Tom DeLonge ponders alien reactions to blink-182, Angels & Airwaves

Tom DeLonge has teamed up with Luis Elizondo for a six-part series on the History Channel called Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation. 

DeLonge and Elizondo sat down with NME to discuss the show, blink-182 and what he thought about the band dedicating “Aliens Exist” to him at a recent show.

Check it out below!

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The former blink-182 member and current Angels and Airwaves vocalist opened up on the transition from “saying obscenities” to being taken more seriously.

“I would always tell my team: ‘You’re dealing with a punker.’ I’ve spent decades running around saying obscenities and offending people, doing whatever the fuck I wanted to do. That’s the name of the game where I come from – carving your own path and not caring what anybody says. Then all of a sudden everything I say matters to the credibility of something so important I can’t even really begin to digest or understand the extent to which this is going to change our world. But all the conversations my team and I have are very evolved and self-aware.

“Believe it or not, we have very long conversations about what we’re going to talk about publicly, not because we don’t have the facts – but because people aren’t ready for the facts.”

DeLonge also dives into the negativity surrounding his decision to leave blink, and how many believed he had left to “chase aliens.”

“People didn’t really understand why Blink and I had the issue. People didn’t understand the inner-workings of a band. All they saw was that I’d left the band to go and chase aliens. But at the time I couldn’t even tell my band members who I was meeting and working with – important people who don’t put themselves in the public. So I had a long period of being groomed to take the shots and to take the bullets. But I don’t care what people think because I know what’s coming; they’re gonna come back and say, ‘Sorry, man, for saying that – what do we do now?’ And I’ll say: ‘My team and I already have a plan for that’.”

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During their tour kickoff, blink dedicated the track “Aliens Exist” to DeLonge, something he found to be “awesome.”

“It was awesome that they did that. I talk to the guys and we’re all good friends still. We’re like brothers. It’s cool, them doing that. It’s funny because for so many years, when we were traveling, I’d pin those guys down in a backstage dressing room and go, ‘Did you know this! Did you know this!’ It’s funny because I know they were annoyed by it but I was talking to Travis not long ago and even he was like, ‘Man, I can’t believe how far you’ve gotten!’ I said, ‘I can’t believe it either to be honest!’. That song that I wrote has a life of its own but it’s really interesting to hear it now, 20 years later, and think about the company that I started.”

In what might be the most important question, NME asks if DeLonge would play Angels and Airwaves or blink-182 in order to show aliens what earth-music sounds like.

“Oh my gosh! I would have to play Angels & Airwaves because they would recognize the space-prog sound. If I played Blink they wouldn’t get the jokes. They would probably get really offended and start an interplanetary war.”

Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation kicks off on the History Channel August 26.

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