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blink-182 will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of their third album, Enema Of The State, by playing it in its entirety.
It looks as though blink-182 will be playing their 1999 record, Enema Of The State, in its entirety at next month's Back To The Beach in America.
Bassist Mark Hoppus confirmed the news in a fan Q&A on Twitter yesterday, responding to the question of if the pop-punks had any plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their brilliant third record.
"Yes I think we’re going to play EOTS in its entirety at Back to the Beach to celebrate 20yrs," Mark tweeted, giving attendees of the Huntington Beach weekender – the line-up of which also features the likes of The Used, Goldfinger, Reel Big Fish and The Story So Far – even more reason to get excited.
On top of blink-182 shows and a new album to be released very soon, Mark is also busy with his new super-duo, Simple Creatures.
The band – completed by All Time Low's Alex Gaskarth – will be unveiling their debut six-song EP Strange Love on March 29, and then performing a bunch of live date following its release.
We spoke to Alex about how the pair's material would translate in a live setting, and also what the set list would compromise of.
“It’s pretty crazy," he says. "There’s a lot of moving parts, and we’ve been figuring out how to do it live. It’s just the two of us and we don’t have a live band – we don’t have a drummer. It’s sort of landing somewhere between a rock show and an EDM hip-hop show! And I think that’s what’s really interesting about this project: we knew that, to do this right, it was going to have to be some sort of strange hybrid of genres. And, even down to the live element of it, it is truly that. We’re running a lot of stuff off these insane sample pads, and I’m playing more instruments than I know what to do with so far! That’s a very interesting element of the show. At any given moment, we’re both on keys, I’m on bass, Mark’s on guitar and then we’re swapping guitars, and then I’ll be playing the sample pads, and we’re looping a beat and playing on top of that… it’s pretty crazy. There’s a lot of interactivity in the show for us, but, at the same time, it still really feels like this energetic rock show.”
When asked if Alex and Mark will be covering their own bands during Simple Creatures' live sets, he teases that they're "going to get clever and kind of fun with it". Ooooh…
“We’re sort of taking it as it goes!" Alex explains. "We definitely know that we need more songs (laughs), and we’re working towards that. There’s more music in the chamber ready to go, so I’m hoping it’ll actually be sooner rather than later that people will hear even more material. We just wanted to get this first EP out and have people familiar with the project before we overload them with even more music – but there is more music coming. And we’re gonna get clever and kind of fun with it, and try some different things! I think people will maybe expect some tunes that are not Simple Creatures tunes, so we’ll see…”
Catch Simple Creatures live at the following dates:
March
28 Los Angeles, CA, Belasco Ballroom
29 San Francisco, CA, The Midway
31 Philadelphia, PA, Warehouse On Watts
April
01 New York, NY, Public Arts
03 London, UK, The Hangar
Tickets are on sale now.
Simple Creature are also headlining the Avalanche Stage at Download Festival this June. Get your tickets now.