Biography
At the dawn of the new millennium, Tom DeLonge stood among punk rock's most prominent figures through his role as lead singer and songwriter for blink-182. That platform allowed him to create Angels & Airwaves during the latter half of the 2000s, while blink-182 paused its activities; the new outfit drew clear influence from the college-rock approach of U2 and the Cure. He managed to sustain both the revived blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves until their 2015 rupture prompted his first solo outing, the demo anthology To the Stars.
Two decades after Cheshire Cat introduced blink-182 in 1995, To the Stars reached listeners, though DeLonge's musical path had begun much earlier. Raised in Poway, a suburb of San Diego, he devoted his teenage years to skateboarding and punk music, picking up guitar in his early adolescence. By his late teens he had assembled a band alongside drummer Scott Raynor and bassist Mark Hoppus; after cycling through several names, the trio settled on blink-182. They issued the 1993 demo Flyswatter and the 1994 demo Buddha before signing with Cargo Records that same year. Their first proper album, Cheshire Cat, appeared in 1995 and, bolstered by relentless touring, earned them a contract with major-label MCA in 1996. Dude Ranch followed in 1997; its single "Dammit" and the group's appearance on the first Warped Tour elevated their visibility. When Raynor departed in 1998, former Aquabats drummer Travis Barker stepped in. The revised lineup delivered 1999's Enema of the State, whose singles "All the Small Things" and "What's My Age Again?" propelled blink-182 into mainstream success. For several subsequent years the band dominated pop-punk, a position reinforced by the 2001 release Take Off Your Pants & Jacket.
Internal strains nevertheless emerged. In 2002 DeLonge pursued the side project Box Car Racer alongside Barker but without Hoppus. The full-band blink-182 album of 2003 adopted a darker, more experimental tone that alienated portions of their audience. Additional rifts surfaced when Barker filmed the MTV reality series Keeping Up with the Barkers and DeLonge sought a reduced touring schedule to prioritize family. These pressures culminated in the band's 2005 breakup.
DeLonge resurfaced the following year with Angels & Airwaves, a project explicitly modeled on 1980s college-rock touchstones the Cure and U2. The group unveiled its debut, We Don't Need to Whisper, in 2006 and quickly issued I-Empire in 2007. After Barker survived a plane crash, DeLonge orchestrated a blink-182 reunion in 2008. A major tour took place in 2009, yet the reunion album Neighborhoods did not arrive until 2011; in the interim DeLonge completed the expansive, multi-part Angels & Airwaves work Love Album, Pts. 1 & 2. Neighborhoods achieved modest commercial results, prompting the band to exit its major label—by then Interscope following corporate mergers—in October 2012. The independent EP Dogs Eating Dogs closed out that year, after which DeLonge returned to Angels & Airwaves for 2014's The Dream Walker. Plans for another blink-182 album dissolved when the group split again in early 2015. DeLonge responded by issuing his solo debut To the Stars that April, an album interleaving unreleased blink-182 material with concepts originally intended for Angels & Airwaves.
Two decades after Cheshire Cat introduced blink-182 in 1995, To the Stars reached listeners, though DeLonge's musical path had begun much earlier. Raised in Poway, a suburb of San Diego, he devoted his teenage years to skateboarding and punk music, picking up guitar in his early adolescence. By his late teens he had assembled a band alongside drummer Scott Raynor and bassist Mark Hoppus; after cycling through several names, the trio settled on blink-182. They issued the 1993 demo Flyswatter and the 1994 demo Buddha before signing with Cargo Records that same year. Their first proper album, Cheshire Cat, appeared in 1995 and, bolstered by relentless touring, earned them a contract with major-label MCA in 1996. Dude Ranch followed in 1997; its single "Dammit" and the group's appearance on the first Warped Tour elevated their visibility. When Raynor departed in 1998, former Aquabats drummer Travis Barker stepped in. The revised lineup delivered 1999's Enema of the State, whose singles "All the Small Things" and "What's My Age Again?" propelled blink-182 into mainstream success. For several subsequent years the band dominated pop-punk, a position reinforced by the 2001 release Take Off Your Pants & Jacket.
Internal strains nevertheless emerged. In 2002 DeLonge pursued the side project Box Car Racer alongside Barker but without Hoppus. The full-band blink-182 album of 2003 adopted a darker, more experimental tone that alienated portions of their audience. Additional rifts surfaced when Barker filmed the MTV reality series Keeping Up with the Barkers and DeLonge sought a reduced touring schedule to prioritize family. These pressures culminated in the band's 2005 breakup.
DeLonge resurfaced the following year with Angels & Airwaves, a project explicitly modeled on 1980s college-rock touchstones the Cure and U2. The group unveiled its debut, We Don't Need to Whisper, in 2006 and quickly issued I-Empire in 2007. After Barker survived a plane crash, DeLonge orchestrated a blink-182 reunion in 2008. A major tour took place in 2009, yet the reunion album Neighborhoods did not arrive until 2011; in the interim DeLonge completed the expansive, multi-part Angels & Airwaves work Love Album, Pts. 1 & 2. Neighborhoods achieved modest commercial results, prompting the band to exit its major label—by then Interscope following corporate mergers—in October 2012. The independent EP Dogs Eating Dogs closed out that year, after which DeLonge returned to Angels & Airwaves for 2014's The Dream Walker. Plans for another blink-182 album dissolved when the group split again in early 2015. DeLonge responded by issuing his solo debut To the Stars that April, an album interleaving unreleased blink-182 material with concepts originally intended for Angels & Airwaves.
Albums
Singles
