Recording and Production
The band officially entered the studio to begin recording sessions for Blink-182 in January 2003. The trio ditched their typical previous recording process (writing and demoing several songs and recording them in a studio one instrument at a time), and instead moved into a house and approached each song together. The home was rented and located near San Diego, and converted into a studio. The band "attacked" each song and worked on three-four songs per day, simply moving on to the next one when feeling "burned out" on a track. The band recorded at the home until April 2003 until the owners of the house "kicked them out." Barker left that spring to tour with Transplants, leaving the band with a variety of drum tracks to listen to while he was gone. The band regrouped and began recording at Rolling Thunder studios until the band left to perform a couple of summer shows in Canada and Japan, where they premiered several songs live. The in-studio antics and behind the scenes moments were recorded and posted on the official Blink-182 website throughout 2003. The videos are no longer on the website, but can be found on YouTube.
The recording process of the album eventually lasted from January to August 2003, with an additional mixing and mastering period lasting until October. Previous Blink-182 sessions were recorded in three months. The band stated that being in a studio longer than three months gave them the luxury of experimenting with different methods of writing, playing, and recording. Hoppus described the studio as a "musical laboratory": over 70 guitars, 30 amps, "30 or 40" different snare drums, up to six drum kits, and various keyboards, turntables, and pianos were used in the album's production. The band built each song with a minute attention to detail. The trio sent The Cure frontman Robert Smith the bed track of "All of This" in hopes he would contribute; Smith makes a guest appearance and recorded his parts in England. The three initially believed their legitimacy would be in question due to the humor-oriented nature of their earlier recordings, to which Smith responded, "Nobody knows what kind of songs you are going to write in the future and nobody knows the full potential of any band. I really like the music you sent me." The band also collaborated with DJ Shadow and Dan the Automator, and Barker desired to work with The Neptunes. Jerry Finn, who had produced the previous two Blink-182 albums and the Box Car Racer album, returned to produce Blink-182, which would be his final contribution with the band. According to the band's MTV Album Launch special, "Easy Target" was the last song to be recorded, during the last week in the studio.
After the band was officially done recording and the mastering and final mixes were being completed, the band shot small, home-made videos for several songs on Blink-182, as well as the official music video for "Feeling This", which they picked as the first single. The band performed for a short time for the armed forces in the Middle East, and premiered more new songs at their Reading and Leeds sets in August. The band spent time to finalize the CD booklet and album artwork in September. Mark Hoppus stated that the album was so "personal to all three of us that we really wanted to be involved in every aspect of it." The album was in production so late that final mixes were still being judged by Hoppus, DeLonge, and Barker in early October. DeLonge described the final days of mixing the album as "crazy stressful", with "literally hours to turn to have it come it out on time." Blink-182 was the band's first release on Geffen, which absorbed sister label MCA Records in 2003.
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