Travis Barker drums through new blink-182 following ankle injury
Travis Barker has been quite busy over the past few months, but not even a broken ankle can keep him off the kit.
Following the injury sustained earlier this month, the blink-182 drummer took to Instagram to share a snippet of potential new music from the trio.
Read more: Frank Zummo drums up first solo single—listen
Earlier this month, Barker shared news of the injury on his Instagram story, stating “Unfortunately not an April Fools joke. I’ll still be playing every show booked and this will merely be a bump in the road for the next couple months.”
Barker stayed true to his word and hit the studio to continue work on blink’s upcoming album alongside Mark Hoppus and Matt Skiba. This week, Hoppus shared a clip of Barker, stating “blink-182 studio life.”
Barker also shared a clip, stating “left foot still works.”
More on blink-182’s upcoming album
The upcoming blink-182 album may go in some “completely weird directions,” according to Hoppus. He says he hopes to guide the anticipated eighth album into artistic territory akin to the band’s untitled 2003 full-length, an album where musical experimentation first consumed the outfit.
“After playing in this band for 27 years, I want to push it and do different things and take blink to places where we haven’t been before,” Hoppus explains. “We’re really trying to do that on the new record. We want to do with our band what we did in 2003 with Untitled, where we take our foundations and go off in completely weird directions.”
Barker echoed the sentiment shortly after, stating blink were about 70 percent done with the more experimental upcoming album in February.
“I feel like this is the closest we’ve come to something like blink-182 since that album, which is one of my favorite blink albums by far,” he says. “With this album we’re reestablishing new songs, new rhythms, new ideas.”
To get more specific, he talked about how songs on California have brother-sister records to older songs like “Rock Show” or “First Date.” However, songs like “I Miss You” and “Feeling This” can’t really be compared to any other tracks, which is what he feels like the new record sounds like.
At the time, he also teased when fans might be able to hear the new songs, saying possibly April, May or June.
“That’s the target. It’s kind of loose. But I feel like it’s happening right around there,” Barker said.
The following month, Barker reveled the whole album should be out by the time the band hit the Warped Tour 25th anniversary show’s stage in Atlantic City, emphasizing the self-titled vibes again.
“It’s kind of anything goes. It’s the same vibe that was that was going on when we did the self-titled. Literally anything goes,” Barker says in the interview. “I think we’re creating one of the most important blink albums, so I’m really proud of it.”
“It will definitely be out before the Warped Tour,” Barker continues. “I think we’ll be wrapped up right after the time we play Back To The Beach.”
Additionally, after teasing the potential collab on his Instagram story, Barker confirms the band’s forthcoming effort with Pharrell. In fact, Pharrell is one of three producers working on the upcoming record, alongside John Feldmann and the Futuristics.
“So Feldmann has been working on the record, but I’ve also been doing a lot of writing at my own studio and then bringing it to Feldmann.” Barker says. “We’ve also worked with Pharrell on the new blink album. And we’ve also worked with this other producer The Futuristics, which is a team.”
Hoppus also shared an image of Barker this week, tagging Pharrell in the background to further confirm the collab.
blink-182 are scheduled for a handful of festival dates with a full list below and tickets here.
Dates:
04/27 – Huntington Beach, CA @ Back To The Beach
06/29 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Warped Tour 25th Anniversary
07/14 – Quebec City, QC @ Festival d’été de Québec
08/09 – San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands
See more: 10 pop-punk shows we wish we could have gone to
[envira-gallery id=”194483″]
