With a title like Take Off
Your Pants and Jacket, which must be said aloud to be fully
appreciated, it's only appropriate for Blink-182 singer/guitarist
Tom DeLonge to describe his band's fourth full-length album
as hard and fast.
"This record is the hardest, fastest
record that we've done," DeLonge said from a San Diego
studio where the band recently wrapped up recording. "It's
way more punk-rock than our previous records, and we're
excited about it."
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, due June 12,
follows 1999's multiplatinum Enema of the State and last
year's successful live album, The Mark, Tom and Travis Show
(The Enema Strikes Back).
Though the pop-punk trio issued their debut
LP, Cheshire Cat, in 1995, it was only within the last three
years that DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and drummer Travis
Barker reached rock-star status. And as Hoppus tells it,
success certainly has its setbacks.
"Spending so much time on the road
... I [get to] fart all the time," the gaseous bassist
explained. "And then when it's, like, Thanksgiving
dinner, and [I'm] sitting down with [my] grandmother and
parents and everything, I can't fart for like two hours.
It gets really uncomfortable."
Fans can hear some of the new material —
and likely some of Hoppus' gas — when the band hits
the road April 30 in Seattle for the first leg of the Honda-sponsored
Civic Tour 2001. However, they shouldn't plan on hearing
any virtuoso performances.
"We expect to be even worse than
we were last tour," DeLonge explained. "We want
to be, like, so bad that kids come and go, 'Ha ha to you
guys.'"
"We haven't practiced at all,"
Hoppus elaborated. "And we haven't even learned the
words to the new songs or anything, so it should be good.
We're trying to scale it back from last time. Last time
we played a few songs really well, and we don't want that
this tour. We want it to be a lot more sloppy, a lot less
musicianly."
In other Blink-182 news, the book about
the band's early days, written by Hoppus' younger sister,
Anne, now carries a title, "Tales From Beneath Your
Mom." It's scheduled to hit bookstores in mid-September,
according to the band's management company.
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