Few artists have mixed music and merriment as well as the punk pranksters in Blink-182 have over the course of the last twelve months. During that time, the San Diego trio of guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and drummer Travis Barker has sold more than 3.3 million copies of its "Enema Of The State" LP -- thanks in large part to a devoted fan base the band built up during multiple stints on the Warped Tour as well as its irreverent videos for "What's My Age Again?" and "All The Small Things." Blink-182 is currently in the midst of one of the most anticipated rock tours of the season, as the band has headed out on the road with wizened socialist punkers Bad Religion as well as its good friends in Fenix TX. A few weeks ago, the tour took a dramatic twist when Barker was jumped prior to a show in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and suffered an injury to his hand. The Blink boys were forced to enlist the aid of Fenix TX's Damon Delapaz, who switched from his normal guitar duties to taking up the drum sticks for Barker. MTV News' John Norris caught up with DeLonge and Hoppus shortly after the incident, and the band talked about switching drummers mid-tour, the pros and cons of being a punk rocker, and their thoughts about the tragic circumstances related to "Adam's Song" and the suicide of a Columbine High School student in May.

John Norris: What was it like, having [Fenix TX guitarist] Damon Delapaz step in on drums for your injured comrade, Travis Barker?
Mark Hoppus: It seemed like it was pretty easy for him. He knew the songs. We've toured with [Fenix TX] a lot, and he was familiar with the music.
Tom DeLonge: That questions our ability as musicians, that in three hours he learned our whole career of best songs.
Hoppus: Not a good sign.

MTV: What actually happened with Travis?
Hoppus: He was at a Taco Bell [in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio] and there were these two redneck losers-yahoo dudes that were physically abusing his girlfriend. So he and his girlfriend left the restaurant and went across the street. [The guys] drove up in their truck and hopped out and just started beating him, and as he was trying to defend himself, he broke his pinkie finger on his right hand.
DeLonge: On one of his hands he [wears] a brace, because he's had troubles with his wrists while drumming -- sorta like a carpal tunnel kind of thing. He had a brace on, and Travis is a small guy, and he was just like, "Damn, I'm not gonna fight you," and then he had to. He got some punches in, I think. [RealVideo]

MTV: Do you guys go out with bodyguards and stuff?
DeLonge: We're not that scared.
Hoppus: I always feel arrogant [walking] around with a bodyguard. We're just totally normal dudes, everyday guys. This is all really new to us, like with people recognizing us when we go out places. I always feel like a dork when I have security with me. Even just walking into a venue, I feel stupid.
DeLonge: After the incident with Travis, we're going to step it up from just one security guard, and we're gonna get wizards and warlocks.
Hoppus: We're gonna have this company called Medieval Security, and we're gonna have wizards come in, and if anyone tries to mess with us, they're gonna put a spell on them.

MTV: How soon after the incident did you know that you were going to go with Damon?
DeLonge: There are two drummers that we knew in existence that could learn something really quickly. The third was Damon. We knew Damon knew a couple of songs and he was a good drummer, so we just said, "Okay, what can we do right now?" We obviously can't fly in anybody, and we can't cancel the show. We had 10,000 tickets sold, and in four hours [we were supposed to] let the kids in the door. So we just looked at Damon, and Damon is like, "I know the songs." We went in there, and we went through every single song in the set, and he didn't mess up once. Granted, you know it's not gonna sound as well as when Travis plays. But we're able to get through the show, and I think that's what's important for all the kids that have bought tickets on the tour.

MTV: Is your show any different with Damon behind the kit?
DeLonge: It's still the same stupid jokes that Mark and I spit off in the microphone, and 75 percent of the time there's hardly any music as it is.
Hoppus: There's one review that said, "They played for an hour and 15 minutes, and I think 25 minutes of it was actual music." Which is about right. [RealVideo]

MTV: With all the success of "Enema Of The State," and now the tour, do you still consider yourself to be a punk band?
DeLonge: I'm an artist.

MTV: But do you guys give much thought to that? And what you represent to people?
Hoppus: We really try to not spend too much time thinking about what we're supposed to be, if we're supposed to be a punk band, or if we're supposed to be whatever. We do the exact same thing today that we've been doing for years and years and years. We're playing for a lot more people, but we're still writing the same kind of music and still doing the same things we always have. So if we say, "Yeah, we're a total punk band," then there are going to be a thousand people that say, "Okay, here are all the reasons why you're not punk."
DeLonge: We have a couple of reasons why we are, just to let you know. [Laughs] I understand why people have a tendency or a need to categorize bands, because you want to be able to understand what they're all about. You can say we're a punk band, but you can also say we're a pop band. We're just the same.

MTV: Having a band like Bad Religion on tour with you would also seem to fuel the comparisons.
Hoppus: Totally. Bad Religion was the second punk band I ever listened to. The first punk music I ever heard was The Descendents' "I Don't Want To Grow Up," and then right after that I heard Bad Religion's "Suffer" CD and been a fan ever since. I was telling [BR frontman] Greg Graffin at the beginning of the tour what a huge fan I've always been of Bad Religion. I showed him my ticket stubs from the Hollywood Palladium back in '92. Watching them play every night is just a huge honor for us, and to have them on tour is the best thing ever. I think it's rad, because a lot of the kids that come to the shows probably never even heard of Bad Religion or don't know what it's really all about. What Bad Religion gave to us is kind of like what we are giving back to the kids of the next generation, hopefully.
DeLonge: We're going to stop giving to the kids after this. We're over that.
Hoppus: No more freebies.

MTV: It doesn't bother you that you've got this band that's pretty much known for social commentary, talking about things like oppression and injustice, and you guys come out and talk about less serious topics?
DeLonge: We speak of different things, yes.
Hoppus: I think it's a good thing, though.

MTV: You guys have a different muse.
Hoppus: If all three bands had the exact same kind of attitude and the exact same style of music, I think it would make for a boring night. Fenix TX has their niche, and Bad Religion is definitely using their music to try and create a social message to the kids and have some kind of responsibility with their music. We just come up onstage and go, "Ahh! Masturbation!"

MTV: What was your reaction when you heard that the kid from Columbine High School had used one of your songs, "Adam's Song," as part of his suicide? How did you find out?
Hoppus: I was actually out shopping, and management called me up and told me the story of what happened, and I was like, "But that's an anti-suicide song!" It felt awful. I mean, the things that the kid had had to go through in his life were very saddening, and then to end it that way was really depressing. But "Adam's Song," the heart of the song is about having hard times in your life, being depressed, and going through a difficult period, but then finding the strength to go on and finding a better place at the other side of that.

MTV: Do you ever wonder about whether the fans are really listening to the lyrics?
Hoppus: Oh, definitely. We get e-mails and letters from kids every single day that say, "I was having a hard time breaking up with my girlfriend, and your song 'Dammit' helped me through it." So many times these kids would say, "I feel like you wrote that song about me and my situation." The material we write about is pretty universal, and the kids can listen to it and relate to it, which is really important to us.

MTV: For a band that pretty much doesn't take itself seriously, is it hard when you do something like "Adam's Song," which is pretty mature?
Hoppus: We don't even give it that much thought. If you just listened to the CD and you never had any videos and never had any pictures of us or ever came to live shows, then [you'd think] 99 percent of the songs on the CD are pretty serious songs. They're about love, family, friends, relationships.

MTV: But people don't think of them that way.
DeLonge: That's the thing. That's what videos do for you. We spend three months recording a serious album, taking our songs really serious, and really writing songs about things that we genuinely and sincerely think kids can relate to. But one thing that we've always done since day one was that we didn't like watching bands getting up to play and that's it. We were always about personality. When I first met Mark, we were running around naked, doing weird stuff. We were up skateboarding until late hours of the morning, antagonizing security guards, and we were just always having fun. When we started the band, we started doing that. We always wanted the kids to have more access to our band, knowing us as people. [For] our videos, our shows, our pics, anything we did, we'd just be ourselves.
Hoppus: I remember the day I played ["Adam's Song"] for Tom and Travis, and they were like, "Wow, that's a pretty heavy song. It's really good." [There] was never even a question of whether or not to put it on the record, or was that a "real" Blink song, or was that the right direction for us to go. Whatever song we write, if it's a good song, we'll put it on the record. If we wanted to write a song about -- I don't know, people starving somewhere, we would.
DeLonge: It'd probably be about us. How we have a plethora of food in San Diego and it must suck not to have any. That's how we would write it, but we'd still tackle the issues of famine. I'm going to hell for that.
Hoppus: Then I will see you in hell.