Actor JARED LETO's rock band 30 SECONDS TO MARS and former BLINK 182 star TOM DeLONGE's new group ANGELS + AIRWAVES will compete to play on top of Radio City Music Hall at the start of New York Fashion Week this autumn (06). The two groups will join four other alternative acts in a battle of the bands contest with the winner getting the chance to play above the venue's marquee as guests arrive for the star-studded Fashion Rocks show on 7 September (06). Cingular wireless phone subscribers can vote for their favourite act between now and 15 August (06). The Fashion Rocks show, which is being curated by SIR ELTON JOHN, will feature performances from CHRISTINA AGUILERA, KANYE WEST and THE BLACK EYED PEAS.

- ContactMusic.com

Charlie Sheen and his "Juggernaut Of Truth" comments are not the only support for the so-called "9/11 truth movement" coming from celebrity ranks. Now a leading music idol has joined the ranks.

According to an Internet news-site posting, Blink 182 star Tom DeLonge has now spoken out in public with his doubts about the official version of the events behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. He also reportedly declared his belief that the attacks were an inside job, not just the work of "a bunch of people who just learned to fly planes."

DeLonge, as lead singer for Blink 182, a southern Californian punk/pop quartet with two US Billboard number-one albums, had the1999 album "Enema of the State" go platinum five times over. "We do know that the buildings came down in a fashion extremely similar to a controlled demolition of a building," he reportedly said. "We do know that expertise that is needed to fly those gigantic planes into that exact location could never have been achieved by someone that just learned how to fly a small plane."

He also charged, regarding the failure of NORAD to enact standard operating procedure and intercept the planes, that "Cheney knew that the planes are coming in and he capped the order to leave it alone so it could hit. It's so weird how our own government did it to us."

- ST (FreeMarketNews.com)

ANGELS & AIRWAVES rocker TOM DeLONGE admires veterans THE ROLLING STONES for their staying power - but thinks their concerts are "terrible".
The former BLINK 182 star, 30, saw a recent Stones gig and was horrified with his rock heroes' performances.
DeLonge says, "We are here to rule the planet. I'd like us to be still touring when we are old.
"People talk s**t about the Stones being on the road and I don't want anyone telling me I can't play music any more, no matter what age I am.
"I did go see them in the US but I didn't really like it.
"The show sucked - not necessarily because they are old.
"The production was terrible, they had really lame lights and stuff. There was just no impact."

- PR-inside.com

In his most personal interview ever, Tom DeLonge discusses Blink 182, his troubled childhood, and why he believes he has a "special purpose"..

What do you remember of your childhood?

"My parents would fight all the fucking time. My dad left us when I was 18 and my sister was 12. My older brother was away too - he was in the army fighting wars. Also, my mom lost her job at that point. Right then, at that moment, I moved out. I felt like I had to start my life. My mom and sister were left asking, 'What happened to our family?'."

You have a wife and a daughter now. How much do your childhood experiences affect your attitudes to your own family?

"I always knew that I wanted to have a good family life after my childhood. Sometimes that's a really hard thing to do. My daughter is three years old now, but for the first two years of her life I was recording and on tour with Blink. She really knew her dad wasn't around. My daughter is the most addictive drug - she's absolutely the reason for living and I don't want to miss another two and a half more years of her life. I can't ask my wife and daughter to sleep on a moving tour-bus all night long because that sucks. I have an opportunity to make the best family in the world."

Blink 182 were renowned for their irresponsability. Now you talk about saving the world and the importance of family. Are you trying to force yourself to care more about your surroundings?

"Absolutely. Blink 182 really had no message whatsoever - and we prided ourselves on that - but now I want an absolute message. Every little detail of Angels and Airwaves was painstakingly thought out. You have one life and what what are you going to do when you're 90 years old? Are you going to look back and wish that you'd tried harder, are you going to wish that you were happier, that you should have looked at the world differently, or that you should have quit that job? I'm at that point where I don't want any regrets."

You seem very focused and sure of yourself. Is that a trait of yours?

"Yes and it's a trait I just figured out that I have. A lot of it came from a will to survive and to keep my music career going after Blink split. When you turn 30, you think you know everything about yourself. But I really discovered a lot about myself this year."

Like what?

"I'm very much an optimist, an idealist and a visionary. I am those things. I can see something and I can figure out how to get there. That's very much what happened with Angels And Airwaves."

Do you think that sometimes your focus can make you selfish?

"Absolutely. I think artists always get caught up in themselves."

Are you someone who needs to be in control?

"I work better that way. I set really high standards for myself. If I'm in control of something, I want to do it better than anyone else can do it. If I don't have control of it, I'll become enormously lazy and not take any responsability. In Blink, we all obviously shared the responsability. That was a comfort because when anything went wrong, we could all laugh about it together, we were all to blame."

Does this mean Angels and Airwaves is frightening because it's just down to you?

"It's one of those things where you have to be careful what you wish for, because at the end of the day, I'm the only one putting myself out there. No-one's going to come to the other guys and say, 'You fucked up'. For the most part they're all going to come to Tom"

What happens if you let yourself down? Does it hurt?

"I don't know yet. The closest I came to that was when I let my mouth off at the beggining of this record. I told everyone that this would be the biggest record in 20 years and made all those crazy statements. I did it for a variety of reasons. The first reason was because I knew it was a fucking awesome album. The second was that I wanted to say some pretty big stuff because I wanted to build up the tension so I really had to perform. I knew that if the whole world was going to judge me then it would make me then it would make me have to try my absolute best."

You have said in the past that you had a special purpose. Do you see yourself as some kind of preacher?

"Yes but I don't think I'm better than anybody, I'm just more ambitious than alot of people. I think that I'm more willing to put myself out there than most people. In no way, shape or form do I think that I'm better or that know more than anyone else."

Do you think that you thought that in the past? That you chased your ambitions to the detriment of other people's feelings?

"No. I don't think I ever chased my ambitions really. I think that I was probably held back to a degree because I was scared of putting myself out there, or I was scared of upsetting the status quo."

It seems like you feel a need to prove yourself now. Do you know what's caused that in you?

"I don't know. That's such a good question. Maybe it's because I was the middle child, maybe it's because I was in a family that didn't talk to each other who had their share of problems. Maybe it's because I feel that I could really be here to create something special but I'll never really know if that's the case."

- Kerrang!

Click here to read an article about Jennifer and Tom DeLonge that expect a son.

Thanks to Angels and Airwaves, Tom DeLonge’s moved on from Blink 182

Angels and Airwaves' members didn't pick the band's moniker because its acronym, AVA, is also the name of singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge's daughter. (For the record: The "V" comes from the "A" in "and"-upside-down.) But it didn't hurt.

Nicknaming a rock band after a baby daughter? Sounds like the 30-year-old guitarist of now-defunct Blink 182 is growing up. DeLonge says he hasn't spoken to fellow former Blinkers Mark Hoppus or Travis Barker since the band's breakup. But, despite his decision to quit and devote more time to his family, DeLonge says he was "losing his mind" after doing so. But his latest project seems to have cleared his head. Angels and Airwaves' debut album, "We Don't Need to Whisper," delivers a gargantuan sound, and DeLonge is delighting in the opportunity to speak-and sing-his mind, even rambling about politics in interviews, something the Blink guys weren't too keen on.

While DeLonge scrambled to leave New York for a Philadelphia tour date, metromix tried to understand what Angels and Airwaves means to him.

If you had a reality show like Travis' "Meet the Barkers," what would you call it?

"Attention Deficit Disorder." "Wannabe Van Gogh." Some guy that's artistically going crazy in his head.

I really, really almost lost my mind making this album. I had this thing inside me, where I really felt this energy and saw this world, and I really had an appetite to do something positive and wonderful with music, and to achieve it.

It's not easy. I had an intervention by my management. They sat me down and they're like, "What is wrong with you?" I'm in my backyard, I've got tears in my eyes, and I just go: "F**k! I can't sleep, I can't breathe, I'm having these panic attacks because there's so much in my head that I want to get out."

And I looked at them and I said, "But this kind of craziness is exactly what's going to make this record truly great, and I don't know how to describe it to anybody."

The album's sound is so big, it seems like it's supposed to be listened to in space.

I guess that was the only way it could sound for what I was going after. We definitely went after this kind of a futurism, of an endless hope of space. No one knows what's out there, and there's infinite possibility out there.

Too bad I wasn't able to travel to space to listen to it.

I promise you that if you smoke a joint and put some headphones on, you might actually get there.

I'll keep that in mind. You've also said you're hoping to give people chills, like John Cusack's boombox scene in "Say Anything."

Yeah, it's pretty much that kind of idea, absolutely. I think everyone has had those moments where you're watching a movie or listening to a song, and the right thing happens at the right moment, and you get those chills. This whole record was about creating that feeling all the way through.

We all came from situations that we wish could have been better in their own right. And we're all pretty sick of the way things have been in the world for the past few years.

I think we're also at that age where we're becoming a little bit more socially aware and politically conscious. I have my second kid on the way; my brother fought in the war; my dad has leukemia; so it's like everywhere I turn, things need to be better.

This whole record really is about this conflict and this tug of war between love and war. If you're in a situation you don't want to be in, how to find a light at the end of the tunnel.

How will you feel about your kids seeing you naked in a video [for Blink 182's "What's My Age Again?"]?

My daughter is three-and-a-half, and she does that already; she runs around naked. Everyone just looks at her and goes, 'Dude, that's so your daughter.' If you can make millions of dollars doing it, then you can.

So you're in favor of running around naked, as long as it's on TV?

As long as you're getting paid for it, then I absolutely support it.

- Matt Pais (Metromix.com)

Angels and Airwaves' Tom DeLonge became the latest member of the punk community to voice an opinion that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks.

The former Blink 182 pop punker took to the airwaves on Monday (May 8), on San Diego’s KAVA-FM (91X), interviewing James Fetzer of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Fetzer and DeLonge discussed alternative theories that allege the terrorist attacks were part of an elaborate conspiracy to instill a sense of fear in the American public in order to solidify the Bush regime's rule.

- Aversion.com

When Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge left the band last year to spend more time with his family, fans freaked. Now, Tom has been regrouping, literally.. his new band Angels and Airwaves has been launching bigtime on the net with several sites and, starting this week, will start on a spring tour in support of their debut album “We don’t Need to Whisper”, due for streeting May 23rd.

“Angels”, consisting of Tom, his friend and former Box Car Racer member David Kennedy, Offspring drummer Atom Willard and Distillers former bass-player Ryan Sinn, are atmospheric rockers, believing in their message of rebirth Phoenix style from the ashes. Yes, Tom says it’s all about his life changing transition. Inspired by bombed, burning cities in war and sci fi movies, Tom sees the end of Blink as an apocalypse that he has risen from with only a bright future ahead of him.

You can check out the Angels and Airwaves first single “The Adventure” along with its video on www.angelsandairwaves.com . If you are in a tour city, expect the “Angels” performances to be packed with weird and crazy visuals. The band is working on a movie to illustrate the entire album. We chatted with Tom via phone recently and found him to be a new man...still zany and fun-loving of course (hey Blink has performed in their birthday suits!) but with a new goal and a new sound. Check out what this re-generated rocker has to say...

TeenMusic: Can you explain your fascination with Sci fi and futuristic themes? I recognize a line from Bladerunner at the beginning of your video for “The Adventure”.

Tom: I’ve always been kind of a futurist, modernist kind of guy. I like new ideas and looking to the future rather than obviously, doing what America seems to do really well; repeating the mistakes of the past. Science Fiction is kind of cool because it brings about this endless hope of space and time and the future. It seems to really encompass an lot of how I think about what Angels and Airwaves is. It’s been a common thread.

TeenMusic: Can you tell us how the name of the band came about?

Tom: A lot of this band was built with the express purpose of wanting to do something really positive and beautiful in my life so I can effect my family in a good way. Also, to really try to do something that’s different in music because, right now, there’s so much negative, angry kind of stuff happening in the music scene. I wanted to be the anti-thesis of that so the word ‘Angel’ seems to encompass that kind of good reasoning and then ‘Airwaves’ is more about the sonic medium that I’m using. That’s the way it works. So, Angels and Airwaves seemed to fit the idea.

TeenMusic: Talk about the film you are making.

Tom: The movie is going to be close to the length of the album or longer. It’s going to be something that creates a visual medium to the feeling of the record and the feeling is very much an emotional event that took place in my life over the last year, leaving my old band and creating this new experience and using analogies and metaphors of love and war, the movie is going to kind of be the personification of that emotional event. It's very much like ‘The Wall’ but for this generation using modern technology to create these vast, visual landscapes. [It will] take documentary footage, turn it into a fictional story and culminate in performance stuff. I think it’s going to be fantastic. It’ll be for theatrical release.

TeenMusic: Do you have an interest in filmmaking in addition to music?

Tom: It’s really to express the music. There’s so many complexities in this record and what it’s about. I knew right off the bat that a movie was needed to tell the story.

TeenMusic: Have you left the prankster life behind for a more serious side or will we see you performing in your birthday suit?

Tom: [laughs] Well, it’s not a new me. It’s definitely just a different side of me. I’m still that same guy. That’s the funniest thing. I’ll say something that seems pretty profound and deep and then turn around and make some really dumb joke. So, I’m very much still that same guy but I am taking this thing very seriously because it is a powerful experience to come close to this music. I’m trying not to ruin it with my dumb jokes.

TeenMusic: You’ve said that you left Blink 182 for family reasons.. True?

Tom: Absolutely, yeah.

TeenMusic: What do you miss most about Blink and what do you miss least?

Tom: I miss Mark and Travis the most. They’re amazing people. Mark was one of my best friends for over a decade and the funniest most intelligent person I’ve probably met in my life and Travis, the most amazing musician I have ever seen and ever will have the honor of playing with. I tell people that I would love to spend an hour of everyday of the rest of my life just playing with him. He’s that incredible. I’ve learned so much from them both. I miss the time when we were really close and things were clicking really well. I guess what I miss the least is the point when things weren’t clicking so well or I didn’t have control over the things that I needed to have control over to try and be more of a family man. Now, because this is my deal, I can do whatever I need to do to be with my family when I need to so it’s a great environment for me.

TeenMusic: Do you feel a bit like Paul McCartney when he created “Wings”?

Tom: Well, I don’t know a lot about the band ‘Wings’ but in the history of rock and roll, I don’t think a guy’s ever left a giant band and created a bigger band. A lot of artists have left to go solo but when we made ‘Enema of the State’ with Blink and they sat me down and said ‘you’re going to be more famous than you ever thought. You’re going to make more money than you ever thought possible and you’ll book arenas right now because you’ll be playing them in three months’, I started laughing, I thought the president of the label was on crack. I made jokes about it. We walked away down the hall and said ‘oh my god, that guy’s crazy and he’s running this huge record label’ and it all happened. What’s happening now with Angels and Airwaves, is so much bigger and powerful and I recognize the ripples from the splash of creating something that’s going to be accepted on a large level but the ripples on this one are so much larger than it’s really scaring me and I’m starting to have panic attacks.

TeenMusic: Hang in there! You have a several websites and have been previewing “The Adventure”. Do you think a web presence is important in today’s musical world?

Tom: Of course. It’s basically the window into every single household in the entire world. If you do it right, they'll have instant access into whatever it is you are thinking and creating. We have planned and worked very, very hard to have a massive web presence. It’s interesting, before we even released a song on the radio, we had double the amount of fans that Blink ever had on 'My Space'. At the peak of Blink’s career we had about 60 thousand hits a day on the website we’re up to about seventy-five thousand on Angels and Airwaves so it’s really incredible what is happening and a song, just now, is getting out on the radio.

TeenMusic: Do you call yourselves punk or now more alt rock?

Tom: This is big rock and roll. There’s no other way to put it. It’s a huge rock band. But, it’s built on a punk rock foundation. We all came from the punk scene and that’s very much a lifeforce in the veins of the fans but I seriously, at this point in my career, I couldn’t give two shits about a punk rock scene, what’s cool or what’s not. I just know this is the coolest thing in the world. I just know it so I don’t have to think about it. No label.

TeenMusic: Can you talk about choosing your band members? Why David, Atom and Ryan?

Tom: David I played in Box Car Racer with he’s been one of my closest friends for a very long time and he’s got such a great heart and great common goals of what he wants to do with his life and his art that it made perfect sense. David introduced me to Ryan and I knew Atom through other acquaintances and it all boiled down to what do these guys want to do? If they’re given a chance to be part of a powerhouse in music, what would they do with it and we all have the same feeling. We all wanted something special and positive. We want to have an impact on people’s lives in a good way. Angels and Airwaves is truthfully about creating an experience that challenges the way that you view yourself in this world. If you can see yourself walking on water, then you can truly do that. You just have to want to see yourself doing it. This is a testament to that idea.

TeenMusic: Does the song ‘Valkyrie Missile’ kind of epitomize what the album is about or is there another song that more typifies the sound?

Tom: It’s definitely the whole thing completely. ‘Valkyrie Missile' was a missile that was made to carry nuclear weapons throughout the cold war. The reason we named the first song that was because it is describing the situation where life, as you know it, is going to be annihilated but something beautiful and epic is about to be created that you have no idea could even exist. There are words at the beginning and ending of the song that say ‘this is the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life but I can see the sun coming over the horizon’. The lyrics say, ‘everyone will listen even if it hurts sometimes’.

TeenMusic: So, it’s about changing your life for the better?

Tom: The new album progresses and takes you through these arcs of finding love and experiencing love in a war zone which applies to anybody’s life where there is a mess going on and they're out of their comfort zone. At the end of the record is a song called ‘Start the Machine’ which just kind of sums everything up. As you see the war burning across the sea, you’re not apologizing for any of the decisions that you made and it wraps up saying ‘if love is a word you say, then say it and I will listen’. It basically says you’ve found your new life and happiness. It is a long road of emotions in creating a new life for yourself. It’s autobiographical I guess.

TeenMusic: Okay.. on to the fun questions. As a song-writer, what is the weirdest object you have ever written lyrics down on when you couldn’t find any paper?

Tom: That’s such a great question. I guess I’ve written lyrics on everything from cocktail napkins and my phone.. I’ll pop open my sidekick and type stuff in there. But, I’ve written things actually on my guitar before and on my hand or business cards in my wallet.

TeenMusic: What is your songwriting process like.. lyrics first.. music?

Tom: It’s always been a specific way until this album. This album we would start with a specific instrumentation whether it’s on the synthesizer, keyboard, piano, guitar, whatever or maybe it’s just a percussion thing. Then we’d start doing an array of things to create an emotional response with the music. Once we’d get that basic foundation, I would put on either Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 on TV and open up these giant two page spreads of a World War Two historian Steven Ambrose with these cities burning in the 40’s. Just a space age movie on the TV, a science fiction type idea and then pictures taped up all over the studio of cities burning and women holding their kids running out of a war zone...then I’d write a love song [laughs]. It was a really complex series of emotions that would come out within one song. It’s really interesting how we did it.

TeenMusic: That’s wild. What do you do on tour? Are you a ‘visit the town guy’ or a ‘hide in the bus’ guy?

Tom: I’ve done plenty of looking at the town stuff. I’d really like to just hang out at the venue and just get ready to do the rock. I don’t like to travel out of the venue. It’s too tiring.

TeenMusic: Who, of the new band, is the biggest jokester and who is the peacemaker or disciplinarian?

Tom: I’m definitely the biggest jokester still, easily. I’m kind of playing all those roles I guess. Everyone definitely has their part. I’m still the one doing stupid jokes when I shouldn’t be.

TeenMusic: What, in life, makes you feel ‘out of control’?

Tom: Out of control is when I go onstage. When I go onstage, it’s absolutely the power of the moment and living in the moment is never more real than when you are in front of fifteen thousand people. Usually, during the day, you’re worried about the future or events in the past that are going to reoccur. When you’re on stage you are only thinking about that moment. It’s a really amazing feeling.

Catch Tom and Angels and Airwaves out of control..onstage:

4/12: Pomona, CA, the Glass House
4/14: Ventura, CA, Ventura Theatre
5/5: San Francisco, Great American Music Hall
5/6: San Diego, House of Blues
5/8: West Hollywood, CA, the Troubadour
5/9: West Hollywood, CA, the Troubadour
5/15: New York, Bowery Ballroom
5/16: New York, Bowery Ballroom
5/18: Philadelphia, Theatre of the Living Arts
5/20: Boston, Avalon Ballroom
5/21: Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
5/24: Toronto, Phoenix Concert Theatre
5/25: Chicago, Vic Theatre

- Lynn Barker (TeenMusic.com)