Tom DeLonge, one-third of Blink-182, has quit the group. The news comes via Blink’s Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, who said the group was “all set to play [the Musink festival, which Barker is curating] and record a new album,” but DeLonge “kept putting it off without reason.” They add, “A week before we were scheduled to go in to the studio we got an e-mail from his manager explaining that he didn’t want to participate in any Blink-182 projects indefinitely, but would rather work on his other non-musical endeavors.” DeLonge owns a shoe company, MacBeth Footwear, and a music-related tech firm, Modlife. He also reportedly has several movies in development and, in 2013, wrote and published a children’s book, The Lonely Astronaut On Christmas Eve. From 2011 to 2012 he also ran Strange Times, a website devoted to extraterrestrial encounters, cryptozoology, paranormal activity, and conspiracy theories.
The group’s remaining two members say there are “no hard feelings,” but insist the “show must go on” for its fans. Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba will be filling in for DeLonge at Musink, though he probably won’t remain in the group permanently.
Blink-182’s last album, Neighborhoods, came out in 2011. The group was also broken up from 2005 to 2008, with DeLonge telling MTV at the time that the break was the result of “paranoia and bitterness” among the trio.
UPDATE: DeLonge is now saying he “never quit the band,” saying on Instagram that he was “on a phone call about a Blink-182 event for New York City at the time all these weird press releases started coming in.” And, as he notes, while those releases were sanctioned by the band, he seems at least a little skeptical that things are really that “dysfunctional.”