Last week, at the mtvU Woodie Awards, former Blink-182er (and current member of +44) Mark Hoppus spoke about his best friend and bandmate Travis Barker, who is recovering from second-and-third degree burns suffered in a September 19 plane crash that killed four people and seriously injured DJ AM.
And this week, Hoppus kept on talking – er, blogging – only this time it wasn’t just about about Barker, but former Blink bandmate Tom DeLonge, too. Seems that, for the first time since Blink went on “indefinite hiatus” in February 2005, all three members have been spending time together … which, of course, could mean that we’re in the early stages of a full-on Blink reunion. Maybe.
“In the midst of everything else that has happened lately, Tom, Travis and I have all spoken together,” Hoppus wrote on his official site, HiMyNameIsMark.com. First, through a number of phone calls, and then a couple of weeks ago we all hung out for a few hours. They’ve all been great, very positive conversations. We’re just reconnecting as friends after four years of not talking. It’s a good thing. Obviously the first question for a lot of people will be, ‘Does this mean a Blink-182 reunion?’ The answer is none of us know. We haven’t talked about it at all. Right now it’s just good for the three of us to see one another, reconnect and let the past be the past. The events of the past two months supersede everything that happened before. Life is too short.”
Despite the public silence from Barker’s former Blink-mates in the immediate wake of the crash – which lasted just a couple of weeks – this sounds very much like the hatchet being buried. And as if that news wasn’t enough to send Blink fans into a tizzy, consider what Hoppus told MTV News last week, when he was asked when fans can expect a new album from his and Barker’s post-Blink band, +44: “Hopefully, in the next couple months we’ll see [Barker] behind the kit, I pray. No matter what I work on, Travis will be part of, for sure.”
Hoppus’ post wasn’t entirely devoted to stoking the Blink flames. He also wrote at great length about “Little” Chris Baker and Charles “Che” Still, two of Barker’s friends and associates who were killed in the crash.
“These past two months have been the hardest times that I can remember, and I hope that we never see anything like this ever again,” he wrote. “Even two months later, I still can’t believe what happened, and it’s too much to talk about. But let me say that I think about Little Chris every single day, and the world is not the same without him. He is one of the best people I’ve ever known. We traveled the world together, spending countless hours on buses and planes, in hotel lobbies and dressing rooms. … I’m so sad that he is not here right now. There are just no words.”
