Travis Barker Opens Up About Blink-182 Breakup: 'Heavy On My Heart'

Blink-182 is one day away from releasing ONE MORE TIME..., which happens to be the first album they've made with Tom DeLonge since 2011's Neighborhoods. They've been reflective during this album cycle, and in a new interview opened up about DeLonge leaving the band in 2015, and what that meant to each of them.

Mark Hoppus admitted that when they broke up, he didn't think the classic trio would ever get back together. “I didn’t know that Blink would ever get back together or that I would ever share a stage with Tom. I told management, I told Travis, I told everybody, ‘I’m not setting foot on stage again with that dude. Not a chance,’” he divulged. “There was a lot of bad blood and there was a lot of stuff in the press, and feelings, and all this stuff.”

DeLonge mirrored that sentiment, saying: “Like Mark said, I wasn’t sure if we were going to play together again or not. I remember telling my wife, ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to play music again. I’ll keep making records and put them out… [but] I don’t think I’m ever going to tour again.’” 

Travis Barker was the only one who never lost faith that they'd find their way back together as a band, and as friends. “It was a no-brainer for me that, of course, we would do it again,” the drummer said. “It was always my first priority and my first love. Music. I always knew that the brotherhood wouldn’t ever deteriorate or wouldn’t be there. It was just a matter of finding the right time for it all to happen… "One More Time" is kind of written about that. It’s written about, why does it take these catastrophes like me being in a plane crash or Mark being sick for our band to get back together?”

Though he was hopeful, the strained relationship weighed heavy on him. “It was always heavy on my heart that our friendship wasn’t mended. Heaviness weighs on you when you have something that’s important to you in a relationship with somebody and you don’t really fix it, it’s just kind of lingering,” Barker confessed. “I just think having that weight off my heart and feeling closer to these guys really makes me able to see what this is and value it so much more and be so honestly happy for what it does for people.”

“Having the ability to come together and fix the friendship and come back together as the brothers we are is so important to me because it allows me to be so insanely grateful for this and how it touches other people now," he added. "All I care about now is now I can really stand within this thing and also look outside of it, and look within, and see what it really is and what it’s doing for people and what it’s done for people.”

ONE MORE TIME... is out Friday (October 20).