Artwork, books, a guitar and a Spotify award for Blink-182’s hit “All the Small Things” hitting 1 billion streams rest neatly behind Mark Hoppus as he sits down at his desk to discuss his new memoir, Fahrenheit-182, with Us. It’s been quite the ride for the pop-punk star, whose band rose to fame in the late ’90s, dominating the airwaves alongside acts like The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, and whose lyrics never quite leave a millennial’s subconscious. (See what happens if “What’s My Age Again?” comes on during a Target run.) With their playful energy, relatable songs and irreverent humor, Blink-182 became part of the soundtrack for a generation figuring out the chaos of growing up.
Hoppus’ own journey hasn’t always mirrored that of the carefree rocker fans remember from the glory days of MTV. He privately struggled with his mental health, and in 2021, he was diagnosed with stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Hoppus, 53, says he was seated at the very same desk when he asked his oncologist the first question that popped into his head after learning he had cancer. “‘Is it going to hurt?’” he recalls asking about the treatment course. “[The doctor] said, ‘Yeah, it’s going to hurt. The good news is that you have great odds — a 60 percent chance. The bad news is, it’s the worst chemotherapy you can go through.’”
The day had already proved to be nerve-wracking for Hoppus: Earlier, he’d been on his way to a therapy session to discuss obsessive thoughts, panic attacks and thoughts of suicide. “I was in a dark place,” he admits, noting that, while emerging from a post-COVID world during a time when Blink-182 was on hiatus, “I felt really off-kilter.” But finding a “lime-size tumor” in his shoulder, going through testing and a fateful phone call from his doctor changed everything. “I felt like I was letting everyone down,” Hoppus says. “Like, ‘Hey, sorry, I f***ed up. I got cancer.’”
The next few months were a whirlwind. Hoppus underwent R-CHOP, a grueling chemotherapy regimen that “burned everything out of my body.” He wallowed in self-pity (“There’s a lot of ‘why me?’”) until his wife, Skye, with whom he shares 22-year-old son Jack, put it to him bluntly. “I told [her], ‘I don’t know if I can do [this] … and she said, ‘What does that mean? Are you going to kill yourself?’” It was the reality check he needed: “I didn’t think that I was going to come out the other side, but I wanted to go down swinging.”
It wasn’t easy — cancer, as Hoppus describes it, is “awful, humiliating and miserable” — but by his sixth round of chemo, there were no traces of the disease left. He had come out on the other side. Getting a second chance at life gave Hoppus a new perspective that he desperately needed: “Every day now is a bonus.”
With that chapter behind him, Hoppus was inspired to share the highs and lows of his life and career in Fahrenheit-182. While the memoir dives deep into his upbringing, path to stardom and health journey, it’s also a love letter to his longtime bandmates, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker, and their loyal fan base. “Outside of being a good husband and a good father,” Hoppus tells Us, “all that I would love to be remembered for is [being] Mark from Blink-182.”
Why was now the right time to share your story?
It was a combination of two things. When I got sick with cancer, my therapist said, “You should write how you’re feeling and just write like nobody’s ever going to read it. It doesn’t matter if you write a paragraph or a poem, whatever, just start writing.” So I did. It was really cathartic and helped me through a very difficult time. Then when my cancer went into remission, my manager said, “You should write a book about your life and Blink.” At first I was resistant — like, “Who cares about me and my life?” But people love Blink and I love Blink. Blink is my favorite band [and] Tom and Travis are my favorite musicians in the world, so I wanted to share that joy and that love with the world. Hopefully people like it and hopefully it’s a cool story.
What topics were the most difficult to write about?
My parents’ divorce, my mom being physically abused by a boyfriend, the band breaking up, depression, anxiety, ego [and] loss of self when the band broke up. I had spent so long building Blink and being Mark from Blink-182 — aside from my marriage and our son — that my whole sense of being was our band. Then, the cancer and feelings of depression and loss when I was sick. When you write your most visceral, darkest feelings, that is what people connect to. When I try and write a cute, tidy song, it ends up sucking because it’s not authentic. But when you write about things that mean something to you, people react to that. So hopefully as it’s worked in music, it’ll work on the book level as well.
Have your parents read the book? What were their reactions to everything you opened up about?
My mom has read the book. I sent her an early draft and she has always been very supportive. My dad has not read the book as of yet. I portray their divorce as I saw it as a child in the late ’70s, early ’80s. I don’t judge either of my parents for how they acted. That’s just how it was back then: Generation X grew up like that. All of our parents got divorced, everybody had parents that were going through it and the kids kind of fell through the cracks. Both my parents found amazing, lifelong partners that they love and everybody’s good now, but it was a s***ty number of years, for sure. The whole point of the book is, there’s no demons out there, [and] aren’t we lucky to get to do what we’ve done and see what we’ve seen?
Did writing this book help you heal at all?
I felt like I healed my inner child [and] my adult child. I was trying to be fair to everybody I’ve encountered — old band members, people that had done me wrong — [and] tried [to] write from their perspective. For instance, when the band broke up the first time, and I was mad at Tom, I didn’t want [him] to sound like an a**hole or thoughtless. What I wanted to do was present it as like, “Tom was thinking this and I was thinking this, along with Travis, and that was incompatible at the time, and this is what happened because of that.” It helped me deal with old grudges or animosities, and just be like, it’s all good. We’re here.
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In the book you tell a story about your childhood hero, Robert Smith, trying to make out with you after a show. Did you give him a heads-up that you were including that moment?
No, I didn’t. I should have called him or given some kind of warning or something, but I don’t know — how do you have that conversation? “Hey, remember when you tried to make out with me?” Because we’ve never addressed it. I’ve seen him several times since, and it’s been totally cool and nobody’s talked about it. It was just like this thing at a party after the show [in] a room full of people. Everyone was drinking, everyone was having fun. My wife and I are like, “Alright, we’re out. See you later,” and then Robert tries to kiss me. Nobody sees it except for our drum tech and my bass tech in a room packed full of people. He was my hero. I grew up listening to this guy’s music and it changed my life forever. Then he tries to kiss me at a party and I’m like, “I should have done that. Why not?” It’s a much better story than he tried to kiss me and it was awkward. It would’ve been rad to be like, “Yeah, made out with my hero.”
How did you really feel about it afterwards? Was it a classic never-meet-your-heroes moment?
Nah, it wasn’t at all. I wasn’t bummed in the slightest. I was more, like, flabbergasted that nobody else saw it. To the point where I was just laying in bed, Skye had gone to sleep [and] finally I just picked up my phone and I called my drum tech. He answers the phone wide awake [at] 3:30 in the morning and he’s just laughing. I’m like, “So you saw that, right?” And he goes, “Oh, yeah, the grown man trying to make out with you? I saw that.”
What do you think it was? Is he just that big of a fan?
I think that he was just on one that night, feeling saucy and having a good time. He was inspired. It was such a fun show. It meant so much to us that he was on stage with us, that he sang a song on our album. Just all these dreams coming true at the same time, all coalescing at this one show in London, and then it ends in this weird thing and I just walk away, [like] what the f*** was that?
You’re the only member to remain in the band throughout Blink-182’s history. When you look back at your time in the band, what was your ultimate pinch-me moment?
There’ve been a billion of them. The first time that we sold out the small club we played in San Diego was a pinch-me moment. All of a sudden we’re playing a stage that our favorite bands had played: NOFX played that stage, Green Day had played that stage, Bad Religion had played that stage. And then there we are. Selling out Madison Square Garden. Being on the cover of Rolling Stone, playing on Saturday Night Live, having a No. 1 record. We’ve been blessed with so many pinch-me moments that I should have bruises.
You call your partnership with Tom a marriage, but you’re very honest about your frustrations with him. Has he read the book?
He has not read the book yet. I got my first copy of the book a few days ago, and the first thing I did was call my managers and [tell them], “Please make sure that we get copies to Tom and Travis as soon as possible so they can read it or ignore it or put it on a shelf and forget about it entirely, but I want them to have it.” They’ve been nothing but supportive [and] so kind about the whole process. There’s nothing in the book that I haven’t talked with Tom about or said to his face. Nothing will shock him. The internal band stuff, we haven’t really talked about too much in public because we don’t want to air our dirty laundry, but there is a past there. I think the book gives perspective to all of it. It’s not so much mud slinging as it is like, “This is what was happening and this is how we dealt with it, this is how I felt and this is why Tom did that.”
Blink-182’s image was based on being guys who loved to have a good time, but behind the scenes, you were grappling with fame. How would you describe that time in your life?
When it got really bad, we were on a tour of Europe in 2004/2005. We were selling out giant venues, but we were arguing like angry dogs backstage, saying the worst things you can say to hurt [the other] or make your point. Then we’d go on stage, play a giant show and it would rule, but we’d be pissed at one another. It was the dead of winter in Europe at the time, which is just brutally depressing as an American growing up in Southern California. You go there and it’s snowy, the snow’s dirty, everything’s cold and gray. All the trees are dead [and] all the buildings are concrete and stone. That was a really hard tour.
You showed a vulnerable side in 1999’s “Adam’s Song,” which dives into your battle with depression. What can you tell Us about that time?
The band was doing really great, but personally, I felt really empty. Tom had a serious girlfriend, and we’d come back from tour and [he’d] have that support system when he was back home. I’d come home to an empty house. I had all the trappings of success. I had bought a new house, I had a new car, our band was doing well, we were being played on the radio, we were being played on MTV, and I’d just come home to an empty house. I felt empty, so I wrote “Adam’s Song” from that place. As I’ve gone through life, that song has taken on so much meaning for other people as well, and that’s what I mean when I say if you write your darkest feelings, that I think that people connect with that. So many people over the years have said that song helped them through a hard time or even saved their life or meant something to them, which is incredibly gratifying and humbling. When we played that song on the last tour after I got well and the band got back together, I would start off talking about “Adam’s Song” and how that song saved my life back in the day and how this band and this song and everything saved my life a second time. Without fail, I was just crying on stage in front of tens of thousands of people, feeling like an idiot for breaking down, but that’s what that song means to me. Hopefully that’s what that song means to other people as well.
“What’s My Age Again?” came out 26 years ago — does it feel like that song came out yesterday to you?
It does. It feels like “What’s My Age Again?” came out a few days ago. I still get stoked when I hear it on the radio. We’ve been played on the radio since ’95 or ’96, so that’s 30 years of being on the radio. Every time I hear a song on the radio, I just want to roll down my window and scream, “That’s my band! I helped write that song! Those are my friends! That’s me and my friends!” I still love that feeling. I did a photo shoot two days ago [and] the photographers for the band were younger than my son. I have bass guitars [and] albums older than those kids, and they love Blink-182. What bigger honor and blessing could that be? People that weren’t even born when these albums come out know all the words. Like, dream-come-true s***.
Many musicians get caught up in partying when they find fame. How did Blink-182 manage to stay grounded?
A combination of the way we were raised and just being normal, down-to-earth people to begin with. We had to work so hard for our success that by the time [of 1999’s] Enema of the State, we’d been touring for five years [and] been a band for seven years. People struggle when they go from nothing to huge fame in a very short amount of time. We keep each other in check. Coming out of the punk rock and skateboarding communities, I think that it grounded us in that way.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions about life as a touring rock star?
The biggest misconception of life as a touring rock star is that it is a party backstage. It is sometimes, and Tom definitely has a party going in his dressing room all the time. Tom actually calls his dressing room Dreamland. He has music pumping, alcohol flowing and a bar in there — all kinds of cool stuff. Tom’s room is kind of a party. Travis has his own dressing room, and he’s in there working out, listening to music [and] working on stuff. He’s always working. My dressing room is always quiet [and] sterile [with] antiseptic lights turned all the way up. I’m watching a TV show or reading a book or things like that. People come backstage and they think it’s going to be all these people hanging out and stuff. It’s a lot quieter than I think people expect.
You admitted feeling like you lost everything when Tom left Blink-182 in 2005. How did you reclaim your identity?
Travis really helped me a lot because I was lost. I didn’t know if I would make music again, and I didn’t know if I could write songs without Tom in the room. Travis was like, “No, we’re going to keep going. We’re going to keep making music.” He and I latched onto one another and started +44. Writing [2006’s When Your Heart Starts Beating] and loving that album as much as I do, it has so much meaning to me personally. [It] got me to be like, “You know what? I can do this. I got chops. I can write good songs.” I really credit Travis with getting me through a really difficult time with +44. Travis was struggling as well. He loves Blink as much as anybody, so yeah, we leaned on each other hard.
Do you attribute that attitude change to helping empower you to move forward after Tom quit the second time?
The second time [in 2015], we’re like, “No, we’re not getting this taken away from us again. It’s not that easy. We’re going to keep going.” At that point, we realized Blink-182 is larger than the three of us and our stupid argument. Matt [Skiba] was an angel to come in. He stepped into a really difficult position and he killed it. He gave us everything, wrote great songs and sang great lyrics. Trying to fill Tom DeLonge’s shoes in Tom DeLonge’s band is a tall order, and Matt crushed it. That was a really great time for me. As painful as it was to not have Tom there, I was like, “OK, we’re going to keep going, and things are going to be OK.”
Travis’ 2008 plane crash pushed Blink-182 to reunite. How did his near-death experience impact you?
Oh man, it was the worst. Getting that call and knowing that Travis’ worst fear had come true, because Travis was horrified of flying. He hated flying forever. Getting that call just destroyed me and destroyed Tom. We almost didn’t get a chance to say what we needed to say to each other. It really crystallized everything for all of us — like f***, what we built was really special. When Tom first called after Travis was in his plane crash, we got together [and] we didn’t talk about Blink. It was like, how are we as friends? How are we connected in this world?
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You opened up about your battle with depression, anxiety and OCD. How have those issues changed since you’ve beat cancer?
I still deal with them from time to time, much less now than I have ever in my life, and I attribute that to getting through cancer. I’m not supposed to be here. The world, my blood [and] the cells in my body decided I wasn’t supposed to be here anymore, and they conspired to take me out. I fought it, and it’s in remission. Who knows what will happen in the future? [So I] enjoy every day, value every second, [and] try [to] be the best person I can. If I get taken out of the world tomorrow, am I at peace with that? I do a lot less now: I stay home a lot more. I am involved with far fewer people than I’ve ever been in my life. My circle of friends [and] people that I work with is small and I cherish every one of them, so that helps a lot. When things get difficult, I talk to my wife [and] my bandmates — that’s really my support system.
What was the moment that hit you the hardest when you learned you had cancer?
Calling my son at college. He was still on lockdown [amid the pandemic] and in between classes. I don’t know why I called him in the middle of the day. That was bad parenting of me, but I needed to make that call. Then, calling my parents and my friends. I felt so awful.
If you could go back and talk to yourself on the day of your diagnosis, what would you tell yourself?
I’m kind of “the cancer guy” amongst my group of friends now. When somebody finds out they have cancer, I’m the guy that they turn to and say, “Hey, will you talk to them? What advice [would] you give?” Really, it’s take care of yourself. Don’t feel like you have to conquer the world. Be strong for yourself [and] your family, but be kind to yourself and give yourself space. I wish that I would’ve just slept more, been on the couch more, allowed myself to heal and go through it, but I was always trying to be OK, I still [have] to do my stuff. Sometimes just getting outside to walk was all I could do during the day. If I could walk for 15 minutes on flat ground, that was it. I could barely breathe because my red blood count was so low that I couldn’t carry oxygen, so I would walk up the stairs from my studio here and be completely out of breath.
What’s the best advice you received?
The day before I started chemotherapy, Tom texted me a photo [with] a bunch of women in lingerie for a music video he was filming for [his band] Angels & Airwaves and said, “I’m still creating art over here.” I replied, “Haha, that’s great. By the way, I need to tell you I have cancer. I start chemotherapy tomorrow.” Immediately, my phone rang, and it was Tom. It was the first time that I’d really spoken to him in years. I remember he said, “This is a lesson the universe is trying to teach you. Figure out what that lesson is.’” That was probably the best advice that somebody gave me while I was sick. In the universal sense, what is God trying to tell me right now?
What do you think it was?
F***ing slow down. Be kinder to yourself. “Be here now” is great advice. Don’t worry about tomorrow [or] yesterday. You get today. Enjoy it.
You accidentally announced your diagnosis on Instagram. Was initially keeping it a secret helpful?
It helped me privately cope with it. When I found out I was sick, it was almost like, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I’ve been so lucky in my life that, of course, I’d get cancer. How else would it end?” I thought when my diagnosis went public, people would have the same reaction, so I didn’t tell anybody. On my third round of chemotherapy, I accidentally posted a picture of myself hooked up to an IV bag in the chemo chair saying, “Hello, yes, one chemo treatment please.” I [meant to] post that to [my] Close Friends [group] as a way to make a joke, [but] I posted it to main.
When did you realize what you’d done?
My manager texted me [asking], “Hey, did you mean to post that on main?” At that point, I was already crashing from the massive dose of Benadryl that they give you to start your chemotherapy. I [thought], “Ah, s***,” and fell asleep. I wake up a couple hours later, I look at my phone, and there’s all these messages. The amount of love from people I thought would be like, “Ha, ha, look at you, Cancer Man,” was a huge wave of support and strength that I didn’t know I needed, and it came at a time when I really needed it.
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Following your diagnosis, Blink-182 decided to move forward in 2022. How has your relationship with Tom and Travis evolved?
We’re much more honest with each other. The communication is a lot better. We’ve set up boundaries of what we want to do. If the three of us want to do something, that’s all that matters. We do everything in our own time on our own terms, and that kind of commitment to one another has really helped through these last three years.
Now that you’re out on the other side, do you feel lucky to be alive?
Oh, I feel incredibly lucky to be alive. Of all the cancers to get, I got one that’s curable. One of the biggest blessings for me was that I didn’t have to make decisions of how I was going to be treated. With my kind of cancer, with my specific genetic markers, there’s only one thing I can do. I never had to make a choice [between] radiation and surgery. My course was set. There’s only one way to go, and the only way out was through, so that was easy.
What are your next steps to ensuring that you stay cancer-free?
Great news, and I’m going to knock wood when I say this. I got a clear scan a year ago, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I hit up my oncologist and [asked], “Do I need to get scanned again? It’s been a year.” He replied back immediately, “Nope, you’re all good. Keep living life.” So that was great. I do think about my health a lot. I’m very conscious of what I’m eating. I try not to drink too much. I work out five days a week. For me, the ongoing thing with my cancer is that I’m tired a lot and that I still have brain fog. So when I get tired, I go to bed. When I get brain fog, I just have to be kind to myself and [think], “OK, it’s going to go away.”
You’ll celebrate 25 years of marriage this year with Skye. In what ways has she supported you through the years?
She has never once given me any grief for the stuff that I have to do, being in a band and having to be gone from home and touring as much as we tour. I’ve never been put in a position where I have to choose between family and band. I have a great time on tour, but it’s also how I support my family. I [also] have to do it for my soul and for myself, and my family has always supported me in that.
What is one piece of advice that you’ve shared with Jack as he enters the real world?
Jack is an incredible kid and he has largely found his way on his own. My wife and I have always tried to give him the best advice but not be overbearing and let him make his own choices. I credit him a lot with choosing his own way in the world and us just being there as support. We never put stuff in front of him because we thought we should. Whatever it is that he wanted to do, we supported. He chose video games and computer science as what he loved. He worked his ass off, studied, went to college, majored, interned, did everything he could and now he’s a video game designer. I wish I could take credit for it, but he did it all himself.
You said you don’t want to be referred to as brave. What word would you use to describe yourself throughout your health journey?
I don’t feel like I fought [cancer] bravely [or] did anything that anybody else did differently. I sat in a chair, got pumped full of poison and then came home and felt sorry for myself. I tried to fight it as best I could [and] tried to have the best attitude that I could. Sometimes I had a good attitude; sometimes I fell short, so I would say I persevered through cancer treatment.
What’s next for you?
Keep doing Blink. Our success and our friendship is the one-in-a-million nobody gets to experience, so I want that to go on for as long as it can. I want to keep making music, keep touring and keep being friends with my best friends.