When Your Heart Stops Beating - Background

Background

The beginnings of +44 originate with the dissolution of Hoppus and Barker's previous band, Blink-182 in late 2004. Tensions begin to arise between the band members as guitarist Tom DeLonge expressed his desire to cancel an upcoming tour and enter a half-year respite from touring. At a band meeting which coincided with the beginning of Blink-182's final European tour in December, DeLonge expressed his desire to spend more time with his family. He also declined recording a new album. 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 in February 2005. Further tensions, however, arose between the band members during rehearsals, and they began arguing about a variety of issues, such as the band's "forced" break. Manager Rick DeVoe phoned Hoppus and Barker, who were waiting in the rehearsal space for DeLonge, 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." Jordan Schur, the former president of Geffen Records (distributor of Blink-182, the band's final album before their break-up), reportedly told Barker to "any press you do, make sure you say everything is cool," opting to instead issue a statement calling the band's break-up an 'indefinite hiatus'.

Immediately following DeVoe's phone call, Hoppus and Barker began laying down new ideas. Recording in Barker's basement and Hoppus' dining room, by necessity everything was electronic, with the two musicians experimenting with electronic drums, samples, keyboards and direct computer recordings. While away on a trip in April 2005, Hoppus participated in an interview with MTV News in which he revealed the band's existence, saying "Right now, Travis and I are using the time off to start this project called Plus-44 It's very exciting, like a breath of fresh air." When the two regrouped, they decided to stop giving interviews about the new project. "It was strange to be talking about music that we were just in the very first steps of writing," recalled Hoppus. "It didn’t feel right to talk about yet." The band's name is a reference to the country code needed when placing a phone call to the United Kingdom, where Hoppus and Barker first discussed making music alone. "When we first started talking about ever doing anything outside of blink was on the last European tour where Tom was telling us that he needed to take a year off from the band. We never did anything about it until Tom quit the band, but that's where it first started," said Hoppus. The basement recordings were ambient and quiet by necessity. "We were recording and we didn't want the cops showing up at our house at 2 a.m. because we recording drums," remembered Hoppus.