Exclusive! Best Blink182 Moments with Rian Dawson, Alex Deleon and Beau Bokan

Today’s the day. Blink182 gives us their first album in YEARS. In case you’re somehow not aware, Blink is incredibly influential to many of Buzznet’s current favorite bands. They’re the band that made the scrawny 7th grader to aspire to something. They’re the soundtrack to our influential adolesence. Tom Delonge’s whiny vox echo our angst of unrequited love. Travis Barker provides beats for our wavering path into adulthood. Mark Hoppus has always been a figure that demonstrated that even though we all grow old, we don’t have to grow up in way that makes us jaded and uninspired. And so, on this important day, Buzznet asked a few notable musicians what THEIR best Blink182 moment has been. We got great stories from Rian Dawson, Alex Deleon and Beau Bokan.

Rian Dawson, All Time Low:

Blink-182 is literally the reason I am in All Time Low. I know people say that stuff all the time “I would never be in this band if Freddy Mercury didn’t write those lyrics…” etc, but in my case it is true.

I had met Jack in 9th grade and thought no more of him than assuming he was a psuedo-punk band kid who probably ate a lot of sloppy joes. That so much was true. He kept pestering me, asking me to check out his band that played Blink covers only, and kept telling me how awesome it was. More or less to shut him up, I had my mom drive me to Alex’s house where they were rehearsing. They played some Blink songs (horribly), and I was filling my quota of giving Jack attention. After about 45 minutes of non-stop 3 chord pop punk accompanied by incorrect lyrics, Jack said “Okay let’s play Roller Coaster!”. Now although I was on the verge of jumping out the window to get out of that room, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had been practicing that song for hours every day for the past week. I was infatuated by Travis Barker’s drum part in the bridge, and had felt that I had finally had it nailed (I, of course, was dead wrong). And then it happened, their drummer at the time said “I don’t know that one.” I’m not sure if they asked me or if I just basically tackled the drummer off of his kit so I could sit there (definitely the latter), I was playing Roller Coaster with Alex and Jack (once again, horrible). After that night, they asked me to join the band which became All Time Low.

So I owe all of my fortunate experiences as a drummer to the bridge part in Roller Coaster, thanks Travis!!

Alex Deleon, The Cab:

Beau Bokan, blessthefall:

I remember the first Blink 182 show i ever went to, in fact, I still have the ticket stub. Now not only was it my first Blink show ever it was my first REAL show I had ever been to.

It was 1996. The show was at the Orange Pavilion in San Bernadino,Ca. Now before this show I had only been to 1 or 2 backyard punk rock gigs with about 20-30 people. So when i walked into the Orange Pavilion that night and saw all those kids there i was overwhelmed. It seemed like a sea of 50,000 kids when in reality it was maybe a thousand or so. Anyhow, i can’t remember who the opening bands were, it didn’t matter, when Blink hit the stage I 100% lost my mind. I remember my best friends Tony, Alan and Phillip were with me and they were just as excited. We were singing all the words together, helping each other crowd surf over and over and over and just bouncing all around having a blast. The highlight of my night was towards the end of the show, they were playing “Carousel”, and i had been crowd surfed to the front. None of the security guards were paying attention so I pulled myself onstage, ran around Tom and stage dove. First stage dive ever to my favorite band ever. My life had seemingly been completed. It was an epic night.

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What’s your greatest Blink182 memory?