Interviews/Magazines » RollingStone interviews Tom
By: Alex Mar of RollingStone ♣ Feb 9, 2006
When Tom DeLonge decided to leave Blink-182 last year, he was
walking away from something huge. The band -- along with another
California trio, Green Day -- spawned massive hits, and a slew of
pop-punk disciples. As Blink, singer/guitarist DeLonge, bassist
Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker (who replaced founder Scott
Raynor), scored five Top Ten releases, including 2000's
four-times-platinum Enema of the State and the 2001
chart-topper Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.
But DeLonge says he felt increasingly conflicted about both his
creative freedom within the band and the toll touring was taking on
his family life. (Now thirty, he has a three-year-old daughter.)
After the band's announcement, one year ago, that it would be
taking "an indefinite hiatus," DeLonge arrived at the concept of
Angels and Airwaves -- his personal vision for a group that would
produce music more epic, expansive and open-ended than that
aggressive, irreverent pop of Blink-182.
Alongside musicians David Kennedy, Atom Willard (the Offspring)
and Ryan Sinn (ex-Distillers), DeLonge spent the next several
months in his home studio recording what will become the band's
2006 debut. (Expect the first single, "The Adventurer," to premiere
this month.) And, appropriate to their cinematic sound, Angels and
Airwaves are preparing to premiere their record with an ambitious
concept movie, the trailer for which can now be viewed at
angelsandairwaves.com.
Did you immediately come up with the concept of Angels
and Airwaves?
When I decided not to continue with that part of my
life, I still wanted the same things that I wanted when I was in
Blink: I still wanted to be in the biggest band in the world, and I
still wanted to be the best songwriter that I can. And it took me
about three weeks to figure it out. I thought, "I can create
anything I want to create . . . And it's going to be the most epic
and anthemic and heroic music that I've ever made." And that's
where Angels and Airwaves came about.
How did the idea for the album's accompanying movie come
about?
At first it was going to be a documentary of what I'm trying to
do [with Angels and Airwaves], then the album started getting
really, really good. It's exactly where I wish I could
have taken my old band. I was looking at some of the footage about
a month ago, and I just saw someone who was scared to death but
absolutely full of passion and belief that he could pull something
off that's never happened in the history of rock & roll.
But the whole movie is this poetic metaphor about how humans can
create the worst thing in life -- war -- and the best thing as
well, which is love. It's a third CGI, a third documentary and a
third love story. So as you're watching the story and the making of
the record, it will come to life in a love story between [two
actors] and then go into planes arcing through space coming down
into a D-day of missiles exploding in a nebula. It's very The
Wall . . . but futuristic.
How did Angels and Airwaves form? Obviously, you're
coming from a band with a really specific chemistry . . .
That was hard [because] I loved sharing a stage with Mark and
Travis. But that's not what I was looking for. I didn't want the
best musicians in the world; I didn't want guys that I thought
would add some crazy persona to the stage. With Blink, people would
go, "What's your message?" and we'd go, "Fuck! We don't have a
message!" With Angels and Airwaves, it's absolute message; it's
absolute . . . positivity.
I needed something that was organic. The first [rule] was
respect for the band members and respect for their families. And
the second rule was the ability to grow into a really hard,
predestined friendship.
What albums were you listening to for inspiration?
Anything surprising?
I ended up listening to a lot of Peter Gabriel, U2, the Police,
the Cure -- bands that got to stadium-level size. I wouldn't listen
to any independent rock bands, no cool punk-rock bands, no arty
Radiohead-type bands. None of it was good enough for me.
I can listen to the Police and always go, "How did they write a
song like 'Every Breath You Take'?" I can listen to U2 and list at
least thirty songs that make me go, "How the fuck did they do
that?" I wanted to learn how music, as mathematics, can touch an
amazing amount of people.
So you've been shooting for something "timeless" . . .
I want to come out with an album that people will refer to
twenty years from now as the album of this decade. [There hasn't
been] a record like that since Nirvana's [Nevermind] and I
don't think there's ever been a band as good as U2. But I'm willing
to take on that challenge.
Describe the live feeling with Angels.
Super-crazy visuals. Everything with the band, the photos and
the imagery, is very futuristic. It's all about beautiful
architecture, artistic photography and astronomy. I was always a
UFO space-freak, so now I get to have spinning planets in high
resolution behind my body as I play a song. You're going to feel
like you're in one of Stanley Kubrick's movies, or Star
Wars.
What can we expect to hear first?
We're releasing a short film with the first song, "The
Adventurer." The whole thing is shot on 8mm black and white, and
it's very sci-fi. It kind of looks like George Lucas' THX
1138, where it's all beautiful naked women and fast cars and
concrete and glass architecture.
The song was inspired by a friend who whose marriage was kind of
falling apart. It touched me so deeply that I was up one night
crying for him -- I felt so hurt. The chorus goes, "Hey, yo/Here I
am, and here we go/Life is waiting to begin." It just keeps
building and building and building, and says, "I cannot live and I
cannot breathe unless you do this with me."
Imagine you're still in love with someone and that person
doesn't love you back, and there's nothing you can do about it. I
don't wish that upon anybody.
Source
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