Mark Hoppus – We’ve lyrically progressed in ‘Neighborhoods’

        Blink-182 bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus has claimed the band’s most recent album ‘Neighborhoods’ has some of the best songs they’ve ever written.
The pop-punks returned with the album, their first in eight years, last September. Speaking to NME, Hoppus revealed the band were mindful that they’d “gone out on a high” and didn’t want to put out something that “sucked” after reforming.

        - We’d been gone for five years, and by the time we put out ‘Neighborhoods’ it had been eight years since our last record, so we didn’t know if people would care or not. But the response has been great, and people love the record, so I couldn’t be happier about it.

Hoppus also expanded on his recent revelation that the trio have already started on a follow-up.
       - I’ve started writing. We haven’t, as a band, started getting together and working on new material yet, but we’re always writing. I have no idea [of the sound], it’s still so new. When Tom and Travis get their hands on it, it changes completely.

Blink-182 are gearing up to play a rescheduled UK and Ireland arena tour this summer, which had originally been set for last summer.

- The record wasn’t done, and we said we weren’t doing another ‘greatest hits’ tour, Hoppus continued.  We don’t want to be another band that sits back and says, ‘remember all the cool shit we did 15 years ago?’ Everyone was yelling at us to just take the money and do the tour, but we said we’re not coming back without a new record, so we took two more months to finish the record, and I think some of the best songs we’ve ever written were in those two months.

Blink-182 will kick off the jaunt at Birmingham NIA on June 7 before taking in shows in London, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow and the Eden Project.