When is new angels and airwaves album

Tom, I'm curious about what you read or heard or experienced or watched early on that initiated this awakening in your life, or made you aware of a grander context to the world. DeLonge: Well, it's not one thing.

It's a journey, right? Anybody who's fascinated by something and studies it for 20 years is going to have a perspective that's different than most. It's kind of a blanket term. But when you get more into that subject, you're reading about consciousness. You're reading about geopolitics or ancient texts and religions and all that kind of stuff. The journey takes you through all these things where you discover something along the way.

You start to find patterns. And by the time I was surrounded by all these government people, I was like [ Taken-aback voice ] "Oh my god. But I've always been someone searching out why we're here, and I think artists are supposed to. They're supposed to guide us through the world and communicate it back in a way that somebody could get a new perspective, or at least resonate with it and not feel so alone. I just think it's our job as artists.

We're weirdos and we're supposed to show you what we see. And then, every once in a while, someone goes "Wow! That's an interesting perspective. The press release also touches on childhood tumult. Is that autobiographical? Can you expound on this theme? DeLonge: A little bit. I don't know about Ilan's childhood. I don't think either of our childhoods were very standard.

Music's gotten [to where] it's so easy to write a catchy song these days. What's the difference between this catchy song and another catchy song on the radio? Well, it's going to be the people saying it and why they're saying it. I like my musicians to have an edge and come from a weird upbringing or something wrong to where their perspective is warranted or embraced as a different point of view.

Wouldn't it suck if the guys in the Who [weren't like that]? If Pete Townshend sold insurance and was a totally normal guy? He wasn't breaking his speakers and going crazy? I like my bands to have a kind of messed-up childhood or something that's unorthodox. What would they be if Pete didn't have a couple of screws loose? That's the heart of the band. DeLonge: That's my point! That's why the songs are cool. A few fistfights and maybe some drugs and alcohol and growing up in a really hardcore blue-collar town and not having the best parents in the world gives them the perspective to write the songs they did.

If they weren't like that, they wouldn't have the great hits that we love so much. It seems like you're trying to embrace a punk-ness with Lifeforms. Maybe one that connects your past in Blink with your musical future. DeLonge: Yeah! I think a lot of people that don't understand the punk scene might think it's about the music. That's something I originally thought as well, but it's really much more about a rebellion against the norm.

I tend to find that a lot more around me in other places that you wouldn't expect. Like, [Gestures to Ilan. And that kid's more punk than most of the people I grew up with! But you can't say Nine Inch Nails sounds like the Ramones , you know? Or the Clash. But no one's going to argue the angst behind the music. For me, it's that element within a rock band—or a rap band! One of the guys who used to tour manage Blink was at the Santa Monica Civic when the Clash played there for the very first time.

But, he goes, "The first time we heard N. We were talking about burning places down, but they were talking about killing cops! That's a whole other level! So, I think it's more about coming from a place that isn't so perfect and is a little bit broken and busting out of that. Saying "I'm not going to stand for that. I need to change my environment. I need to change the world that I see," you know? And it happens in a lot of places besides the typical punk-rock music that people think owns this attitude.

It's not true! It's just not. Nobody's going to argue that Liam [Gallagher] , who sings for Oasis , is some kind of mellow guy. He's not. He's probably in a fistfight somewhere. He's one of the most colorful dudes in rock, and I love that. That's what I'm searching for, I guess. Rubin: I definitely agree that an attitude is brought to the table that can be brought to anything, regardless of the style of music. I completely agree with that. I will also say that attitude can be brought to the table regardless of upbringing or any kind of external influence, I think.

Largely, people are wired the way they are, and music is a great medium to be you and your truest self. For example, I may not be an aggressive individual on the outside, but when I play drums, it's almost a different version of me. But that version of me is as authentic—if not more—than anything else you might see. DeLonge: That is a really wild thing, by the way. That is super true. He's, like, this mellow all day. Most drummers are hitting or shaking things; they have a lot of energy.

I was making fun of him yesterday because he was like [Langurous voice. But that has to be in you. You can't fake that.

It's just different sides of you. People say DeLonge: I mean, for me—coming out of the pandemic and seeing all the racism and violence and infiltration of foreign territories into our democracy and the shutdowns and the propaganda that divided us so badly—lyrically, I was like, "What would God say?

God's like, "I don't even recognize you anymore. If you think you know how this is all supposed to work and you think you're doing it correctly, then take the reins. And if you're not going to take the reins, step aside and go for the life lessons you're supposed to go through. The thing about it, too, is that it's probably the only song on the album that shows you what Angels was known for a little bit.

It's inspirational; it's uptempo; it's kind of pop-punk in the foundation of it. But the musicality of it is very different from something we've done in the past. I think it's going to be a popular song. It's not a single. We're not working on the radio.

We're not making a music video for it. I think it's a wonderful song that Angels fans are really going to be appreciative of. It kind of maps out what the band is always trying to be, which is something a little more positive. More of a positive force. We had a super-fast punk song but it didn't really make it past the demo stage.

DeLonge: Whatever you may or may not have thought Angels was, I think this album will honestly catch you by surprise.

I think some people go, "Oh, that's the guy from Blink, so it must sound like Blink! I think people don't really understand what we do, but as a mainstream music lover, I don't have a problem in describing this record as a best-of tour of some of the great bands that I grew up with.

You might hear a song that kind of reminds you of the Who, or Depeche Mode , or the Cure or the punk, new-wave kinds of things that happened in that era. And every band does this, right? Every band's trying to say "How am I influenced by the greats? We're not chasing something that's happening right now. We're not chasing something that we've already done. We're making music for us, really. And then, if people like it, that's bitchin'. But what happened here is we made a record that I think is the best album I've ever been part of—if not, the top couple.

It's so challenging and unique and diverse. At least I think so. Now, if you hate what I do, it's easy to say "Each song is really bad! But different! If it's really bad, at least it's different.

The truth is, punk has rarely gone pop. Why did three tattooed Californians resonate so much and become more popular than several dozen of their Warped tourmates? Well, more than any of the above-named bands or their peers, Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker gave themselves a role to play. Enema Of The State was their third album, but it was their first to write consciously with an audience in mind.

And that audience was young. There was no shortage of rock bands playing to underdeveloped minds in , the year when Limp Bizkit made "stick it up your — yeah! However, Blink came into the public eye not just mocking norms behold the nudist breakthrough video for "What's My Age Again? Plenty of teenagers hated boy bands, and Eminem threatened to beat them up, but Blink dared to envision themselves in the role, playing the Regular Guys striking those absurd poses in front of wind machines, turning something expensive cheap, showing what it actually looked like cut down to earth.

They did their own stunts, and people liked that. While Fred Durst really sounded like he wanted to break something, and Eminem really did seem to live many of the nightmarish situations he joked about, Blink didn't come off as hateful at all. This depends, of course, on how much "Dumpweed"'s infamous chorus "I need a girl that I can train" rubs you the wrong way in And of course, that's how Enema Of The State kicks off, putting its best foot forward directly into its mouth.

What they sounded like were boys that teenagers could relate to rather than ones promising girls the moon in perfect harmony from their private jet. But they leave it at that and go on to contemplate suicide with "Adam's Song" with no small amount of love for the depressed protagonist. That lightness and sociability is oddly what sticks out about Enema Of The State , an album that may be 20 years old but will be frozen forever at Five years prior, Green Day's epochal, excellent Dookie grappled with social conditions like apathy, sexual frustration and watching the people you grew up with shrink in the rearview mirror.

Hoppus and DeLonge sang about the dilemmas of parties and college and the slut-shamey realization that even the horniest dude at the party might lose his nerve when he finally gets a chance with the girl who isn't wearing underwear. DeLonge also gets to sing "Aliens Exist," an outlier that is what it says it is, and somehow became the defining aspect of his legacy as he premieres a new History Channel series about UFOs while Blink soldiers on without him in But the legacy of Enema Of The State will always be defined by what it accomplished: remarkably clean-sounding guitars, the hyperactive drumming of Barker an all-time rock drummer finally getting his spotlight and episodes of adolescent romance so silly that an entire second verse of the first single could be devoted to the transcript of a prank phone call.

And if these three couldn't solve their relationship problems, at least they helped make high school easier by providing some good jokes about it. What's their age again? Producer Zakk Cervini believes the world is ready to rock again. Despite rock making a minor resurgence in the latter half of , rock bands are not performing live—which Cervini says has been surreal, especially for artists missing out on the best years of their careers. But once local and state governments roll out the vaccines and it's safe to attend concerts again, the genre might resurge in a big way.

These days, artists who traditionally worked in pop music have been turning to rock, like Poppy with her metal album I Disagree. Cervini raves about all of the artists he's worked with. He follows this up with a pretty convincing Yungblud impression. Cervini has deftly helped artists navigate musical transitions and is skilled at working alongside artists who inhabit the space between genres—and Yungblud is undoubtedly one of them.

Cervini built his rock royalty from the ground up. After working with producers Machine and Will Putney and eventually leaving college, he moved to Los Angeles to work for famed producer John Feldmann, who has produced bands like The Used and Story of the Year. They worked together for five years, including with Blink and 5 Seconds of Summer , before Cervini decided to go solo. Since then, he's produced Waterparks' album Fandom and Yungblud's album Weird!

He's also recently done some mixing for the film composer Danny Elfman. Throughout his career, Cervini has gotten the chance to work with artists he loves.

On a Zoom call, he holds up the acoustic guitar he used to record a cover of the All Time Low's hit " Dear Maria, Count Me In ," which he and his brother once performed and uploaded to Facebook. He brought that same guitar to Palm Springs, where he worked with All Time Low on their most recent record. How did you get into producing? Was this something you always wanted to do?

I'm 27 years old now, and I started producing when I was around I grew up playing guitar, and I loved playing guitar. Somehow, from an early age, I wanted to be in a band. I had a hard time finding musicians who were as dedicated as I was and wanted to do what I wanted to do.

One day, I downloaded a free recording program on my parents' computer. I remember the moment I pressed record and recorded a guitar part. The second that I heard that guitar part back, I was like, "This is incredible.

I used GarageBand, and I started producing my friends' bands. I found a lot of joy and satisfaction in taking other people's music and turning it into a real thing, helping other people execute their visions. What did you learn from John Feldmann? I learned so much from him. One of the overarching things that I learned from him is how important it is to deliver a finished product.

Because it's really easy to have ideas for songs and ideas for this and ideas for that. But being able to present a written, recorded, produced, mixed, mastered song—sometimes it's hard for people that aren't on the creative end of music, like I am, to understand something until it's completely done and realized.

He showed me how important it was to deliver an amazing quality finished product to someone. I also learned so much from him on the songwriting end of things because that's one of his strongest skill sets, in my opinion.

He's an amazing songwriter. Just how to use song structures and classic song structure techniques that are tried and true that just work. I also learned from him that—you should not sacrifice the quality of your work for this—but in this business, especially in this day and age, it's super-important to be fast.

And I've taken that to heart. I love being in the studio with artists like [All Time Low vocalist] Alex [Gaskarth] or like Yungblud, who have so many ideas, and they're so all over the place. My job is to rein in their ideas and turn it into something that sounds good quickly. And you said you grew up listening to metal? What kinds of artists did you grow up listening to? I grew up listening to a lot of emo and metal music. When I was in high school, I loved Motionless in White and all this kind of heavy rock music.

I love bands like All Time Low. I love aggressive music with pop sensibilities, so Korn , Nine Inch Nails. That's my bread and butter. That's the kind of music that I love, and that's my favorite kind of music to make. I also love pop music as well; I grew up listening to a lot of Avril Lavigne.

Then, that turned into Katy Perry. And now I'm a huge BTS fan. I love great songs, and they can be dressed up however. How do you pick what projects to work on? I've dabbled in hip hop, I've dabbled in pop, and I've just found over the years that I love making music that has kind of a rock or alternative edge to it.

I just love aggressive music. So I tend to kind of always lean towards stuff that has an aggressive edge, with drums, live guitars, and an amazing vocalist. A band that I love that I think I'll make a great match for that will succeed. He said that you don't want to produce your favorite bands' albums. Is that correct? Isn't that what they always say? Don't meet your heroes, or don't work with your heroes?

It's funny, I have worked with a lot of people that I grew up listening to. Again, I'm sure I would do it. Writing and making music is like hooking up with someone. If it goes well, that's awesome. As well, he revealed that he used an old Box Car Racer guitar to track some of the new music. Some even theorize that they may finally drop that unreleased Box Car Racer song.

So far, both DeLonge and Barker are keeping tight-lipped on if anything is planned. Now, DeLonge has confirmed that the new album is nearly complete. This week, DeLonge confirmed that 5 songs have been sent off to be mixed. Sending 5 songs off to be mixed- the final stage in a songs evolution from the birth of the idea, to over tracks diligently crafted with sounds, passion and goosebumps. Soon, another 5 songs will be sent over in the next couple weeks to close out this chapter. Thank you for all your patience, support and love.

A post shared by Official Tom DeLonge tomdelonge. However, DeLonge has managed to stay busy with a few other projects. Late last year, we learned that DeLonge is making his directorial debut in the new sci-fi film Monsters Of California. The coming of age adventure with a sci-fi twist is based on a script written by DeLonge and Ian Miller. The film follows teenager Dallas Edwards Jack Samson and his friends who are on a quest to find the meaning behind a series of paranormal events in Southern California.