Best Bits: Blink 182’s Tom DeLonge on the 80’s songs that changed his life
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ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more. G'day and welcome to some of the best bits of Take 5 from the last few years. In the lead up to our next big season, I'll be sharing some golden moments with some of my favourite guests over the coming weeks.
I fell in love with a girl at the rock show. She said what and I told her that I didn't know. She's so cool.
Back in 2012, founding member of Blink-182, Angels and Airwaves, and keen UFO enthusiast Tom DeLonge joined me to take five.
Which life-changing 1980s song does Tom DeLonge introduce first?
His theme was life-changing songs, and his choices were surprising, including this one from an iconic British band.
Monday's blue Tuesday's grey And Wednesday too Thursday I don't care about you It's Friday I'm in love
When I was in junior high, my brother started bringing home punk rock bands. And I remember before I was into the punk rock bands, I was always just like, oh, you're only listening to that stuff because your friends are into it. What are you doing? I'm like, oh, it's so weird. It's like skeletons on the artwork. And then he brought home, you know, he started getting into The Cure. And I always found it odd that that was like the one band that wasn't very punk, but they were kind of on that threshold. And I started realizing, well, these guys have really great songs. And so early on, my brother deemed it cool, so I always thought it was cool, and I paid more attention through the years. On the last Blink record, not the one we put out in November, but the last one, we did a song with Robert Smith.
Oh, wow.
And he's on there. And it's like the best song on the record. It sounds like it could have been off one of their records, Disintegration. It's like that kind of a vibe. And I had the chance to meet him, had the chance to musically do something with him. And that pushed me into overdrive about being a Cure fanatic. And I just think the diversity in his songwriting and he brought this darkness and this torment and then would put uh he would he put some colorful um kind of twists on it that made it kind of romantic at times and i just learned so much so much i you know i have so many songs i could tell you specifically in my career i'm all okay listen to this song and listen to this cure song and you'll kind of go know where i got these ideas from you know um
But to this day, I still study what Robert Smith does because I just think that he's one of the few timeless alternative rock songwriters.
Does that happen a lot where you're going back into your old collection records that you listened to in your formative years and still enjoying them, still taking cues from them with what you do today?
I do because I don't look at modern music. You know, modern music to me is fashion, you know? it's yet to be proven. You know, uh, I like things that are tried and true, you know, that have been tested for the past decades. Uh, because it's not, not, not that it's commercially, you know, viable for decades. That's not the reason I get into it. Um, I learned that there are certain songs that I just love that have been around for decades that I just kind of go, there's a reason why this song is speaking to millions of people still.
Um,
And and that's how I get inspired to write songs, because I hope one day I will touch on that little bit of magic that happens with the bands that I love, you know, and it's that constant struggle. And that constant journey is the only thing that keeps me going. It's kind of like when you play golf, where golf just totally sucks. But every once in a while, you actually hit it good. And that's enough to keep you going.
Exactly.
You started playing music when you were a teenager, didn't you? You actually met Mark and formed Blink-182 in its early incarnation when you were still in high school, right?
Yeah, I got kicked out of high school and I got sent to another high school and I met Mark's sister. She was dating my friend, a guy that I go skateboarding with. Skateboarding was a big part of my life at the time. And she's like, yeah, my brother's moving down here from whatever city and he plays bass guitar.
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