Tom DeLonge Gets Emotional As He Says ‘We All Came From Really Disturbing, Broken Families’

Angels & Airwaves singer and former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge recently gave an interview to Rock Sound via Zoom. During the interview, the musician got quite emotional while talking about coming from disturbing and broken families.

Back in 1992, Tom DeLonge founded the band Blink-182 along with Scott Raynor and Mark Hoppus. The band rose to prominence with their successful records and energetic live shows. In 2005, DeLonge quit the band and caused them to go on a hiatus until they reunited for their 2011 album ‘Neighborhoods.’ Following that, in 2015, DeLonge left the band again, and Matt Skiba joined the band as his replacement.

Blink-182 used relationships, suburbia, toilet humor, and teen angst as lyrical themes in most of their songs. Hoppus, DeLonge, and Skiba carried the songwriting duty, and their lyrics were kind of autobiographical and teen-centered. Moreover, the band’s mid-career albums such as ‘Neighborhoods’ have a darker theme, dealing with things like depression and loss.

Talking about Blink-182’s music career, Tom DeLonge revealed his thoughts on the band’s songs. He recalled the time when he heard their ‘All The Small Things’ at a restaurant and said he wondered how people connected to this song. Following that, the musician claimed that people did not connect to the song but the reality of what they are.

Following that, Tom got emotional while saying that they all came from really disturbing and broken families. Then, he recalled his childhood memories which included domestic abuse and ‘broken family sh*t.’ The musician also revealed that their escape was to play fast music to express their frustration.

Tom DeLonge told Rock Sound in the interview that:

“When I’m at a restaurant, and Blink’s ‘All the Small Things’ comes on, and I sound like I’m four, I wonder, ‘How the fuck did people connect to this?’ But what they connected to is not the song – I think the people connected to the reality of what we were, which was the whole package. We all came from really disturbing, broken families.

I got kicked out of high school, and there was domestic abuse, and then there’s fucking all the broken family shit, and gangs, and Nazi skinheads fighting anti-Nazi skinheads, and us trying to navigate that, at least myself. So our escape was really fast music because we’re fucking pissed but really funny, and fucked-up and offensive, because – fuck you, fuck you, fuck you…”

You can check out the full interview below.