Remember The Warped Tour? (with Mark Hoppus of Blink-182)

[Music] Hi, I'm Vanessa Bayer and this is my brother, Jonah. We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood and nostalgia and how shaped us into the people we are today. Who are really feeling this when it comes to today's episode? Welcome to How Did We Get Weird. [Music] So Jonah, I'm really excited. I know we're both very thrilled about our guests today. Yes. Yeah, and actually, I guess he and I are kind of old buddies because we did a live show together. I did his radio show a couple weeks ago. So I guess I'd say he's one of my best friends. Yeah, that's incredible. Well, yeah, let's get right into it. We can talk about your relationship. Today's guest musician, producer, best-known as a bassist and vocalist for Blink 182, his memoir, Fair and High 182, which was written with our friend Dan Ozzy, will be released on April 8th. Mark, how's it going? Great. How you doing? What's up? Hi. I should say, you're Mark Hopps. You're my cop. I got, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am Mark Hopps. We forgot to put that in the intro. Right, right. No problem. So, yeah, so how is it going? How's your day going? My day is great. I got up early. I went to the gym. I worked out. I did weights for an hour. I came home. I did yoga for half an hour. I took a shower. I sat in the sauna. I did a cold plunge. Now I'm doing your thing. And it's only 10, 30 in the morning. Wow. Wow. Do you have the, the home setup, sauna, cold plunge? Oh, that's the thing. I do, yeah. Is it? I mean, it's tiny. Yeah, it's like, it's literally like, you know, just a little pod that I sit in that gets super hot. And then a cold plunge. But I love it. Yeah. What do you do? You do a minute or two? How long do you do the cold plunge for? I do two minutes. I'm not trying to like impress anybody. Yeah. Do you go over the line? Just telling people that you did a cold plunge is enough of a flex. You don't have to go. Yeah, I did it at 36 degrees. For sure. Jonah was doing a cold plunge at a museum for a while. Wasn't it each? There was an art exhibit out here where you had to jump into a cold hole and stay in it. And yeah, I did that for a while. Yeah. How is that art? I'm interested in that. Tell me how that's art. That's a good question. I wasn't involved in the curation of it. But it's contemporary art. Yeah. Modern art museums can kind of get away with a lot by being like, it's art. I was on Instagram yesterday, scrolling Reels. And there was a guy in a suit who was from a very prestigious museum. I forget which one. But he's talking about when guests came and they ran at the corner in 2006 and they saw this exhibit that our artists put together. They were flabbergasted. And it's literally an installation with a bunch of fake trees and plants. It looks like you're in a forest. But they have robot humans like having sex with the trees and having sex with the ground. Was that your exhibit? Was that the thing that you got into the cold plunge for? Maybe that'll make it to your town soon, Jonah. It's probably on its way. Yeah. Wait, where's your town? Where do you live? I live in Western Massachusetts. Oh, cool. Almost Vermont. Yeah. But I used to live in New York for a long time. And we have a lot of mutual friends, Brian Diaz and Dan Oyee. Oh, cool. Yeah. Nice. But, um, yeah, the book is so incredible. And I was wondering, yeah, what, how does it feel for it to kind of be finished and be coming out into the world and everything? What's that like for you? Scary, exciting. These are all things that like I never talked about before. I felt embarrassed about putting out into the world. My parents' divorce struggles with anxiety, depression, and things like that. But I'm really excited for people to hear the story of "Linquanity II" because it is my favorite band, Tom and Travis are my favorite people. I've had the highest highs and the lowest lows with those dudes. And so to tell this story was important for me. And now that it's all going to be out there, I have moments where I'm so excited and so stoked. And then moments where I just panic and I'm like, "Oh my God, why did I do that? Why did I say that? Should I have said that?" But whatever, it's all out there. And it's all true. Yeah. And one thing I really appreciate, and I think Dan was a perfect person to write this with you because Dan is also so funny. And there's obviously so much kind of darkness and trauma in the book, but it's also very funny. Like I found myself laughing a lot. Great. That's awesome. I feel like that's the point in the book. My goal with the book is to tell the story of "Linquanity II" and to tell my story and to make people laugh, to make people think. And hopefully my loftiest goal is that people that don't even know who I am or kind of just know who Blink is, read the book and like it because as a band, we've gotten to do some really cool stuff. Can I curse on your show? Absolutely. Yes. I've got to do some rad shit over the years. And to have that in the book and to share it with Tom and Travis, yeah, I'm stoked for people to read it. Yeah. I found as a music fan too, as someone very involved in kind of punk and everything. So interesting how you guys ended up on MCA. I was always curious why you never put out a record on Epitaph or fat rec. And it seems like you were kind of planning on doing that. Didn't seem very intentional, I guess. It wasn't intentional. We were really at one point like we played a show at the whiskey. Brecker, what's came backstage, I gave him the biggest hug. You better be ready to put out a great Blink or any two record. We're coming home, baby. Like we were so ready to go to Epitaph. And then cargo records, the india label that we were on was being bought by MCA. And MCA is like, we're not letting Blink go. And in fact, if you want like Epitaph, if you want to buy Blink out of their, you know, one more record that they have with us, it's going to cost you whatever it was, like a million dollars. Something that was so preventatively expensive that they couldn't afford it. And so at that point, we were like, all right. And then we went and met with MCA. And the people seemed genuinely interested, at least the core people that were signing our band. And we're like, all right, we're going to go full on and do the major label thing and do it on our own terms. Wow. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. So I'm curious, Mark, like what were you like as a kid? Because I have to say, your music is so to me, and I'm not trying to make you feel old. But your music to me feels so nostalgic. Like a lot of a lot of the Blink stuff is like sort of like the soundtrack of my high school years and stuff. And it's really, it's such, it's so incredible. And it just, but I'm just curious, like when you were a kid, what were you listening to? What were you watching? Like what was kind of, what were your interests at that age? When I was a kid, like 10 and younger, I was a super nerd. Like I did grade in school. I loved reading. But my parents loved music and they loved comedy. So I grew up listening to Dan, sorry, George Carlin. Yeah. Records with my mom. And like watching Richard Plyer, prior standup with my dad and Robin Williams and all these great standups were always being watched. Every time you know, when cable pardon me, Jesus Christ. When when cable became a thing and you could get like comedy specials, like we would watch all the comedy specials and they love music and we listened to Donna Summer and Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers and like all these great Simon and Garfunkel. I remember them having Simon and Garfunkel records. So I grew up listening to a lot of really great pop music. Michael Jackson off the wall. That kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I'll go ahead, Jenna. I was curious. Moving up a little bit, you know, you talk about being in 10th grade and your kind of goth phase and being very into the cure and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You like full on like like wearing like nail polish like all. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. By the time I got to like my junior year, I would come to school in black eyeliner, red lipstick, painted my nails, hair stuck up like Robert Smith. Yeah. I went full in. And were you the and you were the only one, right? Or were there other other there were other like goth kids or a handful of goth kids. But I was the only dude at my school that rolled into metal shop wearing lip stick. And how did you remember how it felt like were you did you the first time you did it? Did you feel scared? Like how did it I'm just curious how it felt for you? It was funny. I thought it was I thought it was. I don't know. I was scared a little bit, but I thought it was funny and I thought it was like a big fuck you to the the vibe at my high school. But I did. I remember like rolling into metal shop. Lipstick was first period lipstick, black eyeliner, hair all stuck up. And my teacher coming in and saying, all right, today we're going to do some metal work. We're going to talk about art. Mark, what the hell? What's wrong with you? And me being like, it's just who I am. It's just me deal with it. Wow. Yeah, I mean, so much to me about especially the early part of your life in the book is like you kind of figure out your identity like getting into skateboarding and the styles, like, you know, wearing that kind of style and then getting into Goth and then obviously the punk stuff so much of it. What was it like kind of revisiting those periods of your life for the book? It was great. It was great and it was funny. And you know, when I was in junior high, I tell a story in the book about how my dad let me pick out my own clothes for the first time for school. Like I could buy whatever I wanted and he's like, here's your budget. And Miami Vice is really popular at the time. And I went so hard. Don Johnson Miami Vice, you know, whatever, like pastel t-shirt, sport coat, you know, baggy pants rolled up, boat shoes rolled up to school the first day and people like, what the hell are you? - I love you. (laughing) That's just who I am if I get into something I go full in for better and worse. - Yeah, Jonah was kind of like that too. Jonah used to dye his own hair. Like his back was sort of like look like a crime scene 'cause there was like hair dye and all this stuff everywhere. And then his hair got so like damaged and crazy that our mom eventually took him to her salon. - Yeah, that's cool. - To get this hair professionally dyed black. Even though he had this beautiful like dark red hair, but he wanted it to be black. - Oh, see I liked all the different colors. Like I liked the blues and the greens and the purples and the bright pinks, but to do that, you had to bleach your hair. And so I would bleach my head so much that my skull, like I would get chemical burns on my scalp and it would weep pus for weeks afterwards. (laughing) - But I bet it looked good with the lipstick. - It looked cool. Yeah. - Did you ever have like a jinko phase? Was that popular? - No, no. - I didn't get into the jinko jeans at all. By the time the jinko jeans were popular, I was born to just wear an all black everything. - Yep. - Banty shirts. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I wouldn't have come. - Johnny used to wear such big jinkos that it looked like he was floating down the hallway at his. - Yeah, that's true. - That's true. When it comes to some of the formative kind of punk bands for you getting into that, what is, you know, descendant seems like a big one. - Descendants. - Yeah, that was the first one. - Okay. - Descendants. So when I heard descendants, I don't want to grow up for the first time. I was floored, it was music I loved. I went to my friends who listened to punk rock music. I'm like, I want more of this. And so someone gave me bad religion's suffer on cassette. And that blew my mind. And I went to the local record store and I showed them my cassette of, I don't want to grow up. And I said, what else do you have as like this? And they gave me Sonic Youth. I mean, yeah, Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation and Social Distortions Prison Bound. And both of those records are insane and amazing. And from there, like just started getting into all the SST bands and big drill car cruise bands, things like that. All these Southern California punk rock bands. - Do you also, I'm curious like, because I think of you as kind of like, obviously you're very funny and you have kind of a comedy background as well. Do you, what kind of comedy, like were there funny shows and stuff you were watching as a kid or as a teenager? Do you remember like, - I mean, when I was growing up, like the comedy, there were only three channels. Like Fox wasn't even, Fox wasn't even a real channel until I was in high school. So when Fox was on and they actually had the Simpsons, like that was a big deal. Like we would watch the Simpsons all the time. But during the week, like we would watch, you know, the Cosby show. Or we would watch, you know, like whatever was on TV 'cause there was only three channels. - Right, right, right, right, right, yeah, yeah. That's true. - And you are your fan, like I think Brian Textome you had posted like a meme of Vanessa from, I think you should leave. - Oh yeah. - And I was like, oh man, Mark Hopper's nose who Vanessa is, like we should try to get him on the show. Is that a show of Tim Robinson, you're a fan of that type of humor as well? - Oh, totally, yeah. I didn't know about Detroiters when Detroiters was on. I didn't know about Tim Robinson until I think you should leave. And that was one of those things where I was watching it and I was so blown away. It was like the first time that I watched Pulp Fiction or some of those movies where you like, this makes total sense in a way that has never made sense to me before. And it is so creative and so like mind blowing, but in comedy, like Pulp Fiction I was watching it. I'm like, you can tell stories like that where you jump back and forth and everything, like how does it end and where does it start? And then with that thing you should leave, it starts off with the strange premise and then it just evolves somehow into something that's so far afield from what you were expecting in the first place. And then it just hard ends. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. - And I was like, oh my gosh. And then you know, your skit just blew my mind and was so funny and so right at the same time that I think it's one of the stand. I think your Sunday, Sunday, one, I think the Brian's Hat, court scene one is genius. Like the loaded nachos, like there's just some great sketches in there. Yeah, that just, yeah. When I was sick with cancer, my mom came to take care of me because my family had gone on vacation. - By the way, we have to talk about this. We've all had, we all have had some form of you. I know you had lymphoma, we both have, I had leukemia, Jonah has an adult form of leukemia. Like we're all kind of in the same boat. Anyway, go ahead. - It's like the worst club to be part of, but I'm honored to be here with you guys. Like, you know, somehow like cancer people, like we find one another and we can bond because you can't really talk to anybody about cancer like this kind of stuff that hasn't gone through it. And most people don't want to talk about it. And they're just like, oh, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. I know it, you're gonna be great. And you're like, I don't know if I'm gonna be okay. Anyway, when my mom came to take care of me and for my fourth, I think, chemo treatment, I tried to show her my stepdad, I think you should leave. And I was dying, laughing. And they looked over at me like, are you okay? (laughing) Is this a cry for help? - Jonah, did you show our mom anything when she came to take care of you when you were getting chemo? This was probably like five years ago? - Yeah, probably, yeah, about five years ago. No, she stayed with us, she stayed with me and my wife for a few weeks, but yeah, I don't remember showing her any television, but I think she would have probably had a similar reaction to I think you should leave. It's yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's very specific. I don't know. Love it, love it, and hold it like religiously and people that don't get it or like, I just don't get it. - Well, that's, I mean, that's where we met. We both did the, I think you should leave live show at the Greek and that was so cool meeting you there. And what was so crazy, I worked with Tim. I actually know Tim Robinson and there were a lot of people there that we knew from Chicago. I knew him from Chicago and he was at Second City Detroit and then in Chicago and I knew Zach Canaan from SNL and Tim and Zach used to just write such funny stuff on SNL and a lot of times it would make it to dress or hustle or something and then it wouldn't get in. And like, their stuff was just so, it was almost like too specific for SNL or something. But anyway, the point is, so they were, so they, you know, they would kind of had, you know, would get stuff on SNL sometimes, but then often would just, you'd be like, "Oh, I'm so bummed they're thinking, didn't get on," or whatever. - Yeah. - And then, you know, they created, I think you should leave and a lot of, especially the first season, I think a lot of it was stuff that they had tried to get on SNL and hadn't gotten on. Although, - Oh, I was just saying. - Yeah, yeah. So, 'cause there were some things that like, I'd watch the show and I'd remember from our table reads and stuff like that. And- - Like what? Like which ones? - Like, I'm trying to think, there's one in particular, now that you're asking me, I'm blanking on it. - Okay. - And I do a poll. - But a lot of- - I'll save you by this. Does your hat have an extremely long bill, or is it just the way the camera's facing? That, when you turn sideways, your hat bill look like, like, comically long. I guess it's just a camera angle, I don't know. - I think it's the camera angle, but- - Okay, sorry, I've been rough to your story twice. Sorry about that. (laughing) - But anyway, they, but then to see like, that show just really like took off. And I think, you know, I, I, you know, I think they started doing that show. It got such a following that I don't think I realized until we were at that show at the Greek, and Tim came out on stage, and he got like, such a crazy like, first of all, the whole theater was sold out, it was packed, and he got such a crazy like standing ovation that I was like, oh, this is huge. Like, I didn't realize how huge the show is and how huge Tim is now. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Well, the jokes on, the jokes on, I think you should leave, and you should have ended the vernacular of like, you know, quotes from Fletcher or Caddy Shack or things like that for me and my friends. - Yeah, I mean, it's really become like a cultural thing. And I will say, you know, I was on SNL for seven years, and nothing gets, no sketches that I ever did on SNL get brought up to me as much as that one sketch that I did on I think. - Because it's so good. And you sold it so well. And it's just like your joy of trying to impress your friends and being on the joke is so well done. - That's so nice. I mean, what happened was they had me memorize some stuff and I was doing it with those two women who were so funny. And then they're like, kept giving me more stuff and they're like, we're just gonna write it onto the phone. So I'm just reading stuff. A lot of the times I'm reading stuff off of the phone for the first time. I'm kind of just, I've just looked at it for a second and I'm reading it off the phone. And I was like, you got, and I said to them, I was like, this is so funny. I don't know. And they were like, well, you're making it funny because you're, I guess I was asking, I was saying everything sort of like a question and they were like that. - Totally, yeah. That's what's so genius about it. You're like, here's what I'm trying. This is cool, right? And they're like, you're not tracking. - Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, they're just such funny guys and it was cool to be a part of it. And now, I think they have a new show that they're doing for, I think for HBO maybe or Apple or something. And they're just, I'm just so happy for them. And I think we talked about this, but they're also from such different worlds. Like Tim is from Detroit and the improv and comedy scene there. And Zach was on the, who he created the show with is, it was wrote for the Harvard Lampoon and was like, it was from a different end there. Just, I think that's one of the coolest things about us and else that it brings together people that would have maybe not found each other otherwise. But the fact that they, then went off and did their own thing and it was so it's so great. I'm so happy for them and so excited to see the next thing that they do. And then you see like a Super Bowl commercial and Tim's in the Super Bowl commercial. Was he in a Super Bowl commercial? Yeah. For like a, for like some kind of snack chip or something. I was like a UFO. You know, this is the first year that I ate in a while that I didn't watch the Super Bowl and I exclusively watched the Super Bowl for the commercials. Oh, you don't follow the sport. No, a little bit once, you know, we're from Cleveland. So if the, but have the Browns ever been in the Super Bowl in our lifetime? I don't remember. I don't know. But I don't remember who was in the Super Bowl last year. Like as soon as the season ends, it's like, you know, it's a wrap. All right. Let's start all over. Yeah. What was the thing? What are the Marlins? Are they baseball? Marlins are baseball. Yes. Okay. Because I remember one year that the Cleveland was in the World Series and everyone in Cleveland was eating Marlin. But then everyone who what, what cities are the Marlins? Florida. Yeah. Everybody in Florida was also eating Marlin. Like like to us, it meant we were going to beat them into them and meant they were going to win. They were celebrating. Yeah. Celebrating eating their mascot. So the real loser was the, actually, the Marlin. Yeah. Yeah. That's sad. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with Mark Hopper. And we're back. Mark. So yeah, we wanted to get into into it today with today's topic. Warped Tour. I know you talk about it in the book, Fahrenheit 182. Blink played in 96. Was at the first year you were on Warped Tour? Or what was it? It was. It was the second year that the festival had run. They had done a run the year before. It was like no doubt. I forget to sublime. I think was on it. It was a handful of bands and they went to a bunch of cities. But it was, I think the year that we did it was when they first started to get more ambitious and bring a bunch of skaters and BMX riders. I think the year, I don't know if it's the first or second year we did it, but there was a, we wrote it on a bus with a professional yoyoer. Yeah. There was a guy. It wasn't a guy named Steve. Was it. There was a guy. Okay. There was a guy. He was so great at doing yoyo stuff. And so yeah, that was kind of the first year that they took big swings and it was awesome to be a part of. It's the greatest tour that you can suffer through. Yeah. Because that tour is suffering for your art. Yeah. So I actually worked on the tour from 02 to 05 for alternative press. So I did. I was on a sponsor bus with like 22 people. And I think, you know, I would imagine for blink, like what was the reaction like in some of these like Bozeman Montana or some of these kind of smaller markets, I guess. It was great. You know, for you would roll up every day, wake up on the bus, try and find something to eat, try and find a clean bathroom, which you could never find. Figure out what time of the day you're playing. Sometimes we would play when doors opened at 11 o'clock or 11 30 and sometimes you're playing at six o'clock at night and sometimes you're playing blow off it, you know, whatever it was sundown. So then you find your equipment, you set up, you go and you sit in the hot sun and a tent, you sell merch, you talk to people. There is no escape from the noise ever, ever, ever. There are five bands playing. There's skate things happening. There are people talking to you. There's people getting sunburned and yelling and afterwards you are always amongst semi trucks and fleets of buses just idling the generators running the engines running just nonstop noise. That's what I remember about the Warped Tour nonstop noise. Dirty boogers every single day or in like parking lots and dirt fields. So you come like at night, you just have like dark brown boogers and always trying to find water. There's never water anywhere felt like a felt like you were just in a desert. Yeah. We had the canned water. This might have been maybe by then. Wow. Fancy. Wow. Jonah must be nice. It was pretty fancy. So this was and this was like post chest art crap, but treasure cap a pre-dood Ranch, right? Is that okay? Yeah. I was right in that era. You know, dude ranch came out in 97. So the first Warped Tour we were on, Cheshire Cat. And sometimes we play a show and people would know us and sing along and sometimes it was like we were trying to win people over, but we were a baby band at that point. We had no business being on that tour. We couldn't draw enough people. I mean the draw on that tour was Pennywise for sure. On those early tours it was Pennywise, no effects and you know a bunch of other punk rock bands. And we were baby, a baby band on that tour. It wasn't until like 99 when we had lined on anima the state that that we were the draw. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I felt like you know when I was there, I was so intimidated by people like Fat Mike or Fletcher, these kind of like larger than life characters. What was it like for you? Did those feel like your peers or did they feel like your heroes or what was it like? At that point, you know, at that point we'd become friends with Pennywise and they had supported us and taken us on tours and we'd become friends with them. But they were mentors and heroes of ours. And you know Fletcher, for as intimidating and gnarly as he is, he is the biggest supporter of young bands and up and coming musicians and the scene in general. And being on the warp tour and being part of that and being friends with Pennywise taught me a lot about the way that punk rock bands and the punk rock community support one another from within. Like if you get your chance to shine, you bring your friends with you Pennywise, you know, was playing large clubs and small theaters in Australia and they brought us on tour there for no reason at all. Other than they liked us, they paid for our airline tickets to go over there. Wow. Like why would you why would they do that? There's no reason for them to do that except that they're cool and wanted to support the scene. You know what's funny is that when I think of Pennywise, Jonah had this Pennywise VHS tape that we used to watch all the time and the only penny, the first song that I think of is the intro song that's like, and we are Pennywise, we are punk rockers. Do you know what I'm talking about Jonah? I remember it was a breakfast of champions VHS. I don't remember that song though. Well, I know that's not what most their music is like. That's what I think of it. I think of them. It's just like really gentle band. They're not a very gentle band at all. I mean, how do you look back? I mean, obviously Blink now touring is such like a large operation. I mean, how do you look back on those days playing like, you know, 10 shows in a row, no days off, just like, what does it bring up for you? I guess kind of a most joy joyous memories. I mean, it was hard. It was hard touring. It was hard work, but we were young. We had there was a unity of purpose and everything that we did like as a band. We just we didn't have anything else. We wanted to be on the road and touring and playing songs for people and meeting other bands and look like we just wanted to be gone all the time. Put us on the road, put us in clubs. We'll play for as many people as we'll pay attention to us. So those early tours are, I just remember the good parts. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we had sort of, you know, I had kind of my own kind of scam going at Orp tour. It was just that when Jonah, Jonah was always working and I would go visit him when he was working there. And I would meet all these bands that he knew and I would sign headshots for them. And I would do this with them where I would like sign headshots and write like keep reaching for the stars and you might just touch get to touch. Monday might become one, I believe. You might become one. And like, I would do it with them. Yeah, with all these big bands, I would be like, just because I and Jonah would let me it was like Jonah was always a big supporter of mine and like, with like comedy bits and stuff. And I would just, and I would do that. And some of them like motion city soundtrack put it in the front of their tour bus like that's cool. And they had it up there. Yeah, I would, I would really get a chance to do like really dumb bits with these huge bands. That's also yeah, so that was always really Mark. I actually just had a flashback. I think I was on Whirp tour when you came out when motion city was playing and did your bit on that song, that album. Oh, and hang man. Yeah, in San Diego maybe. Did that happen? I don't know for the San Diego or Ventura. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I came, but yeah, I love motion city soundtrack. And that's another thing that I love about our community like getting to produce a band that I love like motion city soundtrack found them on. I am movie love their band put them on BlinkWinity two tours tried to mentor them as best I could produce a song saying on a song of theirs did another record with them. And I love motion city soundtrack. They're just such great guys and awesome musicians and I was glad to glad to be part of it. Yeah, incredible. And then you know, I wanted to bring up the song Rock Show. Obviously that song references Whirp tour directly. Was that a song about Whirp tours? It just kind of about more general just concert culture. I wrote that song because I was pissed off at my manager because we were writing take after pants and jacket and we thought we had written the best post hard core post emo rock record all edge like you know, any other state was like pop punk and we'd done all this stuff and we'd you know, all the small things was TRL. We were on MTV and do a like all this stuff. And then for take after pants and jacket, we were like we are all black everything. We are Fugazi. We are you know, and so we wrote all these songs that our manager came into the studio and was like, where's the fun time punk rock go have fun with my friends during the summer song? And I like mean like we all stormed out of the studio. I went home and I'm like, you want to you want a happy fun time song? And I wrote the Rock Show and I'm like, you know, hey, hanging out behind the club on the weekend and that wrote that song and Tom went home and wrote first date as like, "Fuck you, here's your fun time song." And those are the first two singles on the record. Wow. Incredible. Yeah. And something else in the book that's so interesting about San Diego is like, you're talking about Soma and the Casbah and sort of like the punk scene versus this kind of like John Reeves kind of swammy records. And like sort of like that kind of being the cooler scene in a way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Totally. The newvo grunge scene in San Diego in the early 90s was totally taken over. The music industry had sucked Seattle dry. Anybody that had a flannel shirt and a guitar got signed. And all the talent had been gone from Seattle or taken up. And San Diego was like this breeding ground for this new kind of grunge kind of like rockabilly edge to it kind of cool guy stuff. And that was really taking off. You know, rock it from the crypt was signed to inner scope and the Casbah was the epicenter of like this cool new scene. But that was all 21 and up. And none of my friends could go there. And we were all skateboarders and we were more into like punk rock and no like we wanted to see face to face and no effects and green day and all these other bands. And that was all taking place at Soma, which was an all ages club downtown in the worst part of town. Just the dirtiest punk rock like burner club ever. But it was our heaven. It was awesome. And there were two different scenes. There was like a 200 up scene and there was under under 21 scene that was all punk rock and everything above that was, you know, the cool guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead Vanessa, please. Oh, it's just going to ask as you mentioned TRL. I just was curious because you're I feel like the music videos that you guys had that were on TRL and that stuff were so iconic. Did you? What was that experience? Because you seem very comfortable on camera and being funny. Like were you having the time of your life? Was it weird? I just wonder this about bands because you do have to kind of lip sync to your song. And is that I'm just curious what that experience was like for you because you seemed so comfortable doing it. The videos are being on TRL. I guess the videos that were on TRL, but also honestly curious what it was like to be on TRL. It was great being on TRL. We just felt like total fish out of water. Like what are we doing here? This is this is as corporate as it gets MTV TRL. Yeah. You know late 90s early odds like Carson daily, Destiny's child, you know, what else? Carmen Electra. Yeah. Backstreet boys like these huge artists and here we are three skateboarder punks from Southern California. We're like, Hey, what's up? It was fun. It was awesome to be in the same rooms as these people who were just being shown everywhere. They were just their art and music and images were just ubiquitous everywhere you heard them. And then here comes Blink when 82. So that was fun. And then making our own videos, you know, Tom and I have always tried to one up each other with jokes or who's going to say the most ridiculous thing or who can be on kid like who can make the better at the whatever. And so we love being on camera and the early videos, you know, like M&Ms video or the Jocy video or what's my Higgin all the small things man overboard like those videos are silly and funny and and Tom and I have always been like, if you put a camera on us, we'll give you something funny. Yeah. That's great. That's the feeling you get watching them. Yeah. We love it. It was great. And even when I didn't believe in the videos, like I thought the all of the small things video was a dumbest idea. I went to everybody in the band. I'm like, this idea sucks. But it was like, no, no, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. Just trust us. And I went to label I'm like, this is not us. We're not a pop band. Like, and I didn't know any of the stuff. Like I didn't know the Britney Spears video. I didn't know the backstreet boys video. I didn't know the instinct stuff. So what we were mocking was foreign to me. But I've, you know, Tom and I again were like, let's just make it funny and do false teeth and act weird and like, you know, Tom sitting in a toilet in one room. And that was just Tom being like, what if I'm sitting in a toilet in one shot? That's amazing. That's so great. Yeah. It seems like you guys are always having the time of your life in those videos. So that's really cool. When you put it, when you put us in the room together, like even now is grown men, when we're on tour and we find ourselves like, you know, in the same room and hanging out with all the hotel lobbies and airplane lobbies or waiting areas, whatever. Like we, it's always fun. They're my best friends. Just hang out. It's such a good friend that you've known for so long and be able to be together when you're doing that. Like, still get to work together. And that's so, that feels like you guys have such a special relationship. And it's, yeah, we do. And it's great. It's really cool. And then first got back together, you know, in 2022 or when we first started touring and we'd be in the same room and be laughing and stuff. And I'd notice out of the corner of my eye, people were in the room with us. And they were just like, flabbergasted that it was clicking and that even after all the animosity and the highs and the lows and, you know, all that our band has been through, that we still get in room and just make dick jokes and make each other laugh and try and bond like that. Like we did. Silly. It's dumb. It's a dumbest jokes and it's a dumbest shit, but we love it. It's so interesting. It's so interesting the dynamics between the members too with kind of like Tom leaving the band and coming back and leaving and everything that happened. It seems like every time things were going really well, there would be some kind of crazy event that would happen. And then you guys would bounce back even bigger almost. It's strange and it is such a blessing and an honor to have people still care about our band after all that we've put everybody through. We've canceled, you know, we've had to cancel tours. We've broken up twice. We've gone highs and lows and here's a new drummer. Oh, here's a new guitarist. Oh, here's a new, you know, like we've broken our band several times and come back and people still give us the benefit of the doubt and hopefully we've earned it. But it is like a real something that I cherish that people still care about our band after all this long. Yeah. Absolutely. I think another quick break and we'll be right back with Mark Hoppiz. And we're back. Those are my favorite commercials I've ever heard. Those are great. So good, right? Yeah. Yeah. Quite entertaining. So Mark, now we're going to play this game called Change.Dork. Change.Dork. Where basically we go on Change.org and we find petitions that are either nostalgic or whatever but we just change.Change.org is full of petitions that you wouldn't expect to be on there. So basically we're going to read three petitions that we found on there and at the end we'll say if each of us had to sign one of the petitions which one we would sign. Okay, cool. Okay. And all three of these are like two reels in a fake or whatever. They're all real things. Okay, cool. They're all real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jonah, do you want to read this first one? Sure. First one is called Get Blink when I Tude to perform at the Super Bowl half time show. For each. I would not sign that one. I don't know. They make a pretty good argument. Yeah. But as a longtime Blink when a two fan they've not only created unforgettable music but significantly shaped as person's personal life journey. They've sold over 50 million albums worldwide, a testament to their enduring popularity and impact on the global music scene. Yes. It's literally our booking agent put that together for sure. What do you think? Would you sign this petition? Is that something you would ever be interested in? What are your thoughts on it? I would be honored to be asked to play the Super Bowl. I don't think that I would want to play the Super Bowl. That's one of those things that I feel like you can. All the best you can do is break even unless you do something phenomenal that is going to floor everybody. I really like Kendrick's performance at the last Super Bowl. There are a few iconic Super Bowl performances and then there are ones that like don't age well. What was that? The Creed one where there's people flying through the air and there's like, you know, it's like the can you lift me? Yeah. And like he's wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey and there's literally like trapeze artists flying through the air and stuff like that. And it age well. Did you cross paths with Creed when you guys were touring against? I'm sure we have. We, yes, we've crossed paths with everybody when we've toured, especially back in the days of like the big radio festivals where you, you know, you'd be on, there was a whole season where you would just do nothing but radio festivals. In the summer, you would do all like the summer bashes and the, you know, the whatever, the wild barbecues and the rock and roll, peer party. And then, you know, everybody had their holiday festivals as well like the, you know, the broken Christmas ball and the whatever. Yeah. So we would, we would see all kinds of acts depending on which radio station was playing it on. Sometimes it'd be pop acts, sometimes it'd be rock acts, sometimes it'd be all heavy metal bands and then blink. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. And then it'd be intense to like sit at a picnic table with. Yeah. A flinch with. But no, I'd be honored to ask to play the Super Bowl, but I don't know the Blink or any two would be able to put together something that we loved enough to put on that scale that would, because you have to appeal to whatever it is, a hundred and something million people watching you do your thing. Yeah. I don't know the hundred fifty million people would like what Blink or any two would put together for it. Well, it's also so scrutinized to your right. You're under such a microscope. Yeah. I think you'd do a great job. Vanessa, would you, you would sign it? I might sign it. Yeah. I would sign it. Yeah. Okay, this next one is bring back old hot topic merchandise. So hot topic chain is a chain mall retail store that sells merchandise related to pop culture and they've always been known for selling products found in alternative culture. So this person's complaining because in the last few years, it's dwindled down to Disney and anime products. People feel disappointed as they're selling plushies, shirts, pants hoodies and all of this anime Disney stuff. And although hot topics merchandise revolves around what's in, a lot of us agree should carry more products for alternative subcultures, including corsets, rubber bracelets, band shirts of more alternative bands instead of pop stars, trip NYC layering items, studded belts, et cetera, anything that's found in the alternative community. I couldn't name them all here only a few examples, but what they used to carry in the late '90s to mid 2000s. So they want the goth, email punk, e-girls. I think we got it. Yeah. So please sign this to, and leave a comment suggesting merchandise hot topic should bring back or create. What do you think? Yeah, totally. Hot topic should not be a toy store. It should be like, you know, it should be like your first stop on your entry into goth and punk rock. Right. Like when you're transferring from normal person, you're dabbling in a little bit of, you know, listen to the cure of the smiths or, you know, some punk rock bands a little bit, you go in there and you get a my chem t-shirt, and you get some manic panic hair dye, and you get, you know, a studded bracelet, and you go home and say, fuck you mom, it's not a phase. (laughing) Yeah, I agree, you know, and Mark, you know, I wonder if you can speak to like, pre-hot topic, like it was like hard to find this stuff. You had to mail order it or go to like a special store. Yeah, right. You'd have to go to like the back of a magazine in mail order, even. You could, yeah. Well, where I lived in California, we had to drive two and a half hours to San Bernardino to a store they're called Thrash, and Thrash sold Doc Martins, and they sold manic panic hair dye, and they sold, you know, a big, gothic cross necklaces, and they sold bondage pants, and they sold all this cool stuff, and you walked in there, and you were like, I hope I'm cool enough to shop here. Yep, wow, that's really, yeah, Jonah, I got Doc Martins 'cause Jonah had Doc Martins. And don't, do you remember when we were a little, everyone would go like, if you get Doc Martins in England, they're like 20 bucks. (laughing) I don't know, I just remember kids being like, yeah, if you get them in England, they're really cheap. Anyway. Yeah, I remember there being a rumor that, you know, in the UK, they were like really, like worker shoes, shoes meant to be comfortably, like worn, walking around. Like they were shoes by punk rockers that were out trying to scare people. They were just like comfortable shoes. We have bouncing soles. It's comfortable when you walk. Yeah. Yeah. As an adult, I've been in London and gone into like a store to be like, I wonder if these really are 20 bucks and guess what, they're not. They're not. Anyway. Okay. So it sounds like Jonah, you agree with this too. Yes. All right. So this third one is called, make skateboarding legal again. And this is about a petition. It's not in South Carolina. It's not in South Carolina that is outlawed skating on streets and sidewalks. This person's saying it's bad because this person uses a skateboard for transportation. He says it's not harmful at dangerous. If the skater knows what they're doing. Mark, what do you think about skateboarding being illegal on the streets? It should be illegal on the streets. Like there, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be able to go and like, there should be a little subversion when you go skating. That was half the joy of skating when we were kids is trying to find the curb or the Ollie bump or like the industrial complex that didn't have the security guard. And you could get there and you could skate it for a few hours at night. But we got kicked out of everywhere. And now, you know, like you go and you see all the prohibitive architecture to stop skateboarders and things like that. And I feel like the stakes have been rising the whole time. It's time to reset back to the day where it wasn't all about. Like what I love right now is that there's skate parks everywhere and I credit Tony Hawk. And I credit Tony Hawk so much with bringing skate parks everywhere and stand up for skate and his whole thing. And I love that kids have a place to go and skate and hone their craft and find their people and find community in skateboarding. And then if you're gonna go and you're gonna skate a mall or if you're gonna skate an industrial complex, like there should be some fear. There should be some like, you know, like the dog catcher in cartoons coming after you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if it's allowed, it's sort of like what's the yeah. - When you watch videos of like skateboarders in San Francisco bombing hills and they're just like going 30, 40 miles an hour down these giant hills on a skateboard and they're running red lights and stop signs and their friends are trying to like stop on coming traffic and things like that. That is crazy to me. - Yeah, Jonas, I went down like a YouTube rabbit hole of just people bombing those hills. And yeah, it's like unbelievable. And they start kind of wobblers. - Yeah, the speed wobbles are the scariest feeling and I can't even, there's nothing akin to getting speed wobbles. When you are going way faster than you know that you can stop and you know that if you hit a pebble or a crack in the pavement or you get the speed wobbles too bad, you're hurting yourself real bad. - Yeah. - This is the first time I've heard the term speed wobbles and it sounds terrifying. - No way. - Yeah, it is. - Yeah. Jonas also gotten into these brothers that they - Oh, the Durham brothers. - Yeah, they make a lot of - I don't know the Durham, the Durham or Durham. - Durham, Durham, D-E-R-N, they kind of, they'll like turn their whole house into like a skate park and they'll like put flat down the stairs and they'll - Yeah, awesome. - And like off the top of that. - A lot of stuff off the roof, yeah. (laughing) - I love it. The only skateboarding comes up with these rikes. Only the underground culture comes up with these awesome ideas. Skateboarding has spawned so much art and culture and things from my generation that I think goes so largely uncredited. But yeah, like cool shit happens in skateboarding that comes out years later. Like Jackass was born a skateboarding. - Yeah, right, right, right, right. - No, it's totally true. - Yes, so Mark, if you had to sign one of these, one of these petitions, get Blink-Winity to perform with the Super Bowl half-time show, bring back old Hot Topic merch or make skateboarding legal again. Which one are you gonna sign? - Hot Topic all the way. I'm going all in on Hot Topic. Let's get weird again, Hot Topic. Obviously the customer is driving, what people buy Hot Topic will sell. So we need people to come back into the subcultures. We need people to buy my Cam T-shirts. We need people to buy like a nightmare before Christmas merch. - Yep, yep. Yeah, I'm gonna agree with Mark here. Yeah, let's get some wallet chains. Let's get some of those like striped socks. Let's bring it back. I think it needs to come back in person shopping. Let's do it, Vanessa, what do you think? - Yeah, because Mark, I want to support you because you don't want to play the half-time show, although as most things in life, it would be nice to be asked. - Yeah, it would be, totally. - Yeah, I would love that. - Yeah, it's nice to be asked, but I'm gonna go with Hot Topic too, because I agree. I think it would be cool to go in there and get some pennywise phrase. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's about time. So Mark, anything else we're wrapping up here, anything else you'd like people to know about the book or anything you have going on or anything you want to promote? Obviously the book is probably the big thing. - The book is the big thing, but yeah, I just like talking with you guys and hanging out and feeling, it's been like a week's as I've hung out with Vanessa, my best friend. - Right, right, yeah, best friends. - So this is nice to catch back up. And it's great to meet you, finally, Jonah. I've heard a lot about you and obviously, like you said, we have a lot of mutual friends, so it feels like a good hang. - Yeah, such a fun hang. - And again, the book is so incredible. I encourage everyone to check it out. This is not a spoiler, I texted Dan. There's a reference in here to, we didn't start the fire. - There is. - And it is so funny. And so it made me laugh out loud and I texted Dan and he was like, very happy to hear that. And it's hard to make people laugh from a book. Like you don't have the time. - Oh, thanks. - You know, there are so many times like jokes like that, or I just wasn't expecting it and it was very, very funny. So. - Oh, that's cool. And it was great riding with Dan. Like he was a foil to me as an author, like, you know, Tom and Travis are to me in the studio where we're just bouncing ideas off of one another and I'd write something and he would make it better. Or like he would take something that I said and turn it into this whole thing. So yeah, I really enjoyed working with Dan. And thank you. I'm glad that the jokes are landing. - Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, thanks so much to Mark for joining us and everyone for listening. If you enjoyed that, please subscribe to the podcast and keep it out for next week's episode of How Did We Get Weird, where we would discuss more stories from our childhood and cultural touchstones like The Warped Tour. Thank you again, Mark, so much. - Yeah, I'll see you at Hot Topic. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)