Travis Barker

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0:40Available on Plus and Pro plans. Getting to a great idea is hard in college. Nonsensical essays, cringe-inducing presentations, and seemingly unsolvable problem sets. But then, the first thought becomes a final thesis. Jumbled slides transform into a polished keynote, and that midterm assignment gets a lot less mid. Because the road to great ideas is littered with bad ones. You just have to keep going until something clicks. Great ideas start on Mac. Find out more on apple.com slash college. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other.

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1:55Pushkin.

2:21like yeah so many people are familiar with the skull but they don't even associate it with the band if they don't know who the misfits are you know but like wow what a great band incredible and like their music is uh like not not everything from that era i feel like would hit with kids now like if they listen but kids now who only knew the skull i feel like if they put put them if it's a misfits album on or like a couple of songs whatever maybe it would just hit instantly it You would click for him, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, it's like my son's two and a half, and the shirt when I wear it, I have like a Babylon AD shirt, and he goes crazy every time I wear it.

2:59And I showed him skulls because he always wants to know what the music sounds like, and he loves that song. So kids like the misfits. Yeah. There's certain artists like that, like they just, no matter what, like Tupac's saying, you know what I mean? Like the legacy, I think just the iconography is always big, but it feels like every generation also rediscovers the music um you know without michael jackson of course sam you know for whatever reason kids never and that's not music that you feel like kids would like either like no it's kind of like complex in weird ways or i could imagine kids thinking it's boring or something just because of it's kind of longer and it's not like i don't know i guess it could be the beat too like we were listening to my son's obsessive reggae and we were listening he loves jamming by bob marley and it was like a reggae playlist and then biggie came on and rocky just kept going more biggie more biggie and i was like okay you know i don't know if he saw the baby like the the cover art or what it was but he he he always requests it now wow so i'm not sure what it is but yeah more biggies crap dude yeah that's kids a1 you know another one of those bands i was thinking about because i saw i went back and revisited um when you and post malone did that's that nirvana live set on like live stream nirvana is another one of those bands i feel like continually rediscovered but um it was fun watching you guys play that and it's fun watching you i don't know how much how how much beforehand did you work out those parts or did you just know them or it was right when COVID happened.

4:32So everyone was locked in. No one was doing anything. And my friend, Brian Lee, who's a great songwriter and he always works with Post, he said, Post wants to do this Nirvana tribute with you during COVID. It's going to be me, you and Post. And I was like, Brian's high right now. He's tripping. There's no way we're going to learn Nirvana covers and we're going to do this during covid no one's leaving their houses he's like no i'm serious i'm like okay well have have post hit me whatever and we'll figure it out sure enough post hit me he's like yeah two days from now we're doing it did you get the set list and i was like honestly i thought brian was capping the whole time so i didn't listen to any songs but obviously we've all listened to nirvana yeah but it's very different listening to something with uh like discovery ears like you're trying to you're trying to learn it to play it rather than just listening to it so i dove in and i listened to nirvana for 48 hours straight learned however many songs we ended up playing 15 or 17 songs drove to utah there was no one on the road there was like no one on the road and got to got to the crib we we played a little bit and then the next morning we woke up and and did this the live it was wild man and post because i i really didn't know anything i also didn't know how familiar post was with nirvana right yeah that must have been the other part of it right like yeah you had to prepare but you weren't even aware of how prepared he was yeah i don't know if you've ever heard but a lot of people talk about how he was a scene kid and he was really into different styles of music and he was in bands but he killed it he sounded like kurt he knew every song it wasn't as if he was reading lyrics he knew every lyric he was like a die-hard nirvana fan so i was pleasantly surprised and we were just it was just fun that must have been a trip to play just to hear to be behind a kit counting that off and then it's like to hear that come out of him must have been insane it was incredible it was yeah it was really special and then everyone from nirvana like all the living members obviously were were so supportive and yeah it was it was really cool and we raised a bunch of money it was yeah it was a cool experience that's rad um we actually recorded a couple hardcore songs too which i'll never see the light of day why just i don't know you know it's like it's probably similar if if i recorded a rap song with you and it was just like fun and you're like it's probably never gonna see the light of day because that's not what trap does whatever but we made crazy songs while we were there too it was it was fun and like covers or originals not originals we would just jams would end up leading to these songs that we would play every time we jammed uh in between songs and then we recorded a couple of them that's cool yeah where y 'all should just go do a live at least something you know because that's um it feels like that energy is coming back too you know it feels like like guitar and heavy music in some ways it's not that it ever you know there's always been great bands around but it feels like there's a like a lot of lot of really good young bands now i think that would be cool especially with ai being you know i'm not going to be a hater about it but just knowing it's a part of music now yeah it's also really cool if a bunch of kids start playing guitars and drums and bass and are just anti yeah a computer making music for you and yeah i bet there's going to be a lot of cool things that come out of it i think so because it seems like young kids are pretty anti-ai you know like mostly like the 18 year olds i talk to are like they want nothing to do with it you know beyond maybe like asking it a medical question or something you know what i mean like yeah maybe directions or where to eat yeah i'm a big yeah i'm i'm a big fan of that but yeah i love i love music and i love music coming from the soul or or someone uh writing a song that's i don't know that means something yeah that that wins all day what's the first song that meant something to you like as a not just like it sounded good but like the song like everything about it spoke to you, lyrics and everything?

9:03I'm trying to think. There was a lot of, like Last Caress from The Misfits was like one of my favorite songs, but obviously it didn't mean anything to me. I think it was like songs maybe my mom listened to, like Tears in Heaven or something. Eric Clapton I would hear, and I'd be like, oh, that's cool. And I kind of understand the meaning behind it. Maybe some Buck Owens or Willie Nelson, My Dad Will Bump. there was also a lot of just jazz where there was no singing going on in in my household who was who was the jazz fan my pops really yeah dope so car rides now i'm so appreciative but when i was young i'm like there's not even lyrics like you know what i mean that's what my kids do right now yeah it was like fusion and it was really cool uh a lot of noodling around on the instruments but now i appreciate and i love it but when i was young i was like dad can we put on like metallica or you know or anything like the beastie boys something you know well what a gift too because like honestly and not until i saw the documentary which congratulations by the way so thank you it's a great movie and um great doc but i mean i always knew you were an incredible drummer i saw you guys first like in seventh grade the pop disaster tour and i remember just being blown away by i i think that was the tour i think you went up i think that you did like a tommy lee where it went oh yeah you did i think i think might have been the first time you started doing that it was the first time i'd ever seen it blew my mind um so i knew you were a great drummer but i never thought to dissect like how you got there and seeing how rudiments were just like you just ran those as a kid like there's a huge part of your training your drum training it made sense that rudiments and listening to jazz and having to listen to buck owens and will like all of that is because you don't play like a punk drummer really you know you don't play like robo from he's a great drummer yeah but you don't play just like that like when you listen to blink transplants or anything you do you can tell that's there but there's a lot of other feels and and things in there so um yeah i drew from just everything i'd listen to and sort of sort of like someone who i don't know if what you did at the gym was these three things you do them really well right and like that's all i had at one point you know when i was young i learned how to read jazz charts um but beyond that my teacher who taught me how to read jazz charts he's like I'm not showing you how to play Rain and Blood by Slayer.

11:44There's no way, you know, or Alex Van Halen or anything, you know? So that was all on me. So I would just listen to anything and everything, and even the radio, whatever was on the radio, and learn how to play it. Just about spending hours locked in a room playing music. You learn so much. You know, there was no YouTube or anything. It was just discovery from music I liked, copying the drums on Paul's Boutique or whatever that was a drum machine, figuring out how can I sound like that. And yeah, I think that helped me a lot. How long were you practicing each day as a kid? My parents would only let me out to go skateboarding and ride bikes and stuff if I played at least two to three hours a day.

12:31Damn. Yeah, which is a blessing, man. I think of like kids now, I guess it's kind of cold if you think about it, but I was fine. I mean, I'm playing the drums. It's not like, I'm pulling weeds. I was also pulling weeds too, but you know, yeah. I mean, I loved growing up with boundaries and being disciplined, like, yo, go do yard work, go mow the lawn, go play drums. After you play drums for two hours, you can go skateboarding. yeah that really made me who i am today and i couldn't imagine if i wasn't putting in those few hours a day playing drums um i don't know also like i was never walking around saying i'm bored or i don't know what to do or i don't know i kind of hear kids say that sometimes yeah um and i'm like go find something you love and go get lost in it it's beautiful you know yeah it's the best thing I could have ever done and I think when I experienced hardship in my life thank God I had music and drumming that was just something that was home to me yeah that I just felt so comfortable with and I was confident and that's it was it was it really I feel like it really helped me navigate just through life yeah were you a confident kid outside of music nah I always say you ever listen to Tim Grover yeah relentless and he talks about um one time I was speaking to him and he's like a lot of people they have to put a mask on to go to just go out in the world you know he was explaining it like oh like say if you were a basketball player some people have to put a mask on to go play basketball or to work with jordan and kobe and yeah yeah or to go on on stage and play guitar and i'm like i have to put a mask on to go in the real world when i'm not behind the drums i'm confident and i'm comfortable behind my drums there's no mask needed anything without my drums mask is required you know like to go into interviews to just navigate through life or just do normal stuff i feel i feel naked without my drums you know that's like that's where i'm most comfortable to this day yeah for sure and even if i don't play for a couple days like which doesn't really happen i was just on vacation and i brought a practice kit because i'm learning all these ramon songs for oh yeah you're doing a an anniversary gig yeah for the 50th anniversary so i brought a kit and i set up in this weird part of this hotel i was staying at and i just played for a couple hours every night and i feel so much better after i do that that's just i don't know it's just a piece of me how did you um just to sidetrack onto that how did you did you put on ramon songs just play along same thing as nirvana i never listened to ramon songs thinking i was ever gonna play them yeah just enjoying them and you know listening so listening to it is different actually really clever some of the things like the ramones did or the way they arranged the songs or the amount of times things happen or sometimes they'll end a song with a pre-chorus and never go back to the chorus just cool like and i i've been watching the the rainbow the rainbow uh theater concert that was in england and if you never saw the ramones you weren't a fan you have to watch that and just be blown away they're the great they're they're one of the few bands that i don't think i i probably never have to listen to again just because i know the catalog so well but anytime it comes on it's like oh so good it's like we it's like rediscovering them you know yeah and some of the songs that never got popular like so good too like yeah a lot of sleepers they're they're such an incredible band like havana fair or something oh the best yeah and tommy being like the producer too the drummer being yeah like the producer of that too like the sound of those right especially that first record those first three records are so good the sound is amazing you know who's uh you're playing that with billy joe right yeah me billy joe tim armstrong and cj cool how did um how did the tim armstrong relationship come to be i was let me see it was right after inima the state and even before that though so i grew up in a place called riverside california that's where once i was like kind of on my own i was in riverside i grew up in the inland empire like fontana san berdino corona and um i lived with my my friend bill fold who was also later the manager of the aquabats who also started coachella but he ran a a promotion company out there and a little crew called 98 posse and he promoted everything from raves to punk shows hardcore shows clubs everything so i worked i worked for bill and just did whatever he needed me to do and i used to see tim come through the barn to come to shows and so i met him way back and i was just some kid that passed out flyers at the barn and And then after Inima the State, I'd seen him a few times just around.

17:35And then I got a call on my phone. It was like, yo, Trav, it's Tim. I got this project. You've got to be the drummer. We want you to play drums. You're my favorite drummer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, whoa, Tim Armstrong just called me. He said, whatever, wants me to play drums. I remember I had a 76 Eldorado that could barely make it around Riverside. And I drove it to LA. I was like, I'm going to drive to LA. I'm going to go see Tim. and then the next two days three days we spent recording the first Transplants album at his house he had a basement in his studio where drums were set up there was like not even a light bulb in there it was like it was so it was just like that time was crazy Tim was just learning how to use Pro Tools and like producing so we were going bonkers with 808s and distorting them and probably using them way too much it was just like such a cool experimental time and we recorded that transpines album and i don't know drums were done in a day or two wow do you know what gave tim the idea to do it because i really did come out of like left field you know what i mean at the time at least yeah well he was always he was from the bay he was always listening to to rap music too like from the bay yeah like that was like one thing we always had in common and same with skinhead rob too once i met rob like everyone was into be legit like everyone was into mac dre everyone loved all the bass that was going on uh i was obsessed with drum and bass as well like goldie tim was obsessed with drum and bass and then there was just the punk rock we were all raised on yeah in hardcore music we're all raised on and transplants was this crazy mixture of it all it's funny how diverse that scene was i guess the difference is rancid growing up in the bay late 80s early 90s getting to experience all these different you know uh playing at clubs and you know mac dray might roll up or too short or whatever and by the time like they get popular in the mid 90s or whatever you know there's a whole bunch of kids that are just like locked in on that particular sound yeah but in hindsight it's like wow so many of those bands were all over the map in terms of they listened to and what they liked and for sure i think back then not everyone was really open to saying what they grew up on or listened to yeah because i think it was still the time where if you were in a punk band people expected you to only listen to punk rock music or just kind of put you in a box which was the opposite of all three of us and then you have skinhead rob who was like a homie of tim's and would tour with them who luckily had no rules he was like fuck you i'll talk about whatever i want i'll sing about whatever i want and i'll listen to whatever i want you know yeah so that that was it was just it's a good balance you know yeah i don't know if you've seen it since it happened but there's a great interview with you and skinhead rob with nardwire back in the day yeah you know i feel bad i kind of lost it on him yeah because i didn't know who he was like now and i actually love him now and i've seen all those interviews i'm like what a sweet guy yeah you know yeah and i felt like a dick but like rob and i were really high all the time and i just was so caught off guard you know um i had actually said to uh drew i was like man if i saw nardware i'd want to apologize and just be like i actually love what you do and we were on a lot of drugs and we apologize you know um it was just yeah a crazy time i hope you guys get a redo man because that'd be yeah that'd be a fun oh he's a genius like all this shit he figures out about people and all of the research he does like yeah i actually i admire what he does even in the interview you could tell part of you was like super respected the stuff he was pulling up and pulling out but you're kind of like i don't even remember you're just like because he pulled out like uh man we pulled out i'm trying to remember but he has to keep pulled something out on rob like something like old school rob right yeah we pulled out like a photo of him like in college as part of like the black student union in college yeah yeah in high school i think in high school maybe yeah like a couple of like cool like hardcore records and rap records like rob was into and then it was like i could tell you guys were kind of like well this is like sick but like what's going on yeah i think at the time too it was like i think i was especially on kind of like almost on guard because like people it'd be like oh you're you're in blink or you are are this or you have a tv show whatever so we're gonna try to fuck with you yeah and i'd be like no you're not watch this you know what i mean yeah like um and there was like i just felt like i never really wanted to do press back then because it felt like that you know i love music and i love being in a band and i love touring but all the other stuff was i don't know sometimes just makes you feel not what you're meant to do yeah you know what i mean yeah was some of that because you guys got so big so quick the press yeah i mean also we never thought it was ever going to get big right like blink you got to think like we're writing you know pop punk songs that are about like girls or friends or growing up um the banter that happens in between songs you think there's no way this is going to work to the masses yeah you know and it does and once it does and we're playing bigger shows and we're no longer sleeping on people's floors or driving ourselves around in a van, we're in shock.

23:16We also don't think it's going to last long. And we're just sort of in disbelief. That's not why we started a band. You do start a band and you hope that everyone hears your music, but we never thought people would like our band like that. We never thought it would be that big or pop radio would embrace it. We're grateful. I'm grateful for all of it. we're grateful for all of it but did we ever expect that to happen never you know when did you because it's funny in the in the doc the label at some point sat you guys down it's like you're gonna make more money than you ever thought you're you know and you're gonna be bigger and you're gonna be more popular just get ready and you guys were like you gotta be kidding me like no way yeah we're like you're high like you know like there's no possible way yeah we just didn't believe it it was tom that said that yeah tom it was yeah it was all uh it was just like a dream you know You just never, I don't know, just waiting to be slapped and woke up, you know?

24:12When did you realize they were right, though? The label was right. Like, when did that finally set in? I mean, everything was moving so fast. It was, at that time, it was playing two or three shows a day and flying from city to city. So we were just like, yeah, this is our dream times 10 come true. So let's do it all. and we were unapologetically not really switching shit around to be professional or do anything else we were just we just kept on going like we were as we should i don't know it wasn't really formula or it's not like we changed what we were doing or got in with like a new producer or got in and with writers and wrote songs with people we just kept being ourselves and and doing what we I think after Inima, we did try to take ourselves a little more seriously with Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.

25:03So it's a slightly darker album, a little more technical. But I think we really wanted to prove to everyone we weren't this pop band. Some people mistaked us for a pop band because we made fun of all the pop bands, believe it or not. they never knew that we grew up like you know touring with the descendants or pennywise or whatever bands like yeah playing playing punk shows they were like they're the backstreet boys but they play guitars because the video where we made fun of the backstreet boys right and NSYNC so that was really that was weird that was that's wild to think people didn't get the joke and they thought we were that you know um and because i guess you know too like funny enough like it was sort of you guys came along like the end of like the like if like nirvana broke things open again for rock music it's like you guys kind of came at the end of that wave and then got even like and when all like the infrastructure was built for like the boy bands and stuff so like all of a sudden you're on k-rock and then you're on t-r-l like you know i mean like that's the only other place to go is t-r-l with the backstreet where the backstreet was on the next day or whatever you know what i mean yeah i try to think back to the time it was like backstreet boys and nsync were popular and blink was popular and like limp biscuit yeah it was it was a crazy time you know super weird dmx i remember doing stuff and dmx was around and i was like oh dmx is so hard you know like i would be obsessed we'd be doing like mtv things with them whatever so yeah it was like i guess it's natural to people to push you know just kind of group things together yeah because it's also where the dmx was as big as he was when you like think about it like yeah you know what i mean for him to be also be like put on the same bill as our show was like a britney spitz like what like dmx with like it was like the height of mtv that's what they did yeah you know which is kind of fun which is cool it's fun yeah think about it now it's like incredible there's so many weird little moments and yeah and even um brad from rage yeah when he climbed the thing yeah those were the days though man like mtv was jamming right then you know um it was it was really cool that's like the first time i met wayne was a an mtv show like with hot boys so i don't know there was like a hot boys era wayne wow hard wow yeah it was in vegas and And it was some MTV, I don't know, like, you know how they used to do Spring Break, but it wasn't quite Spring Break.

27:38It was like at the Hard Rock. And Blink was playing with Hot Boys. And I just remember like meeting Wayne, like we said, what's up to each other. And Wayne was like sagging past like his boxer line. And I was like, hard. You know, the good thing about MTV and even radio shows and stuff when you play them is you'd be around a bunch of bands you're not normally around, which was cool. Yeah. This is Jacob Goldstein from Business History. When the internet arrived, most people used it to look things up. Others saw what it could really do. The same is true with ChatGPT. ChatGPT work goes beyond answering questions.

28:16Give it a goal, plus things like notes, files, feedback, data, or project plans, and it can help create a brief, analysis, deck outline, tracker, or workflow. You stay in control, reviewing the work, and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon.

29:00Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact. So on August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died the third way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hearing you talk about how it all happened and your interpretation of it, or how you experienced it, versus how it almost seemed planned, just because it did happen so fast.

29:54But then also, it felt like you guys were pretty... had it together like even having your brand famous stars and straps like i almost felt like that was just ready to go you know what i mean or maybe it was already happening anyways behind the scenes but no i was in a small little graffiti crew called voltron crew and we used to just get up wherever out in the empire where i lived and then one day i was like man it'd be cool if we you know no one's gonna buy our voltron crew shit you know like they don't they can't wear it or whatever and at the time you were either skateboarding or you're at the end of bmx or you know you were like it was nostalgic and you love bmx or you'd listen to punk rock or you'd love like wu-tang clan it was like jamming right then yeah but there was nothing that was lifestyle for like kids or for anyone that grew up i grew up break dancing i grew up like listening to the beastie boys but i also grew up skateboarding and listening to slayer so i was like what what if there was a brand that just could represent it all and that's when i started famous i actually didn't take a check from audio and hurley who were were starting brands at the time the shoe company audio yeah and they were like you know paying bands to wear their stuff i said no and i said i'm gonna start my own brand wow and that's how i started famous wow um i didn't know what i was doing i didn't know obviously didn't think know it was gonna work or if it was gonna work uh just took a a risk and just started something just like how you start a band but that was that was as i'm of the state was rolling out yeah right before i was just printing my own t-shirts um had a little warehouse where i would like play and people would uh i had a a little it was before it was a store a little spot where all the bands where i grew up could go and rehearse and just a little community like a little collective uh and then i just started screen printing t-shirts out of there wow putting them up everywhere i went i'd just go skateboarding leave with a thousand stickers come home with none um that was how i started it what was mark and tom's read on it at the time were they even paying attention to that they were like cool you're like you know what i mean like they would wear it too and yeah it was just a reflection of what i was doing where i was living like how i grew up a combination of skateboarding punk rock hip-hop tattoos was just a lifestyle brand yeah because i felt i i at the time bob hurley had started bob hurley who was he was the the person who owned the license for billabong and i loved bob but i wasn't a surfer all right i surfed a little bit when i was a trash man in laguna but i couldn't call myself a surfer or i feel comfortable wearing surf gear you know um i wasn't quite skateboarding all the time and skateboarding has always been very um really strict if you're not like a hardcore skateboarder it's like punk rock yeah it's like you're a skateboarder so i'm like yeah i grew up skateboarding but i feel kind of weird just wearing like hardcore skate stuff and that that's why I started Famous and I felt like it just embodied everything I loved.

33:20Wow. And are you still involved with it day to day and all that? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I had built it to this huge place and it was like out of control for me. I had no education in how to build a brand or manage a brand once it was built it was a 60 70 million dollar brand and i was getting offers from tommy hill figure like puff called at one point was like yeah i want to buy your brand and i'm like no fucking way is anyone buying my brand because i know what they're going to do to it and it's not like it's my it's something that's really precious to me you know what i mean that i built with this little crew of people that i mean that's why people build brands now right is to like sell it off but i was so passionate about it and it was my dna that i just couldn't let go of it it's so wild it's just wild that you had like the prescience like you kind of like i mean i'm sure you've heard it a million times but similar to you know you know you're married into the kardashian family now but like you kind of like and they're obviously business geniuses but you kind of had that playbook just by intuition early on you know but it seems like it just came natural like brand extension of you tv show music it just it felt like you were kind of owning all your lanes which is was it's like that now it's like of course like that's the plan everyone runs but you just sort of lucked into it and i have a hard time like i'm very different too than them the girls are so smart and like my wife and her sisters are they're yeah they're they're the best and they have cool brands and stuff.

35:00Mine came from a self-expression creative outlet. So I never thought, I had no business sense really. It was making money, but I was just as much as it was making money, I had to put money back into it to go make the product to fulfill the orders. And it's just me and my homies. We don't know what the fuck we're doing. We're in over our head. I'm hiring childhood friends to help me. I'm just trying to figure it out, you know? So that's kind of like where I came from with doing it. And I've learned over the years, it's something that's easier to maintain if it's like more core. And I kind of don't want it to get too out of control, you know?

35:44Yeah, it's amazing, man. I'm glad it's still around. Yeah, me too. Glad you didn't sell it. It feels like it's bigger than ever though, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I'm very grateful and it just feels authentic to me. Yeah. You know? How was the label experience early on? Were you, where you started your own LaSalle early on? I remember. I signed the Kinnison and. I was super into the Kinnison's first EP. Like debt is mortgage or mortgages, mortgages bank or whatever it was called. It was incredible. I remember hearing like, oh, Travis Barker signed them to do an album. I was like, oh shit.

36:16And that was a great album too. You know what I mean? Thank you. Yeah. They're great. Yeah. I mean, it was around the time Blink was going crazy and. different people approached me for different like business ideas and yo you want to start a label but um yeah i signed the kinnison the nervous return got to take some of them on tour with me it was a lot of fun um i now have dta records and i just signed this band called the vanity um that are really really great vanity band and um yeah a female fronted singer her name's billy she's they're they're awesome they're like david bowie queen meets mike kim panic at the disco but like female fronted and she's like a star she's awesome that's rad are you producing them no i i i completely i love what they're doing all by themselves cool yeah hands off yeah i love i love i love what's happening right now that's rad yeah i'm curious about you your work as a producer and like how that you've grown into that um it feels like that also started started it's funny because it started more in rap right like your production started in rap yeah i got skinhead rob around the time of the transplants hit me and he said bun bun needs a beat for his album bumby of yeah and i'm like okay um and i said well shit rob i uh he's gonna send me a beat and he just needs drums he's like nah he wants you to do the beat uh you got to turn it in tomorrow so i just locked in and i if you listen it's called late night creeping it's on like bun's solo album and uh and i i figured out how to make a beat with mostly organic like drum drums and and percussion and then got a 909 and just added some other things in there and some synths.

38:10But I delivered Bun a beat the next day and he rapped on it and it was killer. I was stoked. And then from there, it was, I don't know, just everyone, whoever won the beats. Like Skinhead Rob and Damu had a project and I did all their stuff. Did stuff with Too Short, did stuff with Wayne, did stuff with Game. it just that's all i was into at the time you know i think blink was taking a break so i was either playing with like different artists like played like the bet awards with ti uh and you produced on his on uh his second album yeah yeah and when i wasn't out playing with artists i'd or playing with am at the time i'd be like making beats i'd just be locked in 24 7 making beats that's so funny yeah when's the first time you produced a rock band I don't know why, but it seemed so on the nose.

39:05I didn't do it for a long time. I think the first time I did it was I helped Kel's MGK with I Think I'm Okay. And then he was like, yo, can we get in and see if we could do that again and see if it works if I got more in me? And we did, and that's when we wrote Bloody Valentine. And we started on what would be Tickets to My Downfall. Wow. That's the first time you produced rock music. Yeah. Because it was more interesting to me to do something I didn't do all the time, right? Right. And it just seemed too easy or too on the nose. Not sounding like cocky. It just seemed like, I don't know if I want to do that.

39:48Yeah. People want me to do that. Meaning, do they want me to do anything that's so close to what my band does for other people? Right. you know and then i did it and i loved it like tickets to my downfall was like my like a project i loved like it was my own with kels and same time around the time of covid where we just locked in and zero distractions and felt like made an incredible body of work and since then you have been doing like a bunch of like bands as well and and the blink the last blink record yeah i produced the last blink record produce uh an alkaline ep had just finished their album did a yellow card album uh did a horror album yeah a bunch of stuff that's rad are you doing the new blink album too or we haven't even started yet i think we're just gonna start writing and see see what happens cool what um are the songs floating around at all like from the last album or anything or there isn't there's a couple that i had pitched like to the guys but they ended up you know when like i have stuff sitting around and i play it for someone and then if it doesn't if we don't use it for a blink album i automatically none of the top line usually but everything else i bring to another project i'm doing so on the yellow card album there's three songs that would have been blink songs damn yeah did they hear them after the fact did they hear them on the yellow card No, one of them.

41:14Actually, Mark guessed it on it because Mark's like, I love that song. So Mark guessed it on it. Why wasn't it a Blink song? Just sometimes, you know, for whatever reason. I don't know if it was the end of the writing cycle and we were just done recording or whatever happened. But yeah. I was working with Jerry. Did you learn much from Jerry Finn? Because he was like. I learned so much from him. Yeah. Tell me about that. I was never in my head thinking I was ever going to produce or I could even be capable of producing. But while he was alive and while I spent time with him, there was so many things I learned just from being in the studio with him.

41:50Everything from like, he was very adamant about what snare drum you used on what songs and how to find the snare drum for what tempo the song was, was really big. uh guitar sounds and and guitars were really big arrangement ideas jerry was awesome from the first album you did with them from enemy of the state yeah were you with the band when you guys hired them yeah so i i got in the band they were touring dude ranch and it's a different i mean different style of producing because all with a band most of the songs are already written right and during that time bands you would write all your songs in a rehearsal studio have them well rehearsed then go in the studio and record them.

42:33In the state, I think that was the album where I went in, I did the drums in about six or seven hours, and then I left on a tour with the vandals to go play drums with the vandals. And then for the next two months, three months, Tom and Mark recorded guitars, bass, and vocals. But the songs were already written. It's just a matter of getting your performances right. So you were able to do in six or seven hours, all the drum tracking? Yeah, because you would sometimes even switch studios to do guitars because you don't need the drum room anymore right so yeah i would drink a bunch of coffee smoke a bunch of cigarettes and yeah record my drum parts you're jamming on that album yeah man like you're driving on that one that was such a fun album and i think i wanted to be extra good i mean i knew jerry finn's producing it or recording it like i didn't i didn't even understand what producer was at that point i was just like yo i'm gonna go in and kill it it's Also, it's my first album I recorded with the guys.

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45:03Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. listening back to um listening back to back to a bunch of blink um there are parts of big song even like what's my age again yeah and all the small things listening back there's like the the breakdowns and the pre-courses aren't necessarily the first things i think of when i think of those songs but listening back i'm like wow those are a big part of each of those songs and you really are doing a lot to carry those sections um rhythmically like there's a lot of interesting stuff happening and once my age again like the bridge is actually kind of like kind of sad it's almost like sad like an adam song sad yeah the rest of the song is like really i actually never really noticed since i was listening to talk to you i was like it's a really weird song in that way like it's super like funny and upbeat and like whatever and then it's just like there's this really kind of sad bridge out of nowhere yeah yeah well because it is instrumental an instrumental bridge it's just musical and it it's a down bridge so it gets quiet and it's like kind of pretty sad chords yeah and then it goes back to being happy again yeah and all the small things is uh yeah i mean sometimes the they gave me a lot of freedom to just experiment uh because they would usually say like look we're not gonna do guitar solos and we don't know what happens in this part just do something cool do something weird you know yeah uh tom would say do some of that crazy shit whatever and that usually meant do something offbeat or some latin inspired groove or whatever you know and it was exciting for me because i grew up playing like you know studying latin music and learning bassa novas and sambas and whatever else so i would incorporate that into into blink songs you know dysentery gary is latin drums you know um which was just me you know tom going do crazy shit and i'm like okay tom here's some latin stuff whatever did you think that they would keep that stuff or that would work on those songs necessarily even yeah i mean everything was written so i knew in the in the rehearsal room they'd be like oh yeah that's fire do that that's cool you know so i knew that was like my part yeah you know yeah it's it's so different now because a lot lot of people will write in the studio.

47:29You're writing in the studio, you're creating, and you're kind of doing it just like you would in a rehearsal room, but it's straight to Pro Tools or however you're recording. I'm still a big believer in playing though, like playing all together, because you could pretend you know the arrangement or how things go and record it into Pro Tools and all play separate, or you could actually play all together and figure out the song way quicker, because you feel what's right and you feel what's not right. You feel when parts go on too long. You feel when tempos are off. And I love that. That's rad. I want to ask you about Take Off Your Pants and Jacket too, but when I was listening back, I had the thought, because I always loved the song Aliens Exist, but when Tom brought that song in, at that time, were you aware that he was as into Aliens?

48:17Oh, yeah, from the jump. When I first got in the band, we'd get high, and he'd be like, come sit on the couch in the bus. Let's look out the window. And we'd be looking for aliens on tour, you know? Or he'd be telling me. He was always doing deep dives into aliens and UFOs and Bigfoot. That's from the jump, like from 1999 when I joined the band. Was it? And were you just humoring them from the beginning? I mean, yeah, I feel like it was a little easier for me to just entertain it because I was high. But yeah, I mean, to this day, I could see him 10 minutes before we go on. And that's what he's talking to me about.

49:07Yeah. It's incredible, man. I wish I could take that ride. Yeah. I really want to. like i love mixed martial arts and like that's my escape from music not like i need an escape but it's just like that breath of fresh air that it everything from like the discipline and the hard work that goes into it and the competitiveness everything i love everything that's how aliens are for him you know what i mean the funny thing is though like i feel like martial arts is like whatever you're practicing in martial arts it kind of transfers to music too like yeah it helps The discipline, the rhythm, whatever.

49:41The alien shit is just, yeah. I don't know how that is. Yeah. It's wild. That's so funny, man. Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, you kind of alluded to how you guys wanted to do something a little different for that. Listening back after having not listened to it in a while, I was shocked at how many incredibly great hooky songs you guys came back around with almost immediately. you know like and it's probably a stronger album than enema the state but it has all of the it retains all of the i think everything that hooked everyone about that album and then just like took it to the next level oh thank you yeah i think yeah that was the pressure of recording take off your pants is can you guys do it again can you follow up and will it be as big or bigger the story is is we we turned in the album and it didn't have first aid on it it didn't have rock show it didn't have stay together and everyone was kind of looking at us sideways being like yo where's the hits like where's the what's my age again where's the all the small things so we literally went in two days later came out with first date uh rock show and stay together i think those were the three shots three songs that we added to it last minute but yeah they actually didn't think the album was complete and they were like yo you're missing like strong strong songs or like hits so that's what we came back with wow i mean i think there's still our hits on that with those tickets but yeah adding those in is yeah people to this day you know we just celebrated an anniversary for it like even my son just hit me the other day he's like dad i just got take off your pants and jacket i never i never i never got the joke and i was like you gotta be kidding me and there's also adults that i know that have no idea like they don't they didn't get the joke.

51:33It was, it's the smoothest thing. Cause I remember that era, for instance, just trying to go get the chronic 2001 and get, get my parents to buy it. And they like, they're like, I'm down. Like, and they saw the chronic. Like, nah, we ain't going to like, yeah, but take off your pants and jacket. If you wanted to go cop that, it was like, oh yeah. Like, you know, no problem. But, and your parents don't get the joke. Just totally. It was like, brilliant. And the different versions of it. It was such a big event album at the time, you know? Yeah. And to have that joke flying under the radar. It's so funny.

52:04It's like blink humor disguised, you know? Yeah. I wanted to ask you about scenes because you came out of a pretty strong scene in the Inland Empire. You moved to Orange County, to Laguna Beach. That also had a pretty strong scene. Eventually moved to LA. You grew up at a time where there were really strong regional scenes and bands affiliated with those things. and I'm curious how much that brought to you as a musician and if you feel like that if you miss that yeah it doesn't it doesn't exist in the same way right like a scene still exists uh hardcore music is so popular right now it's so cool it reminds me of sort of like the punk rock scene I grew up being a part of just by the time I had moved to Riverside well even when I was a kid like I played Spanky's Cafe.

52:56Anyone who knows Riverside knows Spanky's Cafe was legendary. Everyone from No Doubt played there when I was a kid. They were in Battle of the Bands with my band Jinx I was in, which was kind of like a rock metal band. Firehose would play there, Minutemen, 411, Downset. All these amazing bands would play Spanky's. And then we had the Showcase Theater where I grew up. we had the barn um i saw everyone from you know face to face to like voodoo glow skulls who were like hometown heroes where i grew up and the scene was so just vibrant and alive like every friday saturday and sunday you could go to a punk rock show you could see the specials you could see madness you could see um sick of it all you could whatever you know it was like it was so it was so cool and local bands would open up for some of you know yeah yeah any of those big bands came to town you knew if if whoever bad religion was coming to town you knew they were picking openers for it i mean that was actually my job at 98 posse was to pick what bands would open for whoever lag wagon when they would come who would who's going to open for the misfits so i would listen to demos and you know just do my research on bands but that was like my dream was right in front of me i got to see it that's all i wanted to do you know yeah at the time i wasn't i wasn't booked at any of those spots i wasn't playing any of those venues um it was it was right there though and it was like something i could obsess over and and and work hard and practice every day in hopes that i could be one of those bands that are playing one of those shows yeah it's incredible man yeah it was it was cool and it wasn't until the aquabats that you got to play like showcase theater or well feeble we played we played some shows that's how i met uh chad from bhr who was also in the aquabats like he had a scop new wave band too um so that's how i met him but yeah feeble would play around we would play like punk shows and we were trash men in laguna beach so we would also play local spots in laguna that weren't punk clubs or bars but we would play our music there and everyone would come out that's how i first met taylor hawkins that's uh yeah where our friendship started so so were you warmly received in laguna yeah because it's sometimes hard on outsiders you know i mean i was definitely 909 i was wearing dickies to the beach they were like what dickies to the beach high ass socks yeah i i stuck out like a sore thumb but i think that's also why they liked me because i wasn't trying to pretend i was from there you know yeah um everyone there like noel who who invited me out there who was the singer of feeble was extremely generous and uh hospitable and uh taylor hawkins welcomed me with open arms and was so supportive even like our trash crew like the people i worked for out there were really nice um yeah i'd never really been anywhere like laguna beach where i grew up it wasn't like Laguna Beach Laguna Beach was like Disneyland or like fairy tale vibes you know I couldn't even believe it was real I'm like wait this place exists you know and I was probably doing like a job that most people wouldn't want to do it's like yeah like we're fine yeah yeah be a trash man and and uh it was like probably the the best time of my life because you're in paradise yeah I was in paradise picking up trash i wasn't i wasn't tripping it was it was nice that's amazing man what wasn't what why did you end up moving to la because you uh and what like how did that happen because so i was i was playing in blink and i was in riverside corona and then around the time transplant started uh my my kid's mom at the time was pregnant Landon and Alabama's mom, Shana, was pregnant.

57:04So I moved to LA because I wanted to be there 24-7. Did it take a while to settle in to that move? I was doing the same things. You put me anywhere, I'm going to do the same things. I'm going to run. I'm going to play drums. I'm going to make music. You could transplant me anywhere. Nothing's going to change. That's probably why everything you do works. Yeah, thankfully. because you put a lot of disparate pieces together man like you know producing bumbee records signing the kinestine blink you know it's like you think about your career it's really it's hard to hold it's hard to even think about talking to you about it sometimes because it's like there's so much such a variety of things man you know yeah i think it was just doing things like i felt connected with or i felt passionate about or i knew like i loved yeah yeah it gives me anxiety to think back if like you know some people were like dude i wish i could go back to when i was like 35 or whatever and i'm like no i don't like i'm so happy with every decision i made even the bad ones and i'm just so fortunate so grateful uh especially my musical journey you know playing with everyone i've played with and the records i've gotten to make and um yeah i the tours i've done everything everything i'm just yeah you know i'm curious about um before i let you go is like if just a scenario to throw at you hypothetical like if i were to say hey we're going to track in here in like two hours pick a kit rig it like you know get it out how you want tune it how you want like how would you set up a drum kit from scratch my kit is the smallest kit anyone would have to set up uh i grew up setting up my own drum kit obviously and i figured out from a young age i didn't want to haul around a bunch of drums so my kit is a four-piece drum kit and it has three cymbals and i don't need anything more than that i'll never need anything more than that uh the goal is to sound really big on like a really small kit so like even the trip i just went on it's like yo i'm setting up the smallest practice kit and that's all i need so i it never changes really wow yeah i always say like small kit big sound you know that's the goal that's been your kit since before blink since i started gigging yeah like since since the feeble days it's never changed i think once or twice i think there was a time right before the self-titled album that we put a gong behind me because zildjian gave me a gong and i was so excited and alex van halen had a gong and some of my john bonham had a gong and i was like i'm gonna get a fucking gong and i put it behind me but i never wanted to lug that around did you use it and i also felt like a dork making my drum tech lug it around i'm like i wouldn't want to lug it around why am i gonna make him do it so i've always just met i just try to keep keep things minimal okay simple do you do you sit down and try to tune things like if you have to sit down at someone else's kit and you're able to like how do you like what do you what sound are you trying to get out of you know uh i guess it's like cooking you know like you know what you want to add or you don't want to add same thing with like depends what i'm doing too some things call for my toms being tuned higher some things call for them to be muffled uh lately depending on what i'm doing but like big fat snare drum makes these these dampers for your kit that are amazing that just makes everything sound like a like a 70s record or like a dilla record like the drums aren't too noisy they don't feel too alive almost can disguise live drums to be programmed if they're played right you know what i mean yeah like yeah it's it's my favorite oh that's sick you're using those a lot i use them a lot yeah wow what's the story of the pop disaster tour from your perspective because it feels like that's the thing fans are always interested in and green day has one version of events mark and his book had another version what is it i don't i don't know anything about it i guess someone called someone to put the the tour together and green day's intent they say secretly was to like blow blink off the stage like they felt threatened almost by you guys and in mark's book he's like yeah we thought we were just gonna go out and tour with the band that was like like we looked up to and like we're like you know we were just kind of getting to be big like they were and we thought it'd be like fun and we're supposed to co-headline but then like they seem like they were pissed didn't like us or something yeah and so it feels like uh i don't know like there's two different perspectives on it but i think i had a different experience probably um i mean at the time blink was big you know and i think green day might have been in like hibernation mode or writing or something yeah and then And I know internally as a band, we had always said, be cool for us in Green Day Tour, it'd be crazy.

1:02:05I think the world always tries to pin us against each other. The truth is Blink didn't even practice for that tour. We would never practice. We would go out on tour and not even practice once. We went out there and we didn't even have a fucking banner. Okay? and we got out there and green day had pyro and like crazy shit that's how that's how like inexperienced we kind of were as a band right like we're just like yo we're gonna go up and play those songs like we've always played like we did at the club i think that tour for me and if i had to speak for our band was like a good uh like eye-opening experience of like oh you play different when you go out and you play big arenas and you play big amphitheaters we should have a banner we should have production i think that was our tour where we had that realization you know as far as personalities with the band so i have a like my this is like what my dressing room looks like with but instead of guitars it's drums so every day i'd be in there practicing playing making something even bring out a little studio billy joe started coming into my room every day I was like can I jam with you and I said yeah of course we would jam every day of that tour like maybe a week into it then like Mike brought his bass amp in and me Billy Joe and sometimes Mike would be jamming every day just making stuff up?