“Matt has done an amazing job of stepping into a potentially very difficult situation.” – Mark Hoppus.
In a recent interview with Upset, the members of blink-182 have opened up about Matt Skiba’s role in the band, and whether Tom DeLonge’s return to the band is as inevitable as people think.
Straight out of the gate, frontman Mark Hoppus has defended his bandmate and friend who stepped into replace Tom in 2015.
“Matt has done an amazing job of stepping into a potentially very difficult situation,” shared Mark. “He makes blink his own while paying respect and honouring the shoes that he’s filling. Matt is [a] vital part of what makes blink-182, blink-182 right now. On this record [‘NINE’], even more than on ‘California’, you can really feel and hear his fingerprints all over the songs, especially on things like ‘Black Rain’ and ‘Darkside’.”
Matt also addressed his role in blink, and the way that people see him as a placeholder while waiting for Tom’s return, sharing, “One day we were in the studio and I said to Mark, ‘At some point, Tom is going to come back, right? He has to. It would be awesome if he wants to wait a while though ‘cos I’m having way too much fun right now’.”
He continued, “I think it’s kind of inevitable. It seems like they’re all friends and they talk. I’m just glad we have this record, and I’m happy to be doing it. I feel like I have carved out my own space. It’s something that’s taken until now to do, but I know my own role in the band as a third of blink, and it’s something that people have, at the very least, settled into enough to be like ‘okay, well this will do for now until hopefully, Tom comes back’. There are people that love both, but really, what people think of me, I don’t care. How I feel personally and how my bandmates feel, that’s what’s important to me. I can’t really put it into words other than things have gelled.”
While Matt feels it’s largely inevitable that Tom will return to blink one day, Travis Barker isn’t quite as certain, sharing “I don’t know. I mean, I love [Tom]. I talk to him from time to time, and we’re friends, but whether two friends ever share the same musical vision again, that’s something I don’t know. It’s kind of unknown. It depends on the time when we meet up and if we meet up and if that conversation happens.”
Blink-182’s new album ‘NINE’ is out now – check it out below: