Blink-182 Greatest Hits DVD - Background

Background

A North American tour, in support of Blink-182 and the recent single release "Always", was planned for spring 2005. Tensions, however, arose between the band members as DeLonge expressed his desire to cancel the tour and enter a half-year respite from touring. According to Mark Hoppus, the band's manager Rick DeVoe, who had previously encouraged the forthcoming tour, sided with DeLonge in the decision to cancel the shows: "I was at an airport in Singapore, on my way to Nepal, and called to tell me that he now thought we shouldn’t tour. This is a good indication of the relationship between our old manager and blink-182 at that time. By that point, he was basically managing Tom. Tom changed his mind on touring, and then our manager changed his too."

At a band meeting which coincided with the beginning of Blink-182's final European tour, DeLonge expressed his desire to spend more time with his family. In an interview published in 2006, Hoppus stated that, at this meeting, Delonge stated that he was: "'over playing music' and wanted to be with his family. The spring tour was going to be canceled. Travis and I were in shock. said 'okay, if you don’t want to tour, how about let’s stay home and start the next record?' We had a lot of ideas and were ready to start laying them down, and Tom could be with his family. He didn’t want to do that either. He was burned out and just wanted to stop. We asked him how long he needed, and he said he didn’t know. The conversation got heated and lasted for two or three hours. It went around in circles, and the end result was the canceled tour, with no idea when we would be doing anything with blink-182 again."

During the band's six-month break, Hoppus expressed his desire for the band to perform at Music for Relief's Concert for South Asia, a benefit show to aid victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. DeLonge agreed to perform, and the band subsequently began rehearsing for the event. Further tensions, however, arose between the band members during rehearsals, and they began arguing about the band's "forced break, the greatest hits record, and the possibility of recording the next album."

DeLonge stated that he would only record his contributions to the band's next studio album at his home in San Diego, and that Hoppus and Barker could send him ProTools files to work on. Regarding the band's final moments together as a band, Hoppus states that: "Tom was deciding when we would tour, how we would tour, when we would have time off, when we would record, and how we could record. One person was dictating everything. We told Tom this. Things got hot. We said, 'You are trying to control everything, and it’s wrong.' He said he couldn’t be a part of anything he couldn’t control, and he left the rehearsal space." DeVoe phoned Hoppus and Barker the following day to tell them that DeLonge had quit the band, stating: "As of today, Tom DeLonge is no longer a member of blink-182." DeLonge subsequently changed his telephone number to avoid discussing the matter with Hoppus and Barker. In 2010, whilst reflecting upon the band's break-up, Tom Delonge stated that: "My biggest failure was the breakup of Blink. That was a failure of friendships, businesses and communications. In our hearts, we thought that was forever and gone. What's funny is, at the time, I looked at it as a triumph."

News of the band's break-up initially appeared on Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro's blog, 6767.com. Navarro, who was also scheduled to perform at Music for Relief benefit concert, posted the following: "the big shock came when Blink-182 pulled out. Evidently, they broke up yesterday. I am surprised they couldn't hang in there one more day in order to do Southeast Asia a service like this, but having said that, I know how it can get when it's just not working anymore. Anyway, best of luck to those guys." Following the subsequent speculation as to whether the band had, in fact, broken up, Blink-182 announced that they had entered an "indefinite hiatus".

Tensions between the band members arose in late 2004 when guitarist Tom DeLonge found the desire for a half-year break from touring to spend time with his family, despite a planned spring 2005 U.S. tour. This was coupled with bassist Mark Hoppus' feelings of betrayal after the formation of DeLonge’s and drummer Travis Barker’s side-project Box Car Racer. Further problems arose in discussions regarding the band's future recording endeavors. In mid-February 2005 the band inexplicably canceled a performance at Music for Relief's Concert for South Asia (a show put on by Linkin Park to aid victims of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake). This made their previous show on December 16, 2004 at the Point Depot in Dublin, Ireland, their last live performance until their reformation in 2009.

Geffen Records soon put together plans for a greatest hits album for the band. Greatest Hits includes songs from all of the band’s studio albums (Cheshire Cat, Dude Ranch, Enema of the State, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, and Blink-182) as well as their live album, The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!).