's ninth album, “One More Time …”, presented the puffy guitars of the trio, the drums and the writing prowess of songs. It was the group's third album of the group, unraveling at n ° 1 on the Billboard 200 the week after its release. It was a triumph that the group had not reached since 2001 with “removal of your pants and the jacket” and “state enema” in 1999.

This time, albums and card tours and tours are not the business of the dicombolation they were almost 30 years ago, when their second album, “Dude Ranch”, became gold. He succeeded in the half-million sales bar in the eight months following the release and the group embarked on a relentless campaign to obtain global recognition.

Hoppus writes: “We jumped on each tour and festival that came to meet us. Right after the album released in June in June 1997, we spent another summer on the Warped tour, then we went directly to an American tour with less Jake, then we headed for Europe for a month, then I finished the year playing all the Christmas Rock Radio programs that pushed you to do your songs on the Airwaves.

Shortly after, the loneliness and the feeling of being not anchored led Hoppus to write “Adam's Song” when he planned to commit suicide. His success was soft-man and the brutality of the song was not dissipated over time.

“I have a lot of trouble with that,” he says. “I wrote this song when I was in a very bad place. Our group took off and we were signed with a major label, but I really felt alone when I got back from the tour. I was just at home in an empty house, and I felt professionally accomplished but personally empty in many ways. When we are replaced as a group, I would start the song every night, and I said to myself. And Tom and Travis saved my life a second time when I was sick of cancer.

Hoppus Sprinkles refers to vital moments and its incredibly good luck during our interview and its book. Indeed, this fortuitous moment in 2021, when the seed of “Fahrenheit-182” was sown, was the beginning of so many things, and the momentum has not stopped.

Hoppus says that since the group met three years ago, “there is no signs of stopping, so it's great. And this book is not like my farewells. It's just a striking marker.”

Hoppus will discuss “Fahrenheit-182” has The Wiltern at 4:20 p.m. April 20.

The Punk Rock icon born in California, Mark Hoppus by Blink-182, is photographed in his house in Beverly Hills.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)