And Matt Skiba will be joining you guys at the Musink festival. What can fans expect from the band at the festival?
Travis: It’s a three day festival of great music. Everyone from Rancid, Sick of it All, The Interrupters, Bad Religion, OFF!, Ignite, Yelawolf, and Prayers. And I’ll be playing both the Yelawolf and Blink-182 set. . Then there’s like 75 of the best tattoo artists coming from all around the world. A lot of people are already scheduling appointments. Last year, we had The Descendents, The Vandals, Gorilla Bisquits, Judge, and Strife. It just keeps getting better every year. I always try to take a step back and pick bands that I would be stoked to see if I was a kid coming to the event.
In terms of Blink-182’s performance at the festival, what will the setlist relatively be like?
Travis: There are songs that for whatever reason never made it on the setlist that we can play now, so you’re going to hear a lot of oldies that fans have been longing for. I think we’re rehearsed about 30 or more songs. I don’t know if we’ll play all of those because we have about an hour and a half set. We’ve been doing a couple covers too. I think we’ve practiced more than we’ve ever have.
There was a pretty large time gap between 2003’s self-titled and your most recent album, Neighborhoods. Can you discuss the writing process for that album?
Travis: That was the first album we did after getting back together and it was our first record since I had got out of the hospital. I wasn’t even healed yet when we started writing. I couldn’t even play drums like I had open wounds, but I was so motivated and excited to get back in the studio to do what I love. A lot of it was done through email like Mark and I would record in North Hollywood and Tom would record in San Diego.
Considering the situation with Blink-182 is a bit messy right now, are there any side projects or solo releases that we can expect?
Travis: Over the last couple months, I’ve been working on a new Transplants covers album were we cover everything from Cockney Rejects, Crass, and Blitz to Beastie Boys, Run-D.M.C. and Sepultura. So that will probably be finished and mixed within the next month. And then I just started on another solo album, which will be more rooted in hip hop. I just produced and played on an EP for Prayers. I don’t know how to describe them, they are their own genre, but there is a lot of elements of punk rock in there because each song is two and half minutes tops.
