When Tom DeLonge decided to leave Blink-182 last year, he was walking away from something huge. The band -- along with another California trio, Green Day -- spawned massive hits, and a slew of pop-punk disciples. As Blink, singer/guitarist DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker (who replaced founder Scott Raynor), scored five Top Ten releases, including 2000's four-times-platinum Enema of the State and the 2001 chart-topper Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.

But DeLonge says he felt increasingly conflicted about both his creative freedom within the band and the toll touring was taking on his family life. (Now thirty, he has a three-year-old daughter.) After the band's announcement, one year ago, that it would be taking "an indefinite hiatus," DeLonge arrived at the concept of Angels and Airwaves -- his personal vision for a group that would produce music more epic, expansive and open-ended than that aggressive, irreverent pop of Blink-182.

Alongside musicians David Kennedy, Atom Willard (the Offspring) and Ryan Sinn (ex-Distillers), DeLonge spent the next several months in his home studio recording what will become the band's 2006 debut. (Expect the first single, "The Adventurer," to premiere this month.) And, appropriate to their cinematic sound, Angels and Airwaves are preparing to premiere their record with an ambitious concept movie, the trailer for which can now be viewed at angelsandairwaves.com.

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