Blink-182 deserve a place in the punk rock hall of fame if only for their song "M&Ms" and the video they made for it. You won't see it on MTV, though. Reportedly, the network's executives turned the video off when it started getting bloody, at the point where the band's girlfriends open fire on the three musicians as they unload their equipment outside of a club. "Why are you showing us this shit?" said the exexutive with the pea-sized brain. Apparently he didn't understand that the shoot-out scene, with all its camp hilarity, is the perfect metaphor for tortured teenage releationships--Blink's favorite subject matter. In the year since their debut album, Cheshire Cat, cme out, they've chalked up enough frequent flyer miles to buy a pool table and a set of steak knives. Not bad for a little pop punk band from San Diego. You've done a shitload of touring for a band with one album. Mark Hoppus, bassist/singer: In the last year, we've toured the US three times and have been to Alaska twice and Australia and Hawaii twice. Sounds like an exciting year. Tom Delonge, guitarist/singer: Yeah, but it's tiring. Then again, I just remember I used to work at this stupid job. I think about that, and I realize I'm not that bad off. What was the job? Tom: Prostitution. No, I lifted concrete for drillers. Mark: Tom had to drive this big platform truck and unload 100 pound bags of concrete by hand. Tom: Not just bags--pallets. After the forklift broke, I had to lift pallets of concrete and sand by hand. How does it feel to go to places you've never been and see people you've never met singing the words to your songs? Mark: That's the biggest flattery ever, that something we made up in out rooms is taken to heart. Does oneof you write the loves songs and the other the goofy songs? Mark: We write everthing half and half. Tom: Actually, all of the songs are about each other. I saw you roll down the sidewalk on your boards. Do you still skate alot? Tom: Not so much anymore. I was really into it up into the middle of high school, then I started working, and that took up alot of time. Mark: We're like all the other has-been kids who used to skate in high school, but we still bring our boards on the road and fuck around in parking lots when we have the time. We also like to go snowboarding when we get the chance. Tom: We got to go riding up in Alaska a few months ago. Mark: It was like a big snowboarding competition that we played at with a bunch of snowboarders who had never heard of us before. Did you enter any events? Mark: No way. Tom: I was crazy. One guy died that was in one of the other bands; he fell into a 250-foot crevasse. There was another guy in the contest who fell into a 50-foot crevasse, and he came back all bloody and was like, "Yeah, man, I dug myself out." He was all stoked. How is your girlfriend situation at the moment? Tom: No comment. Mark: The only person in our band that has a girlfriend is Scott [Raynor], our drummer. Tom: The quietest one who doesn't talk to anybody gets the girlfriend. Mark: Me and Tom are still floundering. It's hard to sustain a relationship when you're on the road all the time. Tom: That's my excuse. I don't have time for the babes. I hear you're drummer used to be a metalhead. Mark: When we first ran into him, he was. He was in 8th grade, and I said, "Here's a Descendants tape, come back in a week." Was he converted? Mark: Oh, totally. Has Scott finished High School yet? Mark: He wants to. he wants to go to college. He's the only one who actually has goals beyond the band. Tom: We think we're going to be rock stars. He could get his GED. Mark: For a while, he was taking home study. Tom: Between songs, he had to do a couple of pages of homework. What about you guys? Mark: I was in college for five years, and I was still a sophomore. Tom: He took Human Sexuality like ten times. Mark: And I failed every time. --Morgan Walker