Tom DeLonge was right.
As anyone who follows the singer, guitarist, filmmaker, and To The Stars founder knows, the Blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves songwriter has been explaining that aliens exist for most of his adult life. So when the government hosted hearings last year effectively confirming the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrials, his name immediately became a part of the conversation.
“A lot of people were all ‘Oh, he’s not nuts!’” DeLonge says with a smirk, seated on the couch in his massive round dressing room built inside of the clubhouse of San Diego’s Petco Park. “It’s funny, and it was weird for me because I know so much about that subject and I’m tied in in so many ways. I can feel vindicated and whatnot, but it really isn’t about me. It’s much bigger. Hopefully, people pay a little bit more attention to it and learn a little bit more about it over the coming years, because it’s life-changing stuff, and I think there’s more stuff coming. There are a lot more people talking about it now.”
Of course, the whole alien confirmation wasn’t the only major news for DeLonge in 2023. The reason he has a dressing room the size of a liquor store under the grandstands of San Diego’s MLB stadium was his reunion with Blink-182 (he was replaced in 2016 by Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba). DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker released the chart-topping One More Time… last October and along with it, multiple stadium-filling tours. For a lot of people, it confirmed what they already knew: Blink-182 could work without DeLonge, but the longstanding recipe featuring the diehard Padres fan would push them to be one of the biggest bands in the world.
The success of their reunion almost seems like a surprise to the 48-year-old. Beyond the usual cliche that no one expects songs written in their early 20s to still be relevant more than a quarter-century later, Blink wasn’t headlining baseball stadiums at any previous point in their career — nor did they seem like a band that would. That’s not to say DeLonge minds the high-end catering, private suites, and giant “WELCOME HOME” graphics both outside his dressing room and on the exterior of the stadium. It’s just not something he was counting on.
“I’ve never thought it would be this kind of energy or magnitude and just keep going and going,” DeLonge says, glancing at the customized sugar cookies on the coffee table in between the dressing room’s leather couches. “It’s a wonderful spot to be in where you feel like everyone really gets what you do and what you’ve been about. But it’s also really cool because it feels like as a band, we finally really get what we’re about. We’re doing this in our best form, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Blink’s always been a big band, but now it’s a different animal, and I don’t think the three of us really understand what’s changed.”
In a way that only the charismatic prankster can, DeLonge compares Blink to Keanu Reeves. They started out in their “Point Break phase” and no one took them seriously. They got bigger with Bill & Ted, but it wasn’t until The Matrix that they became stars. And when it seemed their career had peaked, John Wick comes along and they’ll be seeing you in massive stadiums and festival headlining slots. Similarly to Reeves, their lengthy and varied career as a band has also helped Blink capture multiple generations of fans in a way that’s usually reserved for names like Metallica and AC/DC. Their music speaks to everyone from Gen Z to Gen X (and probably some Gen Alpha and Boomers too), and the commercial success of One More Time… shows that it’s not purely a nostalgia bit.
In many ways, the band as an entity is a much bigger and more involved organization than they were when “Dammit” off 1997’s Dude Ranch first put them on many people’s radars. But, the trio hasn’t changed all that much since the drummer joined the band less than a year later.
“We’ve grown up and have families — but when we’re on stage, it feels like we’re much younger,” DeLonge says. “We just sound better now, but we definitely revert back to the poorer versions of ourselves and our moral ambiguity. There’s some shit that gets said on stage where I do not know how we’re getting away with this. The only real difference onstage is that we play to a click track now. Travis plays so fucking fast that none of us can keep up with him, so now we give him a whole bunch of pot and make sure he’s high as fuck before every show, so then he plays at a normal speed.” (Barker has been sober since 2009 following a near-fatal plane crash)
In addition to selling out stadiums with Blink, DeLonge’s been keeping himself busy with To The Stars his multimedia company. With it, he’s currently working on roughly seven TV series to air within the next few years alongside a few movies and a pair of new novels — much of which he considers “informed science fiction.” It’s through these projects that the entrepreneurial musician feels he can best express both his passion and depth of knowledge about UFOs and aliens, all wrapped in an entertaining story that (hopefully) won’t get him in trouble with the powers that be. But it’s also given him a newfound appreciation for creators who stay out of the spotlight rather than those who perform onstage for tens of thousands of fans.
“It’s really fun and a totally different feeling to do that kind of art versus an album or something, but I’ve learned that I really like being behind the camera instead of on camera,” DeLonge says. “I really like directing the kind of symphony that goes into making a movie or TV show, and the cool thing with all of these is that they’re team sports with a lot of people involved. Sometimes they take years to do, even if you’re just taking a call once a week on it. When you’re making an album or touring, you’re in there every day and that becomes your life. So the cool thing with the film stuff is it’s spread out, so you can take your time creating all of it. Then when it’s show time [to direct], it’s hardcore for a couple months, but it really fits in well with a touring schedule. After this whole run, we’re gonna take a little bit of a break from Blink before we record again, so that gives me a little bit of a window to focus on something else, like directing.”
Outside of the informed sci-fi world, DeLonge dabbles with the occasional other project. The reissue of his signature Fender Stratocaster in a variety of colors (including some To The Stars exclusives) shows that his unique minimalist style is still popular with guitarists around the world (“I think it’s less about me as a guitar player and more about me as a weirdo,” he insists). There’s a feature-length film around one of his other passions, professional baseball, still in the works. Oh, and he’d still like to see the return of Angels & Airwaves whenever his schedule allows.
“It’s just trying to find time for it all, because I’m so proud of Angels — it’s some of the best songwriting I think I’ve ever done,” DeLonge says. “Finding time for everything is just really hard right now because of everything with Blink and everything else. I just have to wait and see, because so much film stuff is going on too right now. I don’t want to be traveling all the time, but I want to find ways to get everything done.”
Perhaps DeLonge’s biggest enemy has always been time. It’s not easy to balance one of the biggest bands in the world and a growing media empire with maintaining a healthy home and personal life while still having time for side projects and other endeavors. But in his eyes, it’s a good problem to have. The pop-punk icon has always preferred to keep his, in his words, ADHD brain focused on a variety of projects, and he’s “hashtag blessed” (immediately followed by him laughing “How dumb was that?”) that people are willing to indulge him and follow along.
“I hope people also pay attention to all the work that I’ve done around the whole UFO/government angle with my company, To The Stars, and the movies, TV series, books and stuff we’ve got coming out,” DeLonge says in a rare serious moment. “There’s a lot of really good information in there that people will learn from — things I can’t say directly, but I’m excited about those conversations getting started. There are a lot more conversations coming that I think people want to hear.
“That said, Blink will be the priority forever,” he continues, his eyes lighting up. “Look at this dressing room. How do I go back from this fucking dressing room? We have to play stadiums, because I need a ping pong table in my dressing room. Honestly, I think this is a whole new beginning for the band. With what we’re planning on doing, who we’ve become, and how we’re doing it now I think it’s really, really exciting.”
