Tom DeLonge Spills More About Angels & Airwaves' Plans For World Domination

Launch of podcast on Tuesday will be 'a really big day for us, and for music.'

On Tom DeLonge's agenda for 2006: a) complete the debut album from his new band, Angels & Airwaves; b) finish the feature film that accompanies that album; c) completely change the face of rock and roll; and d) create an entirely new generation of music fans out of the lumpy, unmotivated masses.

He also plans on directing a few videos, doing some charity work, launching an Angels & Airwaves world tour and taking up interpretive dance.

(Just kidding about that last thing.)

Regardless, it's shaping up to be quite a year for DeLonge, who's made no bones about making Angels the biggest band in the world by the end of '06. So it's no surprise that he's getting an early start on things, launching an Angels & Airwaves podcast on Tuesday that will serve as the band's formal introduction to the planet.

"It's going to be a really big day for us, and for music," DeLonge said. "We're going to be introducing the band, playing some snippets from the movie and just kicking the whole thing off in general. I've been working on this project for 12 months now, so yeah, I'm pretty excited by the whole thing."

The podcast will debut at MacbethFootwear.com — the Web site of DeLonge's shoe company — and on AngelsAndAirwaves.com, and it's just the first step in a very long and elaborate rollout for the band's new album, which DeLonge said will hit stores in April. And though he's still playing coy with some details, his hardline no-info stance does appear to be dissipating just a bit, and he let MTV News in on a few nuggets about the record.

"It's 10 songs long, and the total running time will be a little bit over an hour. Some of the song titles are 'Start the Machine,' 'It Hurts' and 'The Adventure,' " DeLonge said. "Everyone who's heard it says it's the best thing I've ever done, and I'm inclined to believe them. We haven't picked the first single yet because all 10 songs are absolute singles. That's been the hardest thing of all, trying to determine the first single."

Though it most certainly won't be the first single, DeLonge said that one track fans will be hearing sooner rather than later is "Valkyrie Missile," which he originally planned to release on December 13 but has since decided to hold until the new year.

"It's a great calling card for the band. It's the first song on the album and it's this massive soundscape," DeLonge explained. "It's named after the Valkyrie missile, which was built to carry nuclear warheads across the Atlantic. It's based on the idea of a missile headed your way, getting ready to annihilate life as we know it — but something great and special will come out of the aftermath. I kind of liken that to the last year of my life. When I was getting ready to leave the Blink world and thinking of starting the Angels & Airwaves world, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I didn't know how amazing it would be."

While DeLonge is anxious to get the song out there, he's even more excited about just how fans will react to it. And in typical fashion, he's not exactly shy about expressing that excitement.

"In January the single and video will drop and you'll see a whole new generation of Mods appearing everywhere, based on the kids in the '60s on their Vespas that were interested in modern living and modern fashion," he laughed. "I'm going to usher in this entire new culture of the youth, obsessed with the future. Because we're not going to be one of those rock bands that take photos sitting on dirty curbs, pretending to be like every other rock band of the past 10 years. Angels & Airwaves will be all about the future."

— James Montgomery