Travis Barker

Travis Barker gained his widest recognition pounding the skins for the long-running pop-punk group blink-182, yet he steadily widened his musical footprint across multiple decades by performing with outfits such as the Suicide Machines, the Aquabats, Transplants, +44, Box Car Racer, Goldfinger, and others. A tireless producer and songwriter, he also supplied his sharp, high-energy drumming to numerous recordings by Yelawolf, $uicideboy$, Vic Mensa, 03 Greedo, XXXTentacion, and Lil Nas X. His instantly identifiable style appeared on electronic releases by Krewella, Steve Aoki, and Datsik as well as pop tracks by Skylar Grey, P!nk, and Avril Lavigne. Following a near-fatal plane crash and lengthy rehabilitation in 2011, he unveiled his first solo album, Give the Drummer Some, an all-star affair boasting more than two dozen contributors that reached the upper reaches of the Billboard 200. Throughout the ensuing decade he maintained an unrelenting pace, juggling blink duties with a steady stream of cross-genre sessions. Entering the 2020s he issued joint projects alongside KennyHoopla, UnoTheActivist, and Jack Kays.

Born in Fontana, California, in 1975, Barker received his initial drum kit at age four from his mother, who actively supported his musical development. During childhood he experimented with trumpet, piano, vocals, and skateboarding yet always gravitated back to percussion. The day before he entered high school his mother passed away, but not before urging him to keep drumming; he heeded that advice and eventually secured a touring slot with ska-punks the Aquabats, who frequently shared bills with the rising blink-182. When blink’s original drummer left in 1998, Barker joined permanently, completing the trio responsible for the commercial breakthroughs Enema of the State (1999) and Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001), releases that together sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.

As internal tensions mounted within blink, Barker participated in the first of two side projects, Tom DeLonge’s experimental Box Car Racer (later, in 2005, he would form +44 with Mark Hoppus). He simultaneously launched independent ventures, co-founding the hybrid hip-hop/punk outfit the Transplants with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and appearing in an MTV reality series alongside his then-wife. After blink issued its fifth, self-titled album in 2003, the band entered hiatus, freeing Barker to concentrate on outside work.

Diving into styles far removed from punk, he recorded with the Black Eyed Peas, T.I., Johnny Cash, Outkast, the Game, Paul Wall, and numerous additional artists. In summer 2008 he teamed with longtime friend DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) to create the duo TRV$DJAM. Months afterward the pair survived a private-plane crash caused by a blown tire; they were the only two to live through the incident. Barker endured months of hospitalization while Goldstein succumbed to an overdose the following year. The experience sharpened his priorities, and once physically capable he returned to the kit and resumed recording.

His long-planned solo debut finally arrived in 2011. Give the Drummer Some showcased an extensive roster of guests—Lil Wayne, Pharrell Williams, RZA, Raekwon, Tom Morello, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Kid Cudi, Tech N9ne, Cypress Hill, and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor among them—and debuted inside the Billboard Top Ten while also peaking at number two on both the R&B and rap charts. Later that year blink returned with Neighborhoods, their fourth consecutive Top Ten album. Barker continued branching out, adding Britney Spears, the Glitch Mob, Wiz Khalifa, and Jeezy to his résumé; one collaboration with Yelawolf yielded the 2012 rap-rock EP Psycho White.

While blink worked on its seventh album, Barker appeared on tracks by Xzibit, LL Cool J, Run the Jewels, Krewella, and Skylar Grey. He also published the memoir Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums. In 2016, with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba filling DeLonge’s role, blink-182 released the widely praised California, their first Billboard 200 number-one album in fifteen years. Amid a broader pop-punk resurgence, the band toured extensively before returning to the studio. Ahead of the follow-up, Barker contributed to Lil Nas X’s “F9mily (You & Me),” Halsey and Yungblud’s “11 Minutes,” and the Machine Gun Kelly–Yungblud hit single “I Think I’m OKAY.” Additional standalone tracks surfaced in 2020, among them “Drums Drums Drums” with Wiz Khalifa and “Forever” featuring Run the Jewels. The collaborative effort Might Not Make It with UnoTheActivist, originally slated for the prior year, surfaced in October 2020. Across 2021 Barker appeared on Willow Smith’s “Transparent Soul” and delivered further joint releases, Survivors Guilt: The Mixtape with KennyHoopla and My Favorite Nightmares with Jack Kays.