After some months of rumors, guitarist and signer Tom DeLonge is officially returning to blink-182. DeLonge formed that band in 1992 with bassist and singer Mark Hoppus and original drummer Scott Raynor (who was eventually replaced by Travis Barker in 1998), but his 2005 decision to pursue other projects led to a four-year hiatus for the band. DeLonge, Hoppus and Barker reunited in 2009 and played together through 2014, but DeLonge then left again, and was replaced by Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba.
This year, though, there had been plenty of rumors of DeLonge joining the group again. And those have now come to pass. The band officially confirmed that on Twitter Tuesday with a funny video full of double entendres:
We’re coming. Tour’s coming. Album’s coming. Tom’s coming. Tickets on sale Monday. New song “Edging” out Friday. https://t.co/lJmgXqI4ab pic.twitter.com/7y0ZoYTcQc
— blink-182 (@blink182) October 11, 2022
That announcement includes that they’ll have a new song, “Edging,” dropping this Friday. It also says they have a new album on the way. And they announced a full tour as well, starting in Mexico and South America in March 2023, then heading to North America in May, the UK and Europe in September, and Australia and New Zealand in February 2024. And Twitter had lots of thoughts on the reunion:
Blink-182 reuniting is the biggest news for millennials since AOL shut down Instant Messenger
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 11, 2022
Looks like I’m going to have to reignite my “blink-182 are actually Wyld Stallyns and will create a song that brings peace on Earth” theory. https://t.co/SikVbySydG
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) October 11, 2022
https://twitter.com/frankpallotta/status/1579817453097742337
My dads got back together for the kids. https://t.co/uwrB3jQLFj
— Christina Warren (@film_girl) October 11, 2022
An interesting element around DeLonge’s 2014 exit was how it led to him spending more time working on UFO research. That led to his involvement in founding company To the Stars… Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2015. In 2017 and 2018, To The Stars and The New York Times published three videos captured by naval aviators in 2004 and 2015. In 2019 , the Pentagon admitted publicly for the first time”that three widely shared videos captured by naval aviators in 2004 and 2015 were indeed real and showed what it called “unidentified aerial phenomena.” That led to a 2019 NYT interview (and sereral interviews since then) with DeLonge about his work on this. And some people thought of that around this news:
https://twitter.com/jbillinson/status/1579827935170924544
Blink-182's opening act should just be Tom DeLonge giving a lecture explaining everything he found out about aliens.
— Zach Schonfeld (@zzzzaaaacccchhh) October 11, 2022
At any rate, it’s certainly interesting to see the Barker-DeLonge-Hoppus (seen left to right above) lineup of blink-182 back. And they have plans for new music and an ambitious tour. DeLonge, Hoppus, and Barker are now 46, 50, and 46 respectively, but they themselves have pointed out that age doesn’t always line up with actions:
[Image from blink-182 on Twitter]
