Did you know that Mark Hoppus of Blink 182's Grandfather wrote some of the lyrics for the one of the band's biggest albums? Or that one of the band's hit songs was inspired by The Cure? What about the alternate song title which the band thought was too dorky? Stick around and we will answer these questions and more!
10 Fun Facts about Blink 182's Untitled Album
1 Take Your Time
The album took an entire year to make.Record label executives at Geffen gave the band an extensive amount of creative freedom and allowed them to to take as much time as they wanted.
“Our previous records, like Enema Of The State/Take Off Your Pants And Jacket... We’d write the whole thing in two weeks, and then we would record my drums in a day, and we would record guitars, bass, and vocals over the next month. This record [Untitled], we recorded over a year’s time. We wrote a song and then recorded it, took as much time as we wanted.” - Travis Barker; This is Blink 182: Untitled, Garret Michael Carlson, Dudefluencer, Sep 13, 2019
2 Box Car Racer
Tom credits his experience working on the Box Car Racer album for helping Blink 182's untitled album.
“One of the craziest things about Box Car Racer is that it was the both
greatest and the worst thing for Blink. It was obviously the reason why
we made that last record, which I thought was a masterpiece, but it also
caused a great division in the band. It was really hard for Mark. He
thought it was really lame Travis and I went and did that, but it was a
totally benign thing on my part because I only asked Travis to play
drums because I didn’t want to pay for a studio drummer,” - Tom Delonge; This is Blink 182: Untitled, Garret Michael Carlson, Dudefluencer, Sep 13, 2019
3. Untitled
The album is not Self-Titled.
"It's kind of like if you have a painting that you've painted and you just can't think of a name for it. That's how we felt about our record. We felt like we couldn't think of a name to justify what just happened on that record. You know?" - Barker; interviews, Bobby Gorman, ThePunkSite (Dec 10, 2003)
"We didn’t want to label it with anything. We didn’t want to label it
with a joke title that people might expect. We didn’t want to label it
with some serious phrase that the whole record would have to somehow
relate to. We left it untitled, so it would speak for itself.”- Tom Delonge; This is Blink 182: Untitled, Garret Michael Carlson, Dudefluencer, Sep 13, 2019
4. Tattoo Artist
The album art was created by Travis Barker's tattoo artist.
"His style, incorporated into Blink's, didn’t make us too gangster: it just gave us a bit of an edge. It was cool to feel like Blink had a dangerous side." - Barker; Can I Say (2015)
5. Makeout Party
All four music videos for songs on the album feature people kissing.
6. Grandpa's Love Letters
Some of the album's lyrics include real World War II love letters.
7. Robert Smith
Robert Smith from The Cure makes a cameo on "All Of This":
"We just sent it over and he did the vocal and sent it back," Delonge says. "To be honest, we weren't even sure it was going to happen because he was taking so much time with it. We were literally hours from having to turn [the masters] in to the factory when it showed up. It gave us all goose bumps to hear Robert's voice on our record, to hear his voice on another song, and to come to the realization that we actually wrote the music to it, because it sounds like a Cure song. We were jumping for joy when it was all said and done." - Delonge; Seriously, Blink 182 Is Growing Up, Washington Post (Jun 10, 2004)
8. Action
The album's opening track "Feeling This" was almost called "Action":
""Action" just sounded kind of dorky to us. Like we would always call it "Feeling This" and then someone at our label, I think, like wrote it as "Action" one time and sent out singles to people. And it was always supposed to be "Feeling This."" - Barker; interviews, Bobby Gorman, ThePunkSite (Dec 10, 2003)
9. Get "Down" Homie
The music video for "Down" features over 100 actual ex-gangmembers.
A media company called Suspect Entertainment helped cast the authentic looking actors as a way of getting them off of the streets and keeping them out of the "thug life."
10. "Love Cats"
"I Miss You" was inspired by "Love Cats" by The Cure.
“I’m a really big The Cure fan, and one day I was listening to their song ‘The Lovecats,’ and I loved the idea of using a stand-up bass guitar and jazz brushes. So what we ended up doing was writing a song with all acoustic,” - Tom Delonge; This is Blink 182: Untitled, Garret Michael Carlson, Dudefluencer, Sep 13, 2019
Sources:
Barker; Can I Say (2015)
interviews, Bobby Gorman, ThePunkSite (Dec 10, 2003)
Seriously, Blink 182 Is Growing Up, Washington Post (Jun 10, 2004) - https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31210-2004Jun10_2.html
This is Blink 182: Untitled, Garret Michael Carlson, Dudefluencer, Sep 13, 2019 - https://dudefluencer.com/this-is-blink-182-untitled/