Blink-182 Early career After moving to
San Diego in the summer of 1992, Hoppus was reunited with his sister Anne Hoppus, to whom he expressed his desire to be in a band. DeLonge recalled the meeting in 2000: "When I first met Mark, we were running around naked, doing weird stuff. We were up skateboarding until late hours of the morning, antagonizing security guards, and we were just always having fun." DeLonge recruited old friend
Scott Raynor from his days at
Poway to become the drummer for the new band, named blink. Hoppus and his girlfriend at this time lived in a basement apartment, barely scraping together funds to pay rent. With money in savings, Hoppus went out and bought his first professional equipment: a new amp and bass cabinet. He came home and his girlfriend proceeded to argue with him, angry that he spent money on something they did not need. "I just kept telling her that this was what mattered to me, this was my life," Hoppus recalled. She demanded he make a choice between the band and her, which resulted in Hoppus leaving the band shortly after formation. Shortly thereafter, DeLonge told Hoppus he had borrowed a
four track recorder from a friend and was preparing to record a
demo tape, which prompted Hoppus to break up with his girlfriend and return to the band.
Flyswatter—a combination of original songs and punk covers—was recorded in Raynor's bedroom and landed the band their first shows. Three more demos were recorded over the course of 1993 and the band began performing its irreverent live show at local all-ages venue SOMA, which alerted local independent label
Cargo Music. Cargo signed the band on a trial basis, and Hoppus was the only member to sign the contract, as DeLonge was at work at the time and Raynor was still a
minor. During this time, Hoppus lived at home in San Diego at his mother's, where the band would prepare cassette demos and the entire family would fold cassette inserts. Raynor, whose parents moved to
Reno,
Nevada, stayed with Hoppus in summer 1994. Blink's first album,
Cheshire Cat (1995), was a strong seller for the independent band and would come to be regarded as iconic within the
skate punk scene. The band slowly built a young, devoted following with indie recordings and an endless series of performances and various clubs and festivals. MCA Records signed the band in 1996 and would co-distribute their next release, the sophomore effort
Dude Ranch. Hoppus penned the record's lead single, "
Dammit", which became a nationwide rock radio hit single as the band toured on the Vans Warped Tour.
Multi-platinum success and +44 Hoppus grew increasingly lonely on these tours, having no significant other while other band members did. With new drummer
Travis Barker behind the kit, the trio hit the studio with producer
Jerry Finn and recorded
Enema of the State, which launched the band's career, catapulting them into the "stratosphere of pop music" and solidifying them as the biggest pop punk act of the era. Three singles were released from the record—"
What's My Age Again?", "
All the Small Things", and "
Adam's Song"—that crossed over into Top 40 radio format and experienced major commercial success. Hoppus got married in 2000 (see Personal life) just before the band prepared to record their highly anticipated follow-up,
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001). Hoppus felt complacent creatively but DeLonge felt otherwise, creating
post-hardcore side project
Box Car Racer to experiment with ideas he deemed unsuitable for blink. Hoppus felt betrayed (Barker was also in Box Car Racer) and a rift developed between Hoppus and DeLonge that would carry on into the band's future. When the band regrouped to record their next record in 2003, all of the members had become fathers (or, in the case of Barker, becoming one) and the trio took a darker, more "mature" direction with their
untitled fifth studio album, infusing
experimentalist elements into their usual pop punk sound partially inspired by Box Car Racer. Unresolved feelings from that project would arise in late 2004 when the band began to argue regarding their future and recording process. Hoppus then began to work on even darker, electronic demos with Barker in his kitchen. He also turned to producing, hitting the studio with
Motion City Soundtrack to record
Commit This to Memory (2005). In October 2005, Hoppus and Barker purchased a studio together (named Opra Music), where they would bring together a full band to expand upon those electronic demos, creating
+44's
When Your Heart Stops Beating (2006). The record, by all accounts, sold poorly and received mixed reviews in the music press. Hoppus and Barker continued touring on the
Honda Civic Tour and commenced work on a second +44 album. The August 2008 death of friend and producer Jerry Finn deeply affected Hoppus, who referred to Finn as a lifelong friend and mentor. The following month, Barker and collaborator
Adam Goldstein (aka DJ AM), were involved in a plane crash that killed four people, leaving Barker and Goldstein the only survivors. Hoppus immediately boarded a plane to the burn unit, and DeLonge reconnected with the duo under the tragic circumstances. When the band regrouped in the studio for a day, past acrimony vanished with near immediacy. Regarding these experiences, Hoppus wrote, "The events of the past two months supersede everything that happened before. Life is too short." In February 2009, the band's official website was updated with a statement: "To put it simply, We're back. We mean, really back. Picking up where we left off and then some. In the studio writing and recording a new album. Preparing to tour the world yet again. Friendships reformed. 17 years deep in our legacy."
Reunion and recent events The band reconnected musically and emotionally on the reunion tour, but were still "on eggshells" throughout the recording of their comeback album. The band struggled to record juggling individual priorities; in the case of Hoppus, his new television show
Hoppus on Music required him flying to New York once a week. Hoppus moved to London with his family late in the recording process, also complicating matters. The band toured Australia in February 2013 without Barker, who did not attend due to his fear of flying (
Brooks Wackerman of
Bad Religion filled in for him). The band toured the United States in September 2013, where they planned to begin writing songs for their seventh studio album. "We're hoping to head into the studio next year [and to have the] album out in late spring/early summer," Hoppus told
Kerrang!. In the interim, Hoppus began recording songs with frequent engineer and producer Chris Holmes that the duo plan to release by the end of the year. "We probably have seven or eight songs in various stages of completion," Hoppus remarked in August 2013. In 2015, blink-182 played three shows in California. With the departure of
Tom DeLonge from the band,
Matt Skiba of
Alkaline Trio, filled in. It was the first time Hoppus performed under the name "blink-182" without DeLonge by his side. The shows were on March 18, March 20, and March 22. Hoppus later hired Skiba full-time, and blink-182 recorded two albums with him, 2016's
California and 2019's
Nine before DeLonge returned to the band in 2022. Hoppus has also performed DJ sets at Emo Nite in Los Angeles on several occasions from 2015 to 2017. In non-musical endeavors, Hoppus launched his own clothing line, Hi My Name is Mark (stylized as "HiMyNameIsMark"), in July 2013. followed by their first EP,
Strange Love, on March 29, 2019. Their second EP,
Everything Opposite, was released on October 11, 2019. Since 2020 the project has been on hiatus. ==Musical style==