It’s official. Blink-182 have confirmed that estranged band member Tom DeLonge is returning to the group, and as you might expect, the announcement has been met with plenty of response.
DeLonge’s career started with Blink-182, but the musician has also taken time off from the band to pursue other music, media and exploratory projects. After the band initially split in 2005, he turned his musical focus to Angels & Airwaves. Meanwhile, he’s also delved into investigation of extraterrestrial life, written books and graphic novels and has become a film director as well. And in 2015, he founded the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences to further focus on ufology and fringe science proposals.
Blink reunited in 2009, but when DeLonge’s outside pursuits conflicted with the band’s desire to push forward with new music in 2015, the group reached out to Alkaline Trio‘s Matt Skiba to fill the void of DeLonge’s absence and the musician appeared on 2016’s California album and its 2019 follow-up, Nine.
Talk of a potential DeLonge return started to heat up as he reportedly repaired his relationship with Mark Hoppus upon Hoppus’ 2021 cancer battle. DeLonge also stated in an interview that he felt it was just a matter of finding the time for the band to reunite. Back in July of this year, Skiba responded to a fan on Instagram that he was not sure he was still in the band, which only increased the speculation about DeLonge’s return. But Hoppus stated in early August that rumors of DeLonge’s return were just that …. rumors.
Now the band has confirmed the singer-guitarist’s return to their lineup with a humorous video proclaiming, “We’re coming, tour’s coming, album’s coming, Tom’s coming, Tickets on sale Monday. New song ‘Edging’ out Friday.” Watch the announcement below.
In response, the fans have been hitting social media. One summed it up quite nicely stating, “Tom is back in Blink 182 the world is ok again.” “Blink-182 are back!!!! I just regressed about 25 years!,” stated another fan. Another was “at a loss for words, commenting, “Still kinda think I’m dreaming.”
And yet another was a little specific when it came to people talking about the “original lineup” as will likely happen plenty today, commenting, “*balling my fists and practicing deep breathing* actually the original lineup of blink-182 would be Scott Raynor on drums, the line-up that’s reuniting is their most famous but Travis didn’t join until later.”
Check out some more of the responses below:
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