Tom DeLonge has denied he quit Blink-182, despite an announcement from bandmates Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus saying that he had.
The pair last night released a statement saying DeLonge had told them he “didn’t want to participate in any Blink projects indefinitely” and that he’d pulled out of recording sessions for their seventh album a week before they were set to begin.
The frontman followed the band statement with a comment of his own, saying via Instagram: “I never quit the band. I was on a phone call about a Blink event at the time all these weird press releases started coming in.
“Apparently those releases were sanctioned from the band. Are we dysfunctional? Yes. But…”
In their latest move, Barker and Hoppus have slammed DeLonge’s position as “disingenuous” and “ungrateful” – and say they haven’t had a face-to-face meeting with him in months.
Hoppus tells Rolling Stone: “The press release is from Travis and me. We stand by it 100percent because it’s all true. There’s no ambiguity.
“We booked January 5 to go into the studio. On December 30, we get an email from Tom’s manager saying he wants to do his other, non-musical stuff and that he’s out indefinitely. There’s a flurry of e-mails and his manager sends back: ‘Tom. Is. Out.’ Direct quote. This is the exact same email we got back in 2004 when Tom went on indefinite hiatus.”
But he says he wasn’t surprised. “His attitude leading up to that had been not excited and not interested. Even though we’d been talking about recording and dates, things kept getting pushed back. Blink was supposed to start recording two years ago.”
Barker says: “It’s hard to cover for someone who’s disrespectful and ungrateful. You don’t even have the balls to call your bandmates and tell them you’re not going to record or do anything Blink-related? You have your manager do it.? Everyone should know what the story is with him – and it’s been years with it.”
And the drummer suggests DeLonge’s attitude issues go back to the band’s reunion in 2010. “He didn’t even listen to mixes or masterings from that record – he didn’t even care about it,” he says of sixth album Neighbourhoods.
“Why Blink even got back together in the first place is questionable.”
Barker and Hoppus will play the Musink Festival in California in March, with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba in DeLonge’s place.
