(Gibson) Blink-182 are back with a new album, Neighborhoods (out September 26), and a cross-country tour. So, what took the guys so long to put together the album – their first collection of new material in eight years? According to bass player Mark Hoppus, the band needed to get reacquainted as friends and bandmates, and that's chiefly what took so long for the reunion to happen."I think it took, first of all, reconnecting as friends after not having spoken for about five years. And then it took getting back into the studio as well as getting back out on the road," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"It definitely took time for us to kind of put all of these different pieces back together to run the business appropriately," added frontman Tom DeLonge.
Hoppus went onto assure fans that Blink-182 is "our priority" – well above any band members' side projects – and that the guys plan to stick around for the long haul. more on this story