Box car racer why

Oh yeah, it had all the effect. I always tell people that record was [Blink's] best record absolutely because of the Box Car Racer record.

So we got a house and we didn't record in a studio. We changed up the way we record and we changed up what we were willing to do -- not just being complacent and satisfied.

So much punk rock is like that. It's just the same shit! Oh my gosh, I haven't listened to it for I mean, if Box Car came out 10 years ago, my gosh. Oh, 15? Oh my god. I thought 10 was short. I mean, I traditionally listen to my music all the time because I make the music for myself, you know? It's not out of vanity, because I definitely think I barely get by when it comes to musical skill set.

What happens when you put it together? I was trying so hard! So to answer your question, it's probably been about that long. Well despite it not being exactly fresh in your mind, looking back on it, how do you feel about the album all these years later?

No, I know it well. I think it's dope. It's a mainstream version of the post-hardcore and punk rock influences in my life, but it's also very artistic. I think we did something with the recording of that record that's never been done for the most part, where the variances and volume and sonic scope are just extreme.

That was the first record I crafted. Not recorded, crafted -- two totally different things. In hindsight, do you think there's anything you wish you had maybe done differently with that album? No, not at all. It's funny because it's kind of like it was the best and worst thing for [Blink]. It was the beginning of a lot of tension in the band but it was also the thing that led us to writing way better songs, so what do you do? Change is hard for fans, for band members, and I never want to change just for the sake of change.

I'm pretty strategic about how I do everything and I'm never gonna vary from my definition of what I think is cool. Was Box Car Racer always meant to be a one-off project to get out of your system or did you ever have intentions to carry it on after that?

There weren't any intentions but I can safely say that we would have followed it wherever it led at the time because right when we finished it the label was freaking out. What is this?! You might have done the most incredible re-branding and marketing thing ever done in music! So we came out with something really cool but the whole thing died very quickly because it created a really significant obstacle in [Blink] that really divided the band. The depression that came from being in constant pain influenced the lyrics of the album largely.

With DeLonge playing bass for the album, a bassist went unannounced until the band made their live debut with touring bassist Anthony Celestino on April 1, The eponymous Box Car Racer album was officially released on May 21, to commercial success — the album reached number 12 on the Billboard , and " I Feel So ", the first single release, was already climbing the charts. Critics praised the new direction DeLonge and Barker had taken; as such, the album received positive reviews.

Slant magazine called the album a "much needed departure from the banality of Blink" and "the perfect union of pop punk riffs and instrumentation that spans all genres of rock from indie to folk.

It was announced that August that the band would be headlining their own tour with supporting act The Used; the tour began October 25, He thought it was really lame Travis [Barker] and I went and did that, but it was a totally benign thing on my part, because I only asked Travis to play drums because I didn't want to pay for a studio drummer.

It wasn't meant to be a real band. It is also well known among enthusiastic followers of DeLonge's work that a song that DeLonge wrote for the album but never added to the final track list called 'Dance With Me' was sometimes played at Boxcar Racer shows. The album officially closes with an instrumental — a moment of contemplation. But as unjustly brutal as your late 20s are, and as strange, cunning and baffling as the feelings that come with it may be, we bloody well all feel them.

Box Car Racer would vanish almost as quickly as it appeared. By , after selling 65, records with little to no marketing beyond word of mouth, the project was officially defunct. Tom and Travis would return to the blink fold, bringing much of the experimentation from Box Car Racer to the writing sessions for their seminal self-titled release that hit shelves that year.