Blink-182’s During the famous 2002 Pop Disaster Tour, Mark Hoppus talked about the growing tension between his band and Green Day. He called it a “musical battle” that helped Blink’s edge at a key point in their rise.
Pop-punk’s old guard and its rising stars played together on the tour, which ended each night with Blink-182, even though Hoppus grew up idolizing Green Day.
In a new interview with NME, he said, “I literally waited for the day that Dookie came out.” “I was sitting in line to buy it.”
In 2002, Blink-182 was riding high after their No. 1 record, “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.” On the other hand, Green Day was having a slower commercial period between “Warning” (2000) and “American Idiot (2004).” That made what Hoppus called a “unspoken competition” happen live.
Hoppus said, “We thought we were hot sh– when we walked in.” “And Green Day walked in ready to fight, with their music, of course.” The first few nights, they blew us off the stage, and we thought, “Oh sh*t, we need to step it up.” We became a better band because of it.
Even though he said there was no personal grudge—”Billie was really nice to us”—the daily competition to win over the crowd caused an arms race in performance.
“There was a lot of back and forth about who could put on the best show and win people over,” Hoppus said. “I think I gave them so much ideas that they said, ‘We need to kill Blink-182 with a great album called American Idiot.'”
The story is one of many in Hoppus’s new book Fahrenheit-182, in which the bassist and singer talks about his time with cancer, important moments in pop culture, and his long career in music.
Blink-182 is getting ready to go on tour with Alkaline Trio again this fall. Their U.S. tour starts on August 28 in Hollywood, Florida.
