Muzach

It's a little more than a week until ANGELS & AIRWAVES release their third full-length, Love, on Sunday, Feb. 14 (for free, natch). The album will also be accompanied by a film that will see a theatrical release later this year, plus a deluxe edition of the disc for purchase. We did a quick check-in with AVA frontman TOM DeLONGE to see what all the Angels & Airwaves attention means for new BLINK-182 music. --Rachel Lux

"Blink are in the process of scheduling how we are going to record the next record. We already started before the tour, the only issue we're having now is that Angels are having quite a lot of electricity being built, so we have kind of the release of our life, and with this film and everything, we're just trying to schedule how we're going to be able to be in the studio. That meeting was actually supposed to take place last week and then this week, but this week already came to a close, so it's hard because we're all so busy.

Mark [Hoppus] is actually doing a remix for Angels & Airwaves that will be on the sellable version of [Love]. We have a record that we're selling that has 30 minutes extra music on it, plus a remix from Mark. Travis [Barker] has got a million things going on as well, so we're focusing on that and this week kind of went out the window. But I'm gearing up for tour, so the goal is that we're going to be meeting once or twice a week up until when I leave, and then when I get back from tour, it'll open the window up to really dig into it.

We actually got a lot done quickly [on the new Blink album] because people were working simultaneously in different studios, so we're hoping it will go really quickly. I'm in a good spot, because I have two great bands. I know how people are with Blink. I know how big Blink are and I know the legacy with it and everything, but Angels & Airwaves, to my heart and to the people who like it, this is the release of my life. This is the most complicated and all-encompassing and heartfelt project--this album and this movie--that I've ever done in my entire life. It's really, really exciting because it really exceeded my expectations. I thought it was going to suffer to some degree because I was getting thrown around with the other band as well, and the tour or whatever, but I'm really, really, really excited about [the album release on] Valentine's Day. One step at a time for me--it's hard for me to bounce back and forth, and right now my mind is all Angels and trying to figure out how to schedule the upcoming Blink recording, because that's coming quick, too." alt

Mark Hoppus has heard all the talk about the Blink-182 album not coming out until 2011, and he's determined not to let that happen.

It all started earlier this week, when he tweeted, "2011 is too far away. Gonna do all I can to have a Blink-182 album in 2010." And when MTV News caught up with him Thursday night in Los Angeles, he laid out how he plans to finish the album, which has been in the works for more than a year now. As it turns out, the first step is just getting everyone together in the same room.

"We did a bunch of writing before we left on this tour, then we came home and decided we were going to take a couple of months and chill and do other stuff, then get back together in the beginning of the year," Hoppus said. "And now that it's almost February, we decided it's time to get back in the studio and do what we do. So that's the plan: just get back together and get to work."

Seems simple enough. But when Blink reconvene in the studio, what will their new songs sound like? We've already heard Tom DeLonge describe the new Blink songs as "ambitious" and "the work of our life," but by now, we're sort of used to him saying stuff like that. So we asked Hoppus to fill us in.

"We definitely want to try a bunch of different stuff. I think it will still sound like Blink. I think it will still be catchy. I think it will still be poppy, but we want to be weird on this record," he said. "There's your pull quote: Mark Hoppus says 'We want to be weird on this record.' "

But from where will all this weirdness spring? Well, apparently from pretty much everywhere.

"Everybody listens to such different stuff. Tom is really into, like, '80s stadium rock; huge, monumental '80s rock bands. Travis is all over the place, musically, and he always comes up with beats and drum parts that are so way out that I would never think of them," Hoppus said. "And I've just been listening to a lot of weird indie rock. So somewhere between amazing hip-hop beats, stadium rock and indie rock, you'll find Blink."

And while he's trying very hard to get the follow-up to Blink's 2003 self-titled album in stores this year, Hoppus also hopes fans will be patient. They want this to be the album of their lives, after all. And just because each member of Blink is also working on other projects — DeLonge's Angels & Airwaves will release their third album, Love, on February 14; Barker is working on a solo album; and the Hoppus-produced Motion City Soundtrack album, My Dinosaur Life, hit stores last week — that doesn't mean Blink isn't still their top priority.

"I think that everything that everyone works on outside of Blink comes back to Blink. And being involved in all these different projects allows us to go off and try different ideas and bring those ideas back home to what we do every day. And I think it's a really positive thing," Hoppus said. "I know it's confusing for people, because everyone's like, 'Tom's doing this, and Travis is doing this, and Mark's producing ... why aren't you guys focusing on Blink?' But I think what people need to understand is that, that's how we focus on Blink. We go off, and we bring all these different pieces and ideas back, and we get inspired by other artists and get inspired by working with different people, and then when we come back to Blink, it just helps us."

Over the past week, Mark Hoppus and Pete Wentz have rekindled their Twitter relationship (the same passionate affair that gave us the famed "Octo-Drive" last year), penning a series of odes to one another that mentioned "crazy-ass sandwiches" and, more notably, some mysterious new songs the two were collaborating on.

The tweets had fans of Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy salivating. With both bands in between projects at the moment (will this be the year we finally get the new Blink record?), speculation was rampant about what the two were up to. Well, we have the answer.

In an e-mail to MTV News, Wentz revealed that he and Hoppus had completed a song for the soundtrack to Tim Burton's upcoming "Alice in Wonderland," the same soundtrack that features a new song from All Time Low.

"We did a song for 'Alice in Wonderland,' [and we] might do a few more depending on when [Mark] goes in with Blink. [It] sounds nothing like Blink or Fall Out Boy. Mark understands songwriting on a completely different level. It's awesome to have a chance to sit in a room with him and watch him work out a melody."

Wentz added that, though he and Hoppus plan to record more songs, this isn't the beginning of some new supergroup. It's more like two friends getting together and jamming. After all, both of them have rather open schedules at the moment.

"It's just for fun. It's not a band or even a project at this state," Wentz wrote. "I think between me getting Starbuck's on TMZ and him gearing up for a summer of Blink, we have a lot on our hands."

A spokesperson for Walt Disney Records — who will be releasing the soundtrack — told MTV News that at the moment, no track list has been confirmed but an announcement will be made "in the coming weeks."