Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, along with his bandmates Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker, are known for their sense of humour, but his 2021 cancer diagnosis left him convinced he wouldn’t make it.
The co-founder and bassist for the group has released his first memoir, Fahrenheit-182, which details his formative years, including his parents’ divorce, a lifelong battle with anxiety, and rise to fame in one of punk rock’s biggest bands.
But Hoppus, 53, was left feeling like he was ‘burning from the inside out’ from being diagnosed with stage 4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma after discovering a lump in his neck in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to Metro, the musician explained that after years of success with blink-182 and supergroup +44, he felt as if he ‘deserved’ his diagnosis.
‘I thought that people would laugh, or would think that I deserved it, because that’s how I felt,’ he explained.
‘I’d been lucky for so long, the band had been so lucky. We started off in a garage and went on to play amphitheatres, had number one records, everything you could hope for in a band had come true.
‘This is the bill I pay, I thought. Everything balances out, all the good is getting balanced out by something bad.’
Even sharing the news with the world didn’t go to plan, after the singer made his treatment public when he accidentally shared a photo of himself on a chemo drip to his public Instagram Stories instead of to his close friends.
Dosed up on medication after an infusion at the time, he explained: ‘We were driving home and my publicist called and said it had been picked up and radio stations are talking about it.
‘I called my friend who runs a radio station in Los Angeles and I wrote a statement while parked on the side of the road and listened as it was read out on air.
‘I was like, “Oh, this is my eulogy. It’s happening in real time.”’
Hoppus, who is now cancer free, discussed how his diagnosis healed his friendship with bandmate DeLonge. The relationship between the pair went through numerous separations, reconciliations, and significant changes in the height of the band’s success.
The duo were the two original founders of blink-182 in 1992, but DeLonge left the band in 2005 when the group went on an indefinite hiatus. He went on to form Angels & Airwaves before leaving the band in 2015.
His second departure from the band further emphasised the growing divide between him and Hoppus. This time, the band replaced DeLonge with Matt Skiba, a member of the band Alkaline Trio.
DeLonge went on to dedicate a large part of his career to becoming heavily involved in UFO research, founding an entertainment company named To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences which has aerospace and science divisions dedicated to ufology.
After not speaking for several years, their relationship mended when Hoppus shared his cancer diagnosis. He told Metro: ‘Writing in this book about the hardest times, like arguments with Tom or Tom quitting the band, I was trying to write fairly because I don’t want to demonise him.
‘He’s not a bad person. Tom is an amazing person. He just gets distracted sometimes and that’s what makes him great. He has these big dreams and big plans and he’s willing to pivot at a moment’s notice. One day he can just say, “I wanna chase aliens”. That’s what makes him great.’
With an upcoming tour and festivals on the horizon, the future of the band is now looking brighter than ever after complicated break-ups which resulted in Hoppus and Barker ‘hating DeLonge’s guts’ at one point.
‘There’s people that have been there since the 90s, there are people that maybe know All The Small Things and want to come to a show. I’d like to continue creating and just making art and being silly and having fun,’ Hoppus told Metro.
‘All I want do is play music and make Tom and Travis laugh.’
Fahrenheit-182 by Mark Hoppus published by Sphere available in Hardback, eBook and audio £25 out now.
Macmillan cancer support
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You can contact their helpline on 0808 808 00 00 (7 days a week from 8am to 8pm), use their webchat service, or visit their site for more information.
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