Stay together for the kids...or do what you like.

Perhaps anything from the early 2000's gives you a shudder as all the embarrassing pre-teen memories come flooding back; well it is your fault for staying up late. But you'd be lying if you said you don't have at least some degree of nostalgia for the band that accidentally comes on at parties, the one with the whiny lead singer who everyone has to imitate when he sings: "Orl thu smorl theeengs!".

I know what many of you are probably thinking. A post about Blink-182? What is this, 2004? But no, we're still firmly stuck in the beginning of 2015. Unfortunately I was of the few whose pre-teen curiosity got the better of them and I am now cursed to love and defend this band until I drop.

I suppose some back-story is necessary. Blink returned to the music scene after a 6-year hiatus in 2009. Appearing at the Grammys, Travis Barker proclaimed on-stage that "We used to play music together, and we've decided to play music together again". Their return resulted in numerous tours, a 6th studio album, and an EP.

Unfortunately, about a week ago, I woke up to the news that they'd broken up for a second time. Once again, Tom Delonge (lead singer/guitarist) had decided he couldn't do it anymore, he'd sent an email through his manager to Mark and Travis that he simply was not going to work on Blink projects indefinitely. I'd always had a soft spot for Tom and his contributions to music as a whole; obviously this left me pretty disappointed. 

This led to a night of sitting up late refreshing each members twitter pages until someone gave me any iota of news on what on earth was going on. General abuse and confusion was being hurled around, and I wanted some clarity to it all. Honestly, losing your heroes is perhaps the closest feeling to being dumped that you could imagine.

Then Tom posted his "LETTER TO THE FANS", that was essentially an explanation on how he had been pressured by his band mates into unrealistic deals. For example, he was asked to help write an entire album in 6 months - which would mean cancelling contracts, missing deadlines, and scraping side projects. I have no doubt that any musician reading this knows that writing an album in 6 months would lead to nothing less than impassionate babble. No self-respecting fan would accept some conveyor belt-produced garbage just for the sake of it existing.

Mark and Travis have been quick to go on without Tom, temporarily replacing him with Alkaline Trio guitarist Matt Skiba and chastising Tom for being 'ungrateful' in a recent Rolling Stone interview. Once again, both have driven to demonise Tom for wanting to do something at a different pace than they do. Tom is now the member who appears not to care about the band and is nothing more than a deluded Bono wannabe, while of course Mark and Travis are the down-to-earth punk rockers who's focus remains solely on Blink (how's Jay-Z doing Travis?).

While I do think an argument exists for cutting people off who say they're interested in you yet everything they do shows the complete opposite, I also hold to the idea that fixing things and staying together for the people who value you is more important than leaving your legacy on the floor in pieces.

"Rather than fix the problems, they never solve them, it makes no sense at all"