Green Day and Blink-182 may get along just fine these days, but there was a time back in the early 2000s when the two bands had a pretty intense tour rivalry.
Speaking to NME about the 2002 Pop Disaster Tour, Blink-182‘s Mark Hoppus opened up and shared that it was a “strange” experience for his band to be playing alongside their heroes as equals. “That was very strange because I grew up listening to Green Day,” Hoppus said. “I literally waited for the day that ‘Dookie’ [1994] came out, and I was in line waiting to buy it.”
“I was a huge fan, then we’re touring with them, but it was a weird thing where Green Day were dipping at the time and Blink were ascendent,” Hoppus went on to share. “We were billed as co-headliners, but Blink were closing every night, and that was a strange sensation for us. Headlining over your idols is a little strange.”
After releasing some smaller, independent albums in the mid-late 90s, Blink-182 broke into the mainstream with the 1999 album Enema Of The State, and then continued their climactic rise with the 2001 album Take Off Your Pants And Jacket.
As for Green Day, they’d had an epic run in the ’90s, but their 2000 album Warning significantly underperformed, which frankly makes no sense because it’s a really solid record. They would ultimately go on to leave their co-headline tour with Blink very re-energized, leading them to make American Idiot (2004), one of the biggest pop-punk albums of all time.
“We showed up, we thought we were cool, we had a Number One record [Take Off Your Pants And Jacket], we were the first punk band to ever have a Number One record, Green Day were on their way down for a little bit,” Hoppus continued. “We walked in thinking we were hot shit and Green Day walked in ready to fight – musically of course, they were super cool to us the whole time.”
“My wife and Billie [Joe Armstrong]’s wife were great friends. Billie was super nice to us,” the bass player added. “Then, when it came time to get on stage… It’s like athletes: we could be on different teams, but when we get on the field we’re going to try and kick your ass.”
Mark Hoppus Thinks Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ Was Inspired by Their Blink-182 Rivalry
“We didn’t come with that attitude, but they did,” Hoppus confessed. “They blew us off the stage the first few nights and we were like, ‘Oh shit, we have to up our game.’ Then it was this battle back-and-forth about who could put on the better show and who could win people over.”
Hoppus then concluded: “It definitely made us a better band. I think I inspired them so much they were like, ‘We have to kill Blink-182 with an awesome album called American Idiot.’”
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