Blink-182 have picked a single for their forthcoming album, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, and are offering fans a sampling on their Web site. An excerpt from the song, “The Rock Show” is currently streaming at www.blink182.com, a couple weeks before its May 7th radio date and some six weeks away from the June 12th release of Jacket.
Of course, the track is loaded with bounce and hooks, typically youthful and reflective, “Couldn’t wait for the summer and the Warped tour,” sings singer/bassist Mark Hoppus. “I remember it’s the first time that I saw her there.”
The San Diego neo-punks have chosen brothers Emmit and Brendan Malloy ( Vertical Horizon, Foo Fighters) to shoot the video for “The Rock Show.” The boys will begin work on it later this week before kicking off the (Honda) Civic 2001 Tour on April 30th in Seattle. The video should debut mid-May.
All this even as singles from 1999’s four-times platinum Enema of the State remain radio staples and their live album, The Mark, Tom and Travis Show, is barely five months old. “It’s time to have a new record out,” says Hoppus. “There’s plenty of time for a break when you’re older. There’s not much time to do what we do right now.”
Take Off Your Pants finds the threesome in a thrashier mood, again delivering the memorable riffs and big harmonies that parked Enema in the chart’s upper tier, but this time with a little less gloss. Working again with [Enema] producer Jerry Finn at San Diego’s Signature Sound Studios, Hoppus, singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker went for happy medium between their sloppier hardcore days and more recent studio hugeness. If the slight return to yesteryear re-wins diehard punkers turned off by “na-na” peppered MTV staples like “All the Small Things” that’s all good, but Hoppus says the punk handbook has never made their decisions for them.
“In my mind we’ve always adhered to the most important punk ethic,” says Hoppus. “We do what we want to do. If we wanted to make a techno record, if we thought that was representative of who we are, then we’d make a techno record. If we want to write a slow acoustic song with cellos, then we’ll do it. We’re not afraid of anything.”
Blink have also been asked to contribute a track to the forthcoming flick, American Pie 2, the long-awaited sequel to the summer 1999 hit. It’s likely they’ll be giving up a Jacket sessions leftover for the soundtrack. The band made a brief cameo in the original film as well as contributing one tune, “Mutt” (from Enema), to the soundtrack.