Voice Of Post

Blink 182 Members Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus blast 'disrespectful and ungrateful' Tom DeLonge, Yesterday Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus and Travis Braker released a statement , confirming that founding member Tom DeLonge had left the band “indefinitely”. The band, famed for nostalgic pop-punk anthems What’s My Age Again and All The Small Things have already replaced Tom with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba for the band’s upcoming headlining slot at Musink Festival.

Yet somehow wires seem to have been crossed as DeLonge responded almost instantly via his Insagram by insisting that : “I never quit the band," calling the band’s press release “weird”. So what exactly happened here? Thankfully Mark and Travis have clarified a few things up for the rest of us who are left even more confused than Tom, who by the sounds of it has no idea what’s going on either.

By their account, there’s been bad blood between the band for years admitting that neither of them “have spoken to Tom in person in months”. The group has spent the past two years negotiating record deals and just as they finally signed on the dotted line, Tom’s manager tells the band he’s out. Tragically for fans, the band were penciled in to begin recording the elusive seventh studio album following 2011’s Neighbours on January 5 until they received an email to say Tom wouldn't be having any part of it.

But were they surprised by Tom’s departure? Not at all they tell Rolling Stone, because “his attitude leading up to that had been not excited and not interested.”

Travis and Mark also addressed Tom’s reaction to their statement claiming that he hadn’t quit the band at all. “He's just bummed because Mark and I were finally honest. We always covered up for him before. It was always, ‘We're going to record an album,’ then ‘Tom refuses to get into the studio without a record deal.’ So everyone does hella amounts of work to get a record deal and now Tom isn't part of Blink-182.

“It's hard to cover for someone who's disrespectful and ungrateful. You don't even have the balls to call your bandmates and tell them you're not going to record or do anything Blink-related. You have your manager do it. Everyone should know what the story is with him and it's been years with it.”

Travis then finished: “Why Blink even got back together in the first place is questionable.”

Blink 182 released their debut album Cheshire Cat in 1995 but found international superstardom with their third studio album Enema of the State in 1999. They became one of the most definitive acts of the early noughties going on to sell over 35 million album worldwide. They split back in 2005 before reforming in 2009 going on to release the album Neighbours and headline a string of festivals including Leed & Reading 2014.

The future of the band following their Musink Festival appearance remains unclear but by these comments, we;re going to guess Tom's "indefinite" departure may have become very much definite.