We were all pleasantly shocked when Tom DeLonge decided to re-join Blink-182, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more shocked about the reunion than Mark Hoppus, who just feels lucky to back on stage at all. In a recent interview, he revealed how chemotherapy forced him to “re-learn” how to be a musician again.
Talking with his bandmates to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Hoppus explained that he was certain he’d never share a stage with DeLonge again following the band’s highly-publicized fallout — that is, until, Hoppus was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma back in 2021. Though Hoppus said he and drummer Travis Barker always stayed in touch, it was cancer that brought DeLonge back into his “tight-knit” circle.
By September 2021, Hoppus was cancer-free, but it took a while to get back to normal: “I was still fucking hollow, just a shell,” he continued. “[I had a] shitty, weak brain eaten with the chemotherapy and pain and everything else. And then getting back in the studio to make this record was like learning how to play bass again.”
Hoppus went on: “The chemotherapy wrecked my vocal cords. I had to go to work with a vocal coach. I had to rebuild my throat. I had all this stuff had to rebuild to get to the point where we could go and walk on stage at Coachella and have one of the biggest shows of our career and have this album, which — touch wood — is one of the best albums we’ve ever written.”
DeLonge also chimed in about how Blink-182 helped Hoppus kick cancer’s ass, likening the diagnosis to the deadly plane crash that nearly killed Barker back in 2008. “I remember sitting with Mark at his house and it was just very much like, ‘You’re sick,'” DeLonge said. “‘We’re going to get you through this and we’re going to make the best music we ever made. Let’s do it. Let’s have a North Star.’ I wanted him to have a North Star.”
Thankfully, it sounds like Hoppus is feeling a lot like his pre-cancer self these days, gushing: “It feels like the best time in the band in forever.” Check out the full interview below.
Following that surprise set at Coachella 2023, Blink are currently scheduled to tour through spring 2024. Find tickets to their remaining shows here, and for international dates, visit viagogo.
