AbsolutePunk recently chatted with Mark Hoppus of blink-182, check out part of the interview where Mark talks about the next blink-182 record.
It seemed Neighborhoods was a pretty natural progression from the Untitledrecord, even though it was eight years later, and then I know some of Tom’s Angels & Airwaves influences were in there as well. Do you see the next record going in that direction, continuing that stuff, or do you see it veering off and doing something completely different?
For me, personally, obviously we still have to get into the studio and hash everything out, but I want to push it edgier. I want to push it a little faster, a little harder. I want to still do rad experimental stuff, but I want it to be more edgy.
My personal favorite record of yours is the Untitled record, which is when you started to play around with song structure and arrangements a little more and all that kind of stuff. Do you want to mess around with that more?
Yeah. Not necessarily take a step backwards, but to do what we do and continue to push forward, and to add a little bit more of the angst back to it.
I also heard that you want to bring in an outside producer on this one because I know the last two has just kind of been in-house with you guys and Chris Holmes. What do you hope to get out of that and how far along are you at looking into that?
We are talking with different producers. We have a wish list of probably six producers at this point. We want to have different people come in and out of the studio for different vibes. Not necessarily to use one producer for the whole thing, although we’re definitely open to that option, but maybe working with three or four throughout the course of the album for songs with different tempos and different moods.
Are you looking more at rock producers, or pop producers, or indie producers?
All different kinds. We’re looking for rock producers. We’re looking for indie producers. We’re looking for pop producers, hip-hop producers. Whoever’s going to come and help us have a fresh take on an idea, we’re open to working with.
On the Neighborhoods record there wasn’t a ton of vocal interplay between you and Tom, and it seemed there was a little bit more of that on Dogs Eating Dogs. Is that something you want to add in more on the new record?
Yeah. I don’t think it was a conscious decision on Neighborhoods to have separate songs more than we did in the past. I always like when we use both voices in songs because Tom’s voice and my voice are very different. I think they add different textures to the songs, and I like when we sing in the same songs. It’s a little difficult when it’s love songs, because then you have a dude singing to a dude and it doesn’t necessarily translate very well, but sometimes it does.