MARK HOPPUS Thinks Camping Sucks

Summary

Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers Episode: MARK HOPPUS Thinks Camping Sucks
Release Date: April 8, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers, hosts Seth Meyers and Josh Meyers welcome Mark Hoppus, best known as the bassist and co-lead vocalist of the iconic band Blink-182. The conversation delves into Mark's childhood memories, family dynamics, his recent foray into writing, and his adventurous spirit that extends beyond music.

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Guest Introduction: Mark Hoppus

[08:20]
Seth Meyers opens the dialogue warmly, immediately establishing a connection with Mark:

Mark Hoppus: "Hey, hey, hey. Hello."

Mark responds with the same enthusiasm, setting a friendly tone for the episode.

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Early Family Trips and Memories

Mark shares vivid recollections of his early family trips, highlighting the adventurous nature of his upbringing.

[13:29]
He recounts an incident that left a lasting impression:

Mark Hoppus: "We came back and our truck was stolen... We never caught them. And we were stranded in Boston with all of our toys and clothes and everything gone as small children."

This experience underscored the unpredictable nature of family adventures and the resilience required from a young age.

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Parental Divorce and Sibling Relationship

The discussion shifts to Mark's family dynamics, particularly the impact of his parents' divorce on his relationship with his sister.

[17:12]
Mark describes the closeness with his sister and how their bond was tested and ultimately strengthened through challenging times:

Mark Hoppus: "We were best friends growing up... We regained our friendship when we were teenagers."

He emphasizes the supportive role his sister played in his musical journey:

Mark Hoppus: "She was the reason that I'm in Blink 182 because she was dating a guy who introduced me to Tom, our guitarist."

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Mark’s Book and Writing Process

Mark discusses his recently published book, Fahrenheit 182, offering insights into his motivations and the writing process.

[60:05]
He reflects on the challenges of documenting his experiences:

Mark Hoppus: "The hardest thing about writing the book was thinking that anyone would care in the first place... But I love Blink, and I love Tom and Travis so much that I wanted to tell the story of Blink 182."

Mark highlights his commitment to fairness and understanding in his storytelling:

Mark Hoppus: "I tried very hard in the book to make things even handed... It made me think about old arguments from the other person."

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Early Tour Experiences and Vehicles

Mark reminisces about Blink-182’s humble beginnings on the road, emphasizing the camaraderie and challenges faced.

[37:41]
He describes their initial dreams versus reality:

Mark Hoppus: "We envisioned getting this amazing touring van... But we went to the dealership and all they had was this white sport van... We toured that thing into the dirt. It was trash by the time we were done with it. It was awesome."

This anecdote underscores the band's resourcefulness and passion during their formative years.

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Scuba Diving and Adventures

Mark's adventurous spirit extends beyond music into scuba diving, a passion that has taken him to some of the world's most remote locations.

[53:08]
He shares his deep dive experiences:

Mark Hoppus: "I ended up doing 200 dives in the first year... We went everywhere, dove wrecks, and lots of cool sharks."

Despite his enthusiasm, Mark candidly admits his limits:

Mark Hoppus: "After diving the Andrea Doria and losing a friend, I decided I wanted to focus on seeing cool fish rather than deep, technical dives."

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Recent Family Trips and Experiences

Mark talks about recent extraordinary trips with his family, highlighting his reluctance towards traditional camping but embracing unique adventures.

[48:14]
One standout trip was an expedition to Antarctica:

Mark Hoppus: "We took him to Antarctica when he was six years old... People thought we were crazy to bring our six-year-old on this boat across the Drake Passage in 40-foot seas."

He describes the harrowing yet rewarding journey:

Mark Hoppus: "Three-day passage in 40-foot seas with 70-mile-per-hour winds... We saw penguins and amazing landscapes."

Mark emphasizes the bonding and unforgettable experiences despite his son's limited memory of the trip.

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Conclusion and Final Discussions

The episode wraps up with light-hearted questions from Josh Meyers, allowing Mark to share personal preferences and humorous anecdotes about family and travel.

[63:23]
One notable response:

Mark Hoppus: "If I could take a vacation with any family ever, I would love to go on the Oregon Trail."

Mark also humorously critiques his hometown:

[64:34]
Mark Hoppus: "Absolutely not [Ridgecrest as a vacation destination]. It is in the middle of the desert... The only reason that the city is there at all is because the Navy has a military base."

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Notable Quotes

• Mark Hoppus on Trucker Theft:
  "[13:29] We came back and our truck was stolen... Stranded in Boston with all of our toys and clothes gone as small children."

• Mark Hoppus on Writing His Book:
  "[60:05] The hardest thing about writing the book was thinking that anyone would care in the first place... But I love Blink, and I love Tom and Travis so much that I wanted to tell the story of Blink 182."

• Mark Hoppus on Touring Vans:
  "[37:41] We toured that thing into the dirt. It was trash by the time we were done with it. It was awesome."

• Mark Hoppus on Scuba Diving:
  "[53:08] I ended up doing 200 dives in the first year... We dove wrecks and lots of cool sharks."

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a deep dive into Mark Hoppus's life beyond music, revealing the complexities of his family relationships, personal adventures, and the creative processes behind his recent endeavors. Guests and listeners alike gain a multifaceted understanding of Mark's character, underscored by humor, resilience, and an unyielding spirit of adventure.

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Note: Advertisements, sponsorship messages, and non-content segments have been excluded from this summary to focus solely on the substantive discussions of the episode.

Transcript

[Sufi]

This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by the all new 2025 Nissan Armada. Because going big never goes out of style. Learn [e-mail] Here we go. Hi, Pashi.

[Pashi]

Hi, Sufi.

[Sufi]

How are you, my friend?

[Pashi]

I'm good.

[Sufi]

Good. We're talking right now and we're gonna mention it in a later episode, but it is my wife's birthday.

[Pashi]

Oh, yeah.

[Sufi]

And her birthday is April Fool's day. And I took my boys to our local art store. And mostly we go to their local art store and they just build castles. Like, it's a place where there's like boxes and you've been there, right?

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Little jewels, little rocks and they. So they build castles and they paint them and then they say they're really important. We have to bring them home and we put them in the basement. We never look at them again. But if you're looking, you call it the gallery. We do call it the gallery. And it's in a very dank, dark basement. And if you're out there and you're looking for some shoddy looking castles, I. I'm looking to unload some.

[Pashi]

Yeah, come take the gallery tour and maybe you'll go home with a castle.

[Sufi]

So. But I did stress to them, I said, look, let's make cards for mama. It will mean the world to her. Yeah. And both kids had the idea to use April Fools as a jumping off point. And so Ash had an idea which was the front of the card would say, you are the worst mom ever. And then he wanted to open it up and he wanted to have a pop up character in the book saying April Fools. And then underneath it, you're the best mom ever. Really good idea. So we're at the art store. I'm watching a YouTube video about how to make a pop up card. Right? Takes me a bunch of efforts to get one right, but I'm very happy with how it ended up. I think it's a great, great card. Meanwhile, Axel, all he wants to do is have a card that says on the front, when is your birthday? And then you open it up and it says, April Fools. Now he also writes April Fools on a piece of paper and he says, I want it to. He goes. I go, do you want to learn how to make a pop up card? He goes, no, it will pop up. And so I just watch him. He takes a piece of paper and he writes April Fools. And then he takes a long strip of paper and he tapes that to the thing and then he folds up the long strip like an accordion.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

And so I'm like, all right, bud. But that's not going to pop up the way you think it is. He goes, yes, it will. And then he does this whole thing and he opens it. And of course it just. It's limply lies there. It's not just. Just cuz you make a piece of paper look like a, you know, a spring. Doesn't make it a spring.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

And he just opens it, nothing happens. And he goes, okay, you gotta fix that. And I really was like, I think knowing your mom, she's gonna enjoy seeing exactly how you thought this was gonna go.

[Pashi]

I also think, and I mean, you were there, so you know how it went. But you don't open a card flat on a table. You typically hold a card upright like a book. So it would fall out sort of.

[Sufi]

Yeah, that's a very good point. Like gravity's working against this plan.

[Pashi]

Right. But I would think gravity would work in favor of his accordion.

[Sufi]

Yeah, it would just kind of limply go down. But it would fall out of the card.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

It wouldn't jump out at her.

[Sufi]

We are, we're also. This is the. The birthday corridor in my family. Oh yeah. We've got a March 27, Ash. April 1, Alexi. April 8, Axel. And we are fully back in the LEGO zone.

[Pashi]

Okay.

[Sufi]

And we are in the leg. We are in the Star Wars LEGO zone. And it is. These things are so massive these days.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

And so detailed. And the downside of that is this morning at 4:40, Axel came into my bed, got real close to my ear and said, I need your help with the Death Star. And I like to imagine that's how Darth Vader asked somebody once. Yeah, he had an idea.

[Pashi]

Could you help me with this?

[Sufi]

Emperor Palpatine, I need your help with the Death doll.

[Pashi]

I feel bad right now. I ordered something for Ash weeks ago and it just arrived and I gotta get it in the mail to him.

[Sufi]

Oh, you, you delivered it to you?

[Pashi]

It delivered to me because I wanted to wrap it properly and be like, this is from Uncle Pashi.

[Sufi]

It's good. It will end up coming at a time where he's ready for one last wave of gifts, you know?

[Pashi]

Right. But I do think, like then I was thinking about what I get for Axel and Ash. I got this book that I loved when I was around his age.

[Sufi]

What was it?

[Pashi]

Red Wall.

[Sufi]

Oh yeah. With a mouse. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Pashi]

Which was on a list of like the best hundred fantasy books of all time, adult and kid. But that one made the cut. And so I ordered it. I wanted it to be a hardcover, and it took a while to get here, but then I want to get something for Axel, and I just feel like Axel's side by side will be so much cooler than a book. And I don't want Ash to get a late birthday present which is already, like, it's not even my birthday. And then, like. And wait, he gets this and I get a book?

[Sufi]

Yeah. I will say some people have gotten him some books and your fears are well placed.

[Pashi]

Yeah, Well, I do have something to make it a bit more special. There's this company that makes these, like, they're like butterflies that you wind up and you put them in a book. So when you open the book, it flies out.

[Sufi]

Oh, wow.

[Pashi]

And I think it's gonna be. It's gonna add at least four seconds of excitement.

[Sufi]

That's something. Yeah. That's not nothing.

[Pashi]

But then he'll be able to then take this and put it in other people's books.

[Sufi]

Oh, the butterfly. Right.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

And do you think this butterfly is sort of like a snake coming out of mixed nuts meant to scare people? Oh, okay.

[Pashi]

I mean, I think it's, like, supposed to be delightful, but it does say on the website, it's like, maybe warn people who get scared easily that this could be coming. And there's one person I thought I would definitely have to do that for if I were to include it in a book.

[Sufi]

That would be our mother.

[Pashi]

That's mom.

[Sufi]

Yeah. Now real quick, give me the noise mom would make if a butterfly came out of her book. Yeah. Now make the noise she makes when the microwave dings. Now. Now make the noise she makes if dad has to put the brakes on a little quick because somebody cuts them off. Oh, really good bosh.

[Pashi]

Hey, thanks.

[Sufi]

And now you are. And this is a really cool offer for our listeners. Josh has recorded 1,000 of Mom's reactions.

[Pashi]

They are different if you think.

[Sufi]

Yeah, they are.

[Pashi]

They are different.

[Sufi]

And you can download them as a ringtone. And so the ringtones are like eight in a row. So this would be. If you download the mom reaction ringtone, this would be what it sounds like if you get a call.

[Mark Hoppus]

Now.

[Sufi]

Now do your reaction of mom reacting to that ringtone. If she downloaded on her phone.

[Pashi]

Oh.

[Sufi]

It'S a new one. Now we gotta.

[Pashi]

Well, yeah, see, they are different.

[Sufi]

They are different. All right, bud. Well, we've got a wonderful episode today. Mark Hoppus, lovely guy.

[Pashi]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sufi]

Cool, dude.

[Pashi]

I mean, so cool. Just like you. As soon as you see this guy, you're like, well, that's a cool person.

[Sufi]

Cool dude. Been cool for a long time. Still cool.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

So enjoy that conversation. Also enjoy Jeff Tweety.

[Mark Hoppus]

Family trips with the M Brothers.

[Pashi]

Family trips with the mother's brother.

[Mark Hoppus]

Here we go.

[Sufi]

Hey there.

[Mark Hoppus]

Hey, hey, hey. Hello.

[Sufi]

How are you?

[Mark Hoppus]

Good, how are you?

[Sufi]

We're very.

[Mark Hoppus]

Are you talking to me or are you talking to your brother?

[Sufi]

No, I'm talking to you. I can just tell how he is. I don't even ask.

[Mark Hoppus]

Hi, Jeff Shell wanted me to say hello to you.

[Sufi]

Oh, my goodness. Please give him my love.

[Mark Hoppus]

I will.

[Pashi]

My wife, Mark, wanted to say hello to you, and I don't know if you remember her. She was at the Northampton Airport Warped Tour in the late 90s, I want to say.

[Mark Hoppus]

Oh, hell, yeah. That was your wife. Nice.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

She was wearing a tank top, jean cutoffs, and Converse ones. She was 14, so part of me hopes you don't remember her.

[Mark Hoppus]

Was I polite? Was I kind?

[Pashi]

She said you guys were amazing.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, she's awesome. Very cool.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

I would imagine you, if you look back, would your bet be, in most cases, people's experience would be polite and kind?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes, totally. 100%. Maybe not with Tom.

[Sufi]

Did you appreciate that early on, how important that was, to have those interactions count with people?

[Mark Hoppus]

Oh, always. Because I was always that kid when I was. Well, I wasn't a kid. I was in college and I went to a Replacements concert and we bullied our way backstage. We literally just walked past. We didn't bully, but we just walked past security into the Replacements dressing room, opened the door. It was right after the show. They were, like, literally toweling off, drinking water, whatever, and walked in and like, he hey, will you guys sign stuff for us? And they were so kind and cool. They were like, yeah, what do you want us to sign? And I didn't have anything to sign. So I went over and I reached on the wall of their dressing room and I pulled off a Replacements poster and all the bands signed it. So I always remembered that. And I didn't want to be the person that was like, nah, I'm not signing your thing, or I'm not taking your photo. Because it's such a compliment and such a kindness for people to come up and say, I love your band. Can we have a photo?

[Sufi]

Also, I would imagine no one ever crossed as many boundaries as you guys did with the Replacements.

[Mark Hoppus]

I guess not. Yeah. We just literally walked straight into their Dr. I don't know why we didn't get our asses Kicked. Yeah.

[Sufi]

And was it the three who walked in? Who were you with when you did that?

[Mark Hoppus]

It was me and two of my friends. I was not the band. No.

[Sufi]

Okay. Gotcha. And, well, that's really lovely that you took that into account as you went on your career. I had a moment today, which is sort of embarrassing because I remember having seen you on snl, and I really. I had to look back because I couldn't remember. And this speaks to getting older, if I was there yet or not. If I had seen you from the floor or on tv. And you guys did it right before I showed up.

[Mark Hoppus]

Okay. Yeah. We did it in, what, 99 or 2000?

[Sufi]

2000. Yeah. I actually just looked it up to verify, and it was 25 years ago in January. How about that?

[Mark Hoppus]

Wow. Holy hell.

[Sufi]

Isn't that crazy?

[Mark Hoppus]

That's crazy. That was so fun. It was so. That's one of those moments, like when we were on the Simpsons or like when you play Madison Square Garden, you play Saturday Night Live, and you're like, holy hell, we made it. That's it. Yeah.

[Sufi]

I was so impressed, too, with a band. I feel like the nerves right before an SNL might be even higher than a Madison Square Garden situation. Maybe I'm wrong, but just knowing that it's going out to everybody at once.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, it was. Can I tell you a funny story of that day? Please.

[Pashi]

Yes.

[Mark Hoppus]

The host was Jamie Foxx, and he was there promoting in any given Sunday.

[Pashi]

Okay, that line is up.

[Mark Hoppus]

Our manager went and saw the movie that day, came back to the dressing room, and I'm literally, the way that the dressing room, the host and the musical guests are right next to one each other, separated by a hallway of about three feet. There's this little hallway, and it goes right and left. And I'm sitting in our dressing room looking directly at Jamie Foxx, who's looking back at me. And our manager comes in and goes, man, I just saw that movie. Any given Sunday. It was terrible.

[Pashi]

I was so bored.

[Mark Hoppus]

I hated every second of it. And Jamie Foxx is looking at me, and I'm looking at him like, I don't know. I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happening right now.

[Sufi]

They are very close. I will verify that they are. They are so close that it's surprising what you just described doesn't happen more.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, totally.

[Sufi]

So you have. You've written a book, and the book is a good deal about your family and your upbringing.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

And, you know, we're talking about family trips and even in the description of this book, it describes the fact that you sort of came out of a bitter divorce.

[Mark Hoppus]

Bitter divorce.

[Sufi]

And I think a lot of people, you know, who listen to the show, I mean, obviously Josh and I are lucky enough. Our parents still together. We talk about trips, people remember it, but, you know, that's not true of everybody. And I'm wondering, like, what was your. Do you have memories before you were 8, when your parents split?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we went on lots of family trips. We went camping all the time. The family trip I remember the most was my dad bought a camper that, you know, the thing you put on the back of a pickup truck and it's basically like a metal tent, and drove us around the country. We were in Boston. We were at Boston Square. That big square in Boston is. I think it's called Boston Square, maybe the Boston Commons. Yeah. And we were there and we were doing all this sightseeing and we came back and our truck was stolen and my dad saw it driving off around the other side of Boston Common and took. Hauled ass across Boston Common to try and catch up with these people stealing our truck. We never caught them. And we were stranded in Boston with all of our toys and clothes and everything gone as small children.

[Pashi]

No.

[Sufi]

Now, was that because I know you're. You eventually ended up in. In California, but was that when you were in D.C. no, no, no, that was.

[Mark Hoppus]

We were still living in California at that point.

[Sufi]

So you drove across the country?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we had driven across the country. And it was one of those things where as little kids, we would be in the little area above the. Where the, where the drivers are, that little cabin up there, which is just the worst parenting possible. If we got in a car accident, we are launching through that little window straight into the stratosphere. Nobody's walking that way from that thing.

[Pashi]

Yeah, it's crazy. Like, we've had so many guests who talk about, you know, and we certainly did it as well. Like, we slept in the back of our car, we put pillows down in the backseat, and there were never any, you know, we were never wearing seatbelts. But I feel like, I don't know, we never hear about the actual accidents that people talk about that must. Must have happened. Maybe it's just because when those accidents happened, maybe everybody died.

[Sufi]

Yeah, there was no.

[Mark Hoppus]

My parents brought me home from the hospital. The nurse said the safest place to put your baby is in the wheel well of the passenger side seat.

[Sufi]

I mean, especially in 2025, when all you hear is like, you know, phones Are so bad for kids. It's the worst time to grow up. I just want to be like, they have seatbelts, FYI. So it's not. It's a little give and take there.

[Mark Hoppus]

And bicycle helmets and wrist guards when you skateboard and.

[Sufi]

Well, that. I mean, you're early skateboard, right? I mean, were you. What is your injury situation? Growing up in the pre risk guard.

[Mark Hoppus]

Skateboard days, I didn't break anything, but I have scars still from skateboarding. I remember one time I was skateboarding with my friend and we were trying to do bonelesses off of this mid size 3 foot tall brick wall. So we're trying to jump off the wall with the skateboard in our hand, put it underneath our feet and land it. And I did it one time and I broke the skateboard in half. But I was undaunted. So I took the trucks off the back and I screwed them onto the front so it was like a little half skateboard with a jagged edge on one side. I tried it again and it tipped forward, landed on the front foot first, so it tipped the entire skateboard up. So my shin went down against the entire broken edge of the skateboard to the white of my bone. And I never got stitches and I still have the scar.

[Sufi]

Wow, that's one that looking back, you should have seen coming.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, not the smartest decision I want.

[Sufi]

To going back to. First of all, I think there's something, I don't know, so memorable about watching a parent, like, just do something in complete futility. Like your dad running across Boston Commons to try to stop a car from being stolen. And obviously it's instinct on his end, but did you just know at the moment? Oh, I'm never gonna forget watching this man go try to.

[Mark Hoppus]

I mean, I still remember it, but it is one of those things. Like the truck was driving away and it's almost like in the movies where somebody's like, hey, that's my car. Like, what did my dad think he was gonna do? Stand in front of the vehicle? And the thieves are gonna be like, all right, sorry, our bad. Sorry about that.

[Pashi]

Oh, this is yours?

[Mark Hoppus]

Oh, yeah.

[Pashi]

Prior to that, on the drive, do you remember much of that cross country tour?

[Mark Hoppus]

Nothing else about the entire trip at all. There's photos of it that I don't remember anything from. But yeah, there's the happy photos of a happy family going to Boston and then there's no photos after that.

[Pashi]

And then how did you get back? Did you.

[Mark Hoppus]

I don't even remember. I think we must have caught a fly it or something. Who knows?

[Sufi]

Yeah. You have one sibling, a sister, correct?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes, I have a sister who's five years younger than I am.

[Sufi]

Oh, wow. So on a trip like that, do you guys. I mean, again, you have no memory of it, so I don't even know what I'm asking. So just in your upbringing in general, how close were you with a sister who's five years younger?

[Mark Hoppus]

Very close, actually. We were best friends growing up. I took care of her. When my parents got divorced, we went with different parents, so we were separated, and then we kind of fought a lot then. But we regained our friendship when we were teenagers. Not that we were adversarial by any means, but we kind of just didn't talk a whole lot. And then through our teens and, like, she was the reason that I'm in Blink 182 because she was dating a guy who introduced me to Tom, our guitarist. And so she's the reason that I met Tom and started the band.

[Sufi]

Unbelievable. This seems. I mean, I don't know how many families were doing that at the time, but your sister went to live with your mother, and you went to live with your father. Is that.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we were told to choose which parent we wanted to go to, and that's the problem for the rest of my life, having to choose between my parents.

[Sufi]

Wow. And so if both of you had said mom, you both would have been with your mom, do you think?

[Mark Hoppus]

Probably.

[Sufi]

Wow. So it wasn't that they were splitting you guys up.

[Mark Hoppus]

It was just they thought they were doing us a kindness, like, hey, we're cool with whatever you choose. We'll love you no matter what. Choose a parent that you want to live with. And my sister's like, I'm going with Mom. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm going with dad. Cool.

[Sufi]

Do you feel like you did that because you were feeling empathy for your father?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes, totally.

[Sufi]

Oh, man. That's something.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes, totally. It was just a weird part. It was a weird part of my life. And, like, I was like. My mom felt like home, and so I was more inclined to go with my mom, but then I lived with my dad. And, I mean, I don't regret it by any means, but it was kind of a. It was a weird situation for a long time.

[Pashi]

Were you, like, sat down in a living room? Was it like, you have to.

[Mark Hoppus]

We were in my sister's room at the time. My mom called us into my sister's room and was like, hey, gotta talk to you guys. And Yeah, I remember I was looking at my sister's bookcase, at the toys in her bookcase. I still remember that.

[Sufi]

And it was both parents came in.

[Mark Hoppus]

To talk to you? No, no, no. It was just my mom.

[Sufi]

Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Wow.

[Mark Hoppus]

My dad was living in, like, the saddest bachelor apartment of all time. Like, leather furniture. Nothing hung on the walls. None of the lights were ever turned on. It was just, like, the bachelorest place ever.

[Sufi]

Also, I do want to just. Sorry to jump in Posh, but your dad was a. His name was Tex.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

So while you're picturing a guy in a leather couch with no pictures on the wall, I do think it's fitting to know that he also answered to Tex.

[Mark Hoppus]

He's Tex, but he is a born and raised rocket scientist. He helped design the Sidewinder missile. He is. If you look at the pictures of him from his college days, he was the nerdiest dude. He has Coke bottle, glasses, pocket protector, slide rule, pens, pencils, graph paper. Like a genius guy. Yeah, but his nickname is Tex.

[Sufi]

And when did people start calling him Tex?

[Mark Hoppus]

I think when he was growing up. I don't remember exactly how he got the nickname, if it was from my grandparents or from somebody else, but he's had it forever.

[Sufi]

Did he grow up in Texas?

[Mark Hoppus]

No. Well, for a little bit, yeah. He was born in Kansas, but then he was in Texas for a while. His dad was in the Air Force. Yeah, my grandfather's in the Air Force. So he was a military brat moving all over the place.

[Sufi]

Yeah, because it seems like you only get the nickname Tex when you don't live in Texas, because it seems, like, redundant.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, yeah. It's like if you're a big meaty guy, they call you Slim.

[Sufi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pashi]

It does feel like a name. Like, of. Of that era. I could see a lot of military sort of people like Tex Avery. I mean, not military, but, like. Yeah, I don't know.

[Sufi]

I do think there's every, you know, every movie that takes place in the army. There's that moment where someone comes in and just starts giving everybody a nickname based on E or something they're wearing or where they're from.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, totally.

[Sufi]

Like, they're like, oh, you got a Bible? We're calling you Preacher. You know, just everybody gets the first choice nickname. So I could see, like, a military brat kid. If he was not in Texas, the fact that he'd been there once would be enough for Tex.

[Mark Hoppus]

Your Tex.

[Sufi]

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break and hear from some of our Sponsors support for family trips comes from visit Baltimore. Hey, Bashi.

[Pashi]

Yes, Ufi?

[Sufi]

You know you're Mr. Ah, I'm the one who travels. I go places.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Seth stays at home on a couch, right?

[Pashi]

Yeah, that's kind of the day.

[Sufi]

But you know what's different between you and I? Huh? I've been to Baltimore.

[Pashi]

Oh, I'm jealous.

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

What's that?

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

Absolutely. I mean, I think, yeah, Woody would love it. Although he would really want to go get the ball.

[Sufi]

Yeah, I bet they have a problem with a lot of the dogs there. I don't think Woody's the only one who's like, ball.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

Oh, yeah.

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

Yeah, Baltimore is. I mean, I will say I have been on the Visit Baltimore website and it is a gorgeous city. Amazing outdoor spaces, amazing parks, friendly people. It is on my list and I'm eager to go, as is my wife, Mackenzie.

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

Hey, Sufi.

[Sufi]

Yeah, Pasci?

[Pashi]

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[Sufi]

Oh, I remember. Going big never goes out of style.

[Pashi]

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[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

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[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

Yeah, that's right.

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

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[Pashi]

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[Sufi]

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[Mark Hoppus]

Here we go.

[Pashi]

So as you and your sister sort of split apart to be with the different parents, would your sister come to visit you and your dad? And conversely, would you go, yeah, yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

We would trade off from time to time. But it was brutal.

[Sufi]

It was.

[Mark Hoppus]

My parents weren't talking to each other. So literally I'd had, like, my mom would call me, hey, do you want to spend Christmas with us? We're gonna do this. And I'd be like, hey, dad, can I go spend Christmas with mom? And he'd be like, well, tell her that you need to be here on this date. Mom, dad says I gotta do that. And then when they traded, there was this park for a while. We lived in Monterey, California, and my mom lived in Southern California. And so to trade, we would meet at this park in Fresno and my parents would stand on either side of the park and my sister and I would walk towards each other like we were exchanging hostages.

[Pashi]

Yeah, like a spy exchange.

[Sufi]

Like bridge Of Spies.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, Bridge of Spies. Like that. It really was like that. We'd walk across no man's land hoping that nobody started an argument. And World War three broke out.

[Sufi]

Now I'm fascinated by this thing. Do you remember when you and your sister passed, would you pause and talk a little bit?

[Mark Hoppus]

I don't think so. I think we just like walked, like maybe acknowledged each other a little bit. Like, hey, how's it going?

[Sufi]

You would shake hands and palm microfilm. Did you? So in that time, like. And again, you know, it's a different era. Would you talk to your sister? I mean again, you're at that point, are you, what, eight and three when this starts?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we're pretty young. I mean.

[Sufi]

And so were you talking on the phone at all? I mean, I can't imagine you would.

[Mark Hoppus]

No, not really. I mean, you know, there weren't phones. Like now they're ubiquitous and making a long distance call was a big deal and it was expensive and you had to make sure you were timing it right. My mom, I don't remember this. My mom said I called her a lot and was like scared or homesick or whatever. And so that period for her was really hard.

[Sufi]

Oh, I can only imagine.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

And it certainly probably didn't help by the fact that she could only speak to her former husband across a park.

[Pashi]

Yeah, yeah, I can. Also speaking. Seth's got a couple kids, three kids that are 8, 6 and 3 and the 8 year old and well, none of them are great on the phone, I would say. So in terms of you communicating with your sister back then, I don't think either of you were probably crushing it.

[Mark Hoppus]

I mean, even when I was 10 and she was 5, like, what do you talk about at that point? So, any cool toys?

[Sufi]

So when did you guys start living together again, you and your sister?

[Mark Hoppus]

I moved to San Diego to go to college. My mom was living in San Diego with my sister who was in high school and her new husband who was in the Navy. And I moved into their house to start going to college in San Diego. So then we were in her house and I was in her house for way too long as a grown man. As an adult, living in her house, starting the band, treating it like it was one of my skateboarding friends houses. We played video games until 3 o'clock in the morning. We played Street Fighter 2. We would yell and scream all night long and my mom would come out at like 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning, like, shut up. Your stepdad has to be on I.

[Sufi]

Was gonna say, like, I mean, a Navy stepdad's nightmare has to be a skateboarder who comes home to start a band.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. He was the most patient stepfather ever. Yeah, he was super supportive, always loving, always down, never complained. And, like, he stepped into a bad situation. My sister was handling the divorce terribly and used to throw the gnarliest tantrums in the middle of, like, Kmart. Throw herself on the ground kicking and screaming. Like, my stepdad would have to pick her up and carry her around, and she'd be like, you're not my dad. That's not my dad. You're not my dad.

[Pashi]

Oh, no.

[Mark Hoppus]

But she's always been super cool. Yeah.

[Sufi]

But he entered the picture pretty quickly. Then after the divorce.

[Mark Hoppus]

After the divorce. Yeah, he was. He was right there, you know, My, my. And I have to say that my parents both found people who made them happy, and they both have found lifelong partners, and it's better for everybody that they got divorced. But it was a tough. It was a tough few years.

[Sufi]

When on a family trip, did you ever. Were you old enough to ever think. I don't feel as though my parents are vibing with each other?

[Mark Hoppus]

No. All the family trips I remember were fun. We were camping. My parents were outdoors.

[Sufi]

That's a real credit to them.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, totally. And then once the divorce started, all bets were off and, you know, did.

[Pashi]

You have regular sort of camping destinations or were you always picking new spots?

[Mark Hoppus]

Big Bear. We went up to Big Bear quite a bit growing up in Southern California, you know, the Sierra Nevadas and places like that. We used to hike around Lone Pine and Mount Whitney, and we lived in the middle of the desert, so anywhere that we could get that wasn't just dirt, we were very happy with.

[Pashi]

Yeah. Have you done all the way to the top of Mount Whitney?

[Mark Hoppus]

No, but we've done close, and my stepmom has done it a bunch.

[Pashi]

Yeah, I've still never done it. I live in la and I drive up to Mammoth all the time, and I sort of see that little, you know, Mount Whitney sort of jumping off point.

[Mark Hoppus]

It's so pretty. It's such an awesome place.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

You have a son who's in his 20s, correct?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes. He's 22.

[Sufi]

Did you grow. Did you raise him the same way? Were you a camping family when he was a kid?

[Mark Hoppus]

No, my wife. No. I went camping one time. I thought, like, I'm going to take my son and my father, and we're going to go to Big Bear and we're going to camp and it's going to be this bonding. Three generations of Hoppus men bonding, camping. And it sucked so bad that after one night we bailed and went back to la. It sucked. We rented a. I rented a tent trailer and I did all this stuff and we set up the camp and we, you know, we roast marshmallows and it was so awful.

[Sufi]

What part?

[Mark Hoppus]

It just sucks. I hate camping. In the end, I hate camping. It sucks.

[Sufi]

So I just want to clarify. Nothing went wrong. It was just the core art of camping was just.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, it's so much work just to go and sit by a fire, then, like, you know, sleep in the cold. And my. It was freezing cold at night and my son was like, dad, it's so cold. Can we go home? And I'm like, yeah, this sucks. Let's get out of here.

[Sufi]

It is funny. You do want to teach your kids not to just give up on something, but if you also want to give up, it's the best.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we bonded that way. We bonded over, you know what? We're not having fun. Let's get out of here.

[Sufi]

I was, my three and a half year old. I. We ski with her now again. She takes like a 45 minute lesson and then she wants to go up on the chairlift with me. And it's exhausting because I basically am hunched over her because all she wants to do is go as fast as she can straight. And so it's just terrifying for me, right? But she'll do it a hundred times. And the other day, after the third one, she said, dada it too cold. And I was like, it is too cold. And we. I agree with you.

[Mark Hoppus]

You're correct.

[Sufi]

You are correct.

[Pashi]

Seth has, for the record, always been ready to quit skiing. As soon as someone says, like, hey, should we go in? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sufi]

I'm always a little bit cold.

[Mark Hoppus]

Can I tell you something?

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

Two years ago, I decided I'm not gonna snowboard anymore. I'm over it. And all my friends, like Tom, our guitarist, went snowboarding earlier this winter. Took one fall, broke ribs. And everybody that I know that skis or snowboards is like, I don't know. I was just doing this turn. I felt something in my knee pop. And I love snowboarding, you know, didn't grow up snowboarding, but snowboarding hit in like the early 90s and I was all in. And we used to go snowboarding and all the time. And when I finally said, you know what? I'm not enjoying snowboarding anymore, I'm Just tolerating it. I'm not gonna do it anymore. It was the best feeling. It felt as good as canceling camping.

[Sufi]

What a great out. I didn't. I think. I mean, that's no small thing, too, to get out without the reason being a terrible injury.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Yeah. That. It's. By you. You. You're like a. You're like a professional athlete who retired on the top, you know, went out on top.

[Mark Hoppus]

My whole thing was like, I like playing bass and being on stage better than freezing my ass off in the cold sliding down a mountain.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

Yeah. I feel like I've had a similar feeling when, like, there are TV shows that you'll be watching and they clearly, like, you're four seasons in, and they're gonna go for, like, four more seasons. And if you decide you don't like that show and you give yourself permission to quit, it feels great. I'm not gonna name the shows that I've done that to, but, man, when you stop watching something, that's just gonna keep pumping out episodes and you're like, I don't have to watch it anymore. I feel liberated. It sounds like that's. That's your vibe on snowboarding.

[Mark Hoppus]

Love to quit quitting now.

[Sufi]

When you. When you and your son pulled the ripcord on the camping trip, was your dad. Was Tex disappointed?

[Mark Hoppus]

I think probably because he is a literal Eagle Scout. The dude went all the way through the Boy Scouts growing up to the highest level you can possibly achieve. So he was really stoked about camping, but he's also a grown man. I think at some point, the camping loses its luster. When you're just going to the grocery store and getting ice and cold cut meats and pet, like, day two, the ice is melted, and you're pulling a bag of, like, sweaty meat out of a cooler.

[Sufi]

That sucks.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

You don't paint a great picture of it.

[Sufi]

No. But I do feel as though your dad might win America's nerdiest text. I mean, literally every. Every. Every new piece of information about him.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, he's awesome. I love my dad. He's rad. He has an amazing past, and he's rad.

[Pashi]

Did he want you to be a scout or were you?

[Mark Hoppus]

I did. I dabbled in Scouts. I did Indian Guides. I did Cub Scouts. I did boy Scouts. And then I kind of fell out once we got to, like, the. What are those race cars?

[Sufi]

The little Pinewood Pine Car Derby.

[Mark Hoppus]

Pinewood Derby. I sucked at that.

[Sufi]

I sucked at that too. I was the first time I Thought I was out.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Also, I think when you suck at Pinewood Derby, what it really means is your dad sucks at Pinewood Derby. And I was. To me, that was my dad running for a car across Boston Commons. I just, like, remember looking at him and being like this. You thought this had a chance. I wasted hours watching you do this.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. I wasn't in on the Pinewood Derby, and I think that my dad was probably like, I was. When we quit camping, he's like, you know what? If you want to do this, you don't have to do this anymore.

[Sufi]

Were you close with your grandparents growing up? Were they a part of your life?

[Mark Hoppus]

Totally. Yeah. My dad's parents took us camping quite a bit. They had an Airstream.

[Sufi]

Oh, yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. They had, like, a classic Airstream. And they went camping all over the place and took us. And I remember their truck always smelled like cigarettes.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Did you like the smell of cigarettes when you were a kid? I feel like my memory of the smell of cigarettes is. I didn't know you couldn't not have it, so I just kind of like, just. It was another smell, and it wasn't until it went away that you were like, oh, that was a horrible smell.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, exactly. I think the 70s smelled like cigarettes and alcohol everywhere you went.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

And my grandparents, everything smelled like cigarettes in their house and in their cars, and they smoked incessantly.

[Sufi]

Yeah. I almost feel like you gotta go to, like, a. I don't know, like, an Eastern European airport lounge now to be like, ah, this is.

[Mark Hoppus]

I remember this smell. It's so striking now when you smell cigarette smoke in anywhere, it's like, whoa, people are smoking cigarettes. That's crazy.

[Pashi]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sufi]

Did.

[Pashi]

Were your grandparents nearby?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, they lived, like, two hours away from where I grew up. They lived in Riverside, California. We lived in the middle of the desert, so it took about two hours to get there. And both of my grandparents, like, my dad's parents and my mom's mom, because my dad's. My mom's dad, passed away before I was born. So both my grandparents lived in Riverside, and they were always super cool.

[Sufi]

And it seems like everyone. Is it safe to say that everyone was kind of supportive of this path you chose for yourself?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. I mean, yes, everyone was super supportive. My mom so much that at one point, I had to make a decision because Blink was starting to kind of catch on. I was going to college. We were starting to play shows. We were getting invited to play more and more shows further and further away, and I was sucking at College, missing classes. And I had to choose. And I went to my mom, I said, hey, the band can tour or I can finish college. I need advice. And she said, you can finish college anytime there are people in their 40s that go back to college. You only get one chance to be in a band. Go be in a band. So, yeah.

[Pashi]

So did you ever go back? Have you ever finished that degree?

[Mark Hoppus]

No. I keep hoping. I honestly could because I really want a degree. I keep hoping that somebody will offer me an honorary degree if I like.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

I can't believe they have something.

[Sufi]

I think the fact that you wrote a book is now. Now that you're a man of letters, you know.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, totally. I should be able to. Yeah. I went to Cal State San Marcos to get an English degree. So maybe they'll give me one now.

[Sufi]

Yeah, they. You need to have at least one book plus a giant band.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

You can't just have one. I just don't want people to get their hopes up if they've written the one book. The giant band is also a key part of the equation.

[Mark Hoppus]

Totally. Yeah.

[Sufi]

When in your early. I know it's not a family trip, but early Blink 182 touring, what is the vehicle you're in? Describe is.

[Mark Hoppus]

So we had visions of getting this amazing touring van. Cause all of our friends bands had dope tour vans. We wanted to go and get like this big giant, you know, Ford Econoline 15 passenger, All Black everything. Black interior, black paint, extra room in the back to store all of our gear. We were gonna roll everywhere. But we went to the dealership on the day before we were supposed to start a tour. And all they had was this white sport van that was shorter and it was a little more raised. And it wasn't 15 passenger. It was like 11 passenger. But we could drive it off that day. So we were just like, all right, sold. And so we toured that thing into the dirt. Like, that thing was trash by the time we were done with it. It was awesome. Loved it.

[Sufi]

I love. That's such band. Thinking of all this time spent imagining the van you want and then going to the dealership the day before the tour started.

[Mark Hoppus]

That's just how we were. We're like, okay, we got a tour. We got a string of shows. It was probably like five or six shows. It wasn't. At that point, we were not touring act. National touring act. We had a handful of shows. We're like, we should get a van for this.

[Pashi]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Did you. Those early when you were doing five or Six shows were there. Early tour just within California, pretty much.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we caught on and, you know, we started in San Diego and then we started to catch on in la and then we'd go to San Francisco and then Phoenix and then Fresno and then so we were kind of like in the Southern California southwest touring circuit. And then once we got to go on our first tour, which went all the way along the south through Texas to Florida, up to New Jersey and all that, we thought we were the coolest dudes.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

Like, we even had cases for some of our guitars.

[Sufi]

Woo. Yeah, they always say that's the sign. A van full of leaves, loose guitars is a sign that a band hasn't quite taken off yet.

[Mark Hoppus]

That was us for sure.

[Pashi]

I assume that at some point you probably had the huge classic tour bus with all the bells and whistles. The first time you were in one of those, that was yours. I mean, you must have just been over the moon.

[Mark Hoppus]

Oh, yeah. Getting an actual tour bus was a level up that we had no idea what we were going to do with, like not having to drive ourselves. Being able to sleep in your own bunk, like, that's the first time you had any privacy anywhere on tour. When you're touring in a van, you are stuck with dudes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You're in the van together, you're in a hotel room, you're splitting hotel rooms. Sometimes we'd be like two or three in a bed at hotels. So when you get a tour bus and you can actually have your own space and close the curtain, it's pretty.

[Sufi]

Cool that, I mean, it speaks to how on top of each other you are. That that tiny little bunk with a curtain is like sweet privacy.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. You're basically in a rolling coffin.

[Sufi]

And were you in the early days, was it split evenly amongst the drivers or did you have someone that carried more of the load?

[Mark Hoppus]

It was split evenly amongst the drivers. And I remember very vividly every night after the shows, driving between cities. And sometimes the drives, like the drive between Salt Lake City in Denver is brutal. It's 12 hours long. You get in the car or get in the van, you start driving. And I like to do the first shift. So, you know, load up the van after the show, start driving, maybe drive for two or three hours. It's two or three in the morning, pull into a gas station and everybody acts like they're dead asleep. And I'm like, okay, whose turn is it? And everybody acts like they're asleep. All right, who's Gonna drive next. Everybody acts like they're asleep, and then it's my turn. And when it's flipped, I'm just laying there like, not me. Please don't choose me. Please, it's not me.

[Sufi]

I remember a couple of those drives where that thing of having to pull over and say when it was definitely my shift. Having to pull over and say, I am so sorry. We are going to die if I die.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Like, I don't. I'm not trying to shirk my responsibilities. This is fully. I have turned up the music as loud as I can. I have drank as much soda as I can, and nothing is working.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yep. I know that feeling.

[Pashi]

Well, aside from camping trips, when you were much younger, like, if you were going to visit your mom, if there was, like, a Christmas or things, would you ever take trips with, like, you and your sister and your mom or you and your sister and your dad?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, we. We traveled quite a bit. I remember when I was living with my mom and my stepdad and my sister, we took a train trip up to Seattle and then into Canada.

[Pashi]

Huh.

[Mark Hoppus]

We took a train because we thought that'd be cool. And let me tell you, that was not rad. The train ride from San Diego to Seattle, Washington, it gets old.

[Sufi]

Yeah. You know, we. You know, William, and we're going to ask you later about favorite forms of transportation. A lot of people say train, and I totally get the allure of train. But some of those trips are pretty repetitive.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

Did you have a sleeper car? Were you.

[Mark Hoppus]

We did. We had a sleeper car. Whatever was a sleeper car. I mean, we couldn't afford anything great, but you're right on top of one another, and it's loud, and it never stops clanking. And the romance of train travel, especially overnight, it's not like an Alfred Hitchcock film from the 50s at all. It is like. It is like, you know, looking at the subway in New York in the 70s or something.

[Sufi]

Like, also, you know, the. Yeah, the Hitchcock thing. You realize they probably weren't shooting it in an actual train. They built it big enough to, like, have scenes in it. My wife and I once, we were in Amsterdam in November, and we were gonna take an overnight train to Zurich. And I thought, oh, my God, Europe. A train. It'll be so beautiful. And of course, the sun goes down so early. Like, we literally got on pitch black. Pitch black for 12 hours. Got out. There was still, like, three hours before, like, you could even see Zurich. And I was like, all right, I have planned this terribly.

[Mark Hoppus]

And, yeah, overnight travel when it's all dark is probably not the best.

[Sufi]

Not the best, no.

[Pashi]

Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors.

[Sufi]

Family Trips is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

[Pashi]

Have you ever been on a road trip where one person insists on controlling the music? You're just trying to enjoy the ride, but now you're stuck listening to nothing but their favorite band. No discussion, no compromises, just their way of the highway.

[Sufi]

That's kind of what's happening with Christian nationalism. Some folks want to take over the wheel and force everyone to follow their beliefs, shoving religion into our laws, our schools, and even our personal choices. But hey, this country was built for everyone, not just one group.

[Pashi]

That's where Freedom From Religion foundation comes in. Think of them as the gps keeping church and state in separate lanes, just like the founders actually intended.

[Sufi]

So whether you've always been secular or left religion behind, if you don't want someone else dictating the trip for you, FFRF has your back.

[Pashi]

Join us go to FFRF US Freedom or text the word family to 511511 and become a member today. Text family to 511511 or go to FFRF US Freedom.

[Sufi]

Because when it comes to freedom, we all deserve to choose our own route. From membership information. Text family to 511-511-today.

[Pashi]

Text fees may apply.

[Sufi]

Support comes from DeleteMe. DeleteMe makes it quick, easy and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. I feel like I don't go a week. Pashi, by the way. Hey, Pashi.

[Pashi]

Hey, Sufi.

[Sufi]

I feel like I don't go a week without hearing that somebody has had their information stolen. And, you know, can I tell you who I feel like are number one and number two in America right now?

[Pashi]

Who's that?

[Sufi]

My father in law and my brother in law.

[Pashi]

Yeah. Wow.

[Sufi]

Just constantly. This is. If they have a catchphrase, it's them saying into a phone representative.

[Pashi]

But they like replying to texts from numbers they don't know and answering calls from block numbers.

[Sufi]

Look, they could fix a lot of their problem just by being a little bit smarter. But sometimes very smart people have their information stolen because the data brokers out there are one step ahead of you. And what they do, these data brokers, they take your name, your contact info, your Social Security number, home address, even information about your family members and they take it and they sell it online.

[Pashi]

It's amazing that they're somehow allowed to do this. But Deleteme is a good solution to help stopping it in its tracks. My most recent Delete me report says 1582 reviews total listings reviewed. They saved me about 45 and a half hours of searching. They saved me about 25 and a half hours removing things. And these are like, you know, I don't know these websites. I don't know all biz. I don't know a round deal or background checkers or Crunchbase. These are people who had my information and now they don't.

[Sufi]

I did sign you up for a round deal because they gave me a discount if I if I had a friend. Yeah, Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joinedeleteme.com trip and use promo code Trips at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to leetme.com trips and enter code tripps at checkout. Join deleteme.com trips code. Tell them what the code is. Poshi Trips this episode of Family Trips is brought to you by Nissan. Hey Pashi.

[Pashi]

Yes, Ufi?

[Sufi]

Let's talk about some things that never go out of style.

[Pashi]

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[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

What's that?

[Sufi]

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[Pashi]

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[Sufi]

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[Mark Hoppus]

Here we go.

[Sufi]

Do you when you were raising your son, were you and your wife good at Traveling with him. Oh, well, let me jump in and say, did he come on tour with you? Was that part of his suffering? Okay, totally.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. He came out on tour. He was like six months old when he came out on his first tour and toured with us until he started school. And then once he started school, he didn't want to tour anymore. He was like, I don't want to leave school. I want to be with my friends. So then my wife stayed home with him. But we took so many trips with Jack when he was young. We took him to Antarctica when he was six years old. He was the youngest person who'd ever been on the boat. And people thought we were crazy to bring our six year old on this boat across the drake passage in 40 foot seas to go see Antarctica.

[Pashi]

Wow.

[Sufi]

Whoa. How many? So when you take that boat, first of all, who wanted to do this more, you or your wife? Okay. And did your wife also want to do it a little or is she just like, if you want this, I will do this for you both?

[Mark Hoppus]

She was intrigued by it. I don't think she would have chosen to do it on her own, but she was open to the idea. And we are so glad we went. It is one of the best vacations we've ever taken. Our son doesn't remember any of it at all, but we have some rad pictures. Yeah.

[Sufi]

So talk us through the entirety of how you make this trip. Like, you fly where we flew to.

[Mark Hoppus]

Buenos Aires, where we stayed the night. And then the next day we got on a charter arranged by the boat company to fly to Ushuaia on the very southern tip of Chile, where we got on a boat and then we took a three day passage across the Drake Passage in 40 foot seas with 70 mile an hour winds. And the crew was like, you guys are so lucky. This is the nicest crossing we've ever had. We never get this lucky.

[Sufi]

So what does 40 foot seas look like? Is it just like giant swells?

[Mark Hoppus]

It's giant swells and windswept and occasionally you see some random bird and you're like, what the hell are you doing out here, bird? Like, it's 40 foot seas. Where are you going? What are you looking for out here?

[Pashi]

It has to be heartening to see a bird, though, to be like, well, you must. You must be going somewhere. Like you are at first.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. So how many just so screwed.

[Sufi]

How many people are on the passage? How many people does that boat fit?

[Mark Hoppus]

I think it was like 200 people because there's laws in Antarctica that You can only put a certain number of people ashore at a time to preserve the environment there. And so the ship we had had I think 200 people and we went in shifts to walk out.

[Sufi]

So it's like three days. And that passage is. What are you doing on those three days? Because I'm assuming this is not like one of your luxury cruise ships.

[Mark Hoppus]

That's. It's not. I mean, it was a great ship and we. It was definitely nicer than a lot of boats that go over there. But for three days I was reading a book about Magellan.

[Sufi]

Yeah, that's good. Good time to do it. And kids love that kind of stuff.

[Mark Hoppus]

And I was playing video games with my son and we watched movies. They had movies. And this is before like streaming and stuff.

[Sufi]

Did you go up on the deck? Would you, or was it freezing? Okay, it was freezing.

[Mark Hoppus]

You could go out on the deck, but it was freezing and windy and you'd be foolish to do that. But they had like lectures and you could learn about the nature and they'd have stuff about the geology and they'd have a lecture about the plants and they'd have a lecture about the wildlife there.

[Sufi]

Unbelievable. And then you get there and when you do one of your shifts on land, talk us through what that feels like.

[Mark Hoppus]

We went to research stations, we went on Zodiacs and cruised around icebergs. We walked amongst penguins. We saw such amazing life and vistas and landscapes that just blew my mind. It was awesome.

[Sufi]

You mentioned that he doesn't have any memory of it, but did, did your son Jack have fun as a 6 year old?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, he had a great time. It was really fun. It was a great time as a family. You know, no one could get ahold of us at all. So it was just, you know, whatever. It was. 11 days of calm in 40 foot seas. Just chilling in the 40 foot seas and 70 mile an hour winds. But it was great. Loved it.

[Pashi]

How was, how was the sleeping?

[Mark Hoppus]

Sleeping was cool. There was only a couple times like the boats, the boat had stabilizers on it. But there were a few times that we'd be at meals and all the plates and everything would slide to one side. They had like a little cage around like a little 2 inch rim around all the tables so that when it did that the plates wouldn't fall onto the floor, just all the food would fly off into somebody's lap. Yeah.

[Sufi]

God, I love a little cage. Little food cage. My kids on perfectly flat surfaces could use a little food cage. I might have one installed.

[Mark Hoppus]

Wow.

[Pashi]

What a trip. I mean, that sounds like you're pretty adventurous then. Have you done other trips that sort of would cause people's jaws to drop?

[Mark Hoppus]

I got really into scuba diving around the same time. We were on vacation in Hawaii, and I was by the pool, and one of the scuba instructors was walking around like, anybody want to learn scuba today? And I was like, I'll do it. And I liked it so much that I ended up doing 200 dives in the first year.

[Sufi]

Oh, my God.

[Pashi]

Wow.

[Mark Hoppus]

Like, I went everywhere. I went to Fiji, I went to Turks and Caicos. I dove all around Southern California, you know, from Santa Barbara all the way down to into Mexico. We did. We went everywhere, dove, everything, wrecks and lots of cool sharks.

[Pashi]

You do some shark stuff?

[Mark Hoppus]

Oh, yeah, lots of sharks.

[Sufi]

Did your wife join in this passion?

[Mark Hoppus]

No, she really does not. She's gone diving with me, I think twice in tropical locations. But she detests the water. She almost drowned. She was taken out by a riptide when she was swimming with her dad one time when she was a kid. And she just has a lifelong fear of water. She doesn't like to get in our pool. Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Sufi]

So it does sound like you were like, I'm going to come up with something that like, 198 out of the 200 times, I'm going to be on my own.

[Mark Hoppus]

Totally. Yeah. And my family was actually talking about that the other day. We were talking about scuba diving or something. And she was like, remember, dad was really into scuba diving? And someone's like, yeah, he was always gone. And I was like, oh, that sucks.

[Sufi]

Yeah, I like that. You thought he'd be like, he's communing with the fish.

[Mark Hoppus]

I know. But looking back on it now, I'm like, not only was I gone on tour all the time, but then I come home and I'm like, peace. I'm going scuba diving.

[Sufi]

Daddy has a new hobby that doesn't take place here.

[Pashi]

I've done a little bit of scuba diving, and I always find. I'm sure you've sort of seen these things, but when you, like, go over a cliff, like an underwater cliff or a shelf or whatever it's called, like, do you get that fear that I get when you go over and all of a sudden it just drops?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. It's breathtaking when that happens. And you. You see, like, you go to those edges and you look over and it just sinks. I dove the oiled rig. I took a class in technical diving, and I dove the oil rigs off of Long beach, and it just goes off into forever. Like, you don't see the bottom ever.

[Pashi]

Yeah. It's such a strange thing to have a fear of heights underwater, but it's a real thing.

[Sufi]

When you dive an oil rig, are you just sort of swimming around? Is it around the oil rig itself?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, you're just, like, trying to stay close to the pylon so you have spatial awareness of where you are. And for that one, it was really about, you know, managing oxygen and different gases and things like that. I was taking a course at the time, and I was getting certified for technical diving. So it was. A lot of. It wasn't really about what you're looking at. It was about managing your air and your decompression and making sure you're within safe boundaries and all that kind of stuff.

[Sufi]

You know, what are some buzzwords for me that don't signal chill? Relaxing. Hobby is managing oxygen.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, I know.

[Sufi]

Look, I've scuba dived a couple times. Not for me, but, like, it's immediately. Not for me, anything where the first thing is people being like, so we're gonna teach you what to do to not have your head explode. No, I don't wanna do this. Yeah, I'm good, man.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah. And I got into the really technical side of it, and I almost got into, like, rebreathers and really deep stuff. And there's a really great wreck called the Andrea Doria. That's this legendary ocean liner that sank, and people have dove it, and it's known for being very, very dangerous. And one of the people that I came up scuba diving with dove it and passed away while they were diving on that. Oh, my God. And so I. And at that point, I was like, I don't think I really want to get into this, like, deep, technical. Like, I just want to see some cool fish.

[Sufi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Did you ever take your son? Has he done it?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, he's gone. We've. When we. We actually lived in London for a few years, and from there it's very easy to fly down to the Maldives. It's almost the same time zone. And the Maldives just has the best diving in the world.

[Sufi]

Yeah. I was really worried you were gonna be like, we're in London. Some of the best scuba diving.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

The Thames. You have not scuba dived.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah.

[Sufi]

That's fantastic. Did your son. How did he. How many years were you in London? And did he like it?

[Mark Hoppus]

He loved it. We went there. My wife and I were like, oh, my son was entering fourth Grade. We're like, let's move to London for a year. We love it there. It's a cool adventure. Our son's not really, you know, so beholden to his school. Like, he was changing school, whatever. So we went to London. We were gonna stay for one year. We stayed for three years because we loved it so much. And talk about a place to vacation from. My wife would, on a Thursday night, say, hey, let's go to Rome for the weekend. And we go. Cool. So we'd book flights for the next afternoon, Friday afternoon, we'd pick our son up from school, go to the airport, be having dinner in Rome. Yeah, for the weekend. Like, you go to San Francisco for the weekend. Like, you go to Vegas for the weekend. Living out of London. We went to Paris. We went to.

[Sufi]

It's weird. I feel like, you know again, right. I live in New York. I could go. I could be in Philly tonight or D.C. tonight, but there's something about. I'm gonna go to a different country that just makes it so exciting and cool.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, it was great. And we took our son to museums and we went to Italy and we went to Florence and we saw, you know, works of art and architecture and cool stuff.

[Pashi]

So does he remember any of that stuff, or is he.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Pashi]

Is he still like, nah, I don't remember.

[Mark Hoppus]

I'm gonna have to ask him about that because if I wasted all this money on him, like, okay, you remember me being gone scuba diving, but you don't remember, like, seeing Caravaggio's Shield with Medusa painted on it? Like, that's.

[Sufi]

He's like, no, I just remember you being gone. Yeah, a lot of different reasons. It was like, touring and scuba diving, a lot of stuff. Yeah. Did you. When you tour, do you feel like you, you know. And again, you've been at this a long time. Have you gotten good at, like, actually experiencing a city when you're doing a show there? Or is it.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, no, never is. Every single time we go out on tour, I'm like, I bring cameras and camera equipment and recording equipment, and I'm like, I am going to go and make art on tour. I'm going to go out, I'm going to see these cities. I'm going to take photos of everything. I'm going to, you know, take my recording equipment, and if I'm at the hotel, I'm going to be writing new music and I'm going to write the great American blah, blah, blah. And I never do any of it. I sit in the hotel room and look at my phone because I'm so tired from the night before.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

And then, you know, we're traveling so much that we don't get a lot of chance to be tourists in a city. Yeah.

[Sufi]

I also think you must have, you know, I think an appreciation for the fact that you're about to be everybody's night out. And part of the trade off is you rest up during the day to make sure that you execute on that.

[Mark Hoppus]

Totally.

[Sufi]

Yeah.

[Mark Hoppus]

But my wife comes on tour with me now, and she always wants, like, on a day off, she wants to go do cool stuff, go see a city, go out to a nice restaurant, go to a cool store, go do this. And I'm like, I just want to sit by the pool and have people bring me things to eat and drink.

[Pashi]

Yeah, right.

[Sufi]

I get it. I'm kind of that way, too. Also. I always just want to fiddle with stuff when I'm out doing standup. And so my wife will say, like, let's go do this. I'm like, I actually just kind of want to write this. I feel like this bit. And she's like, ugh. What. What was I going to ask you? How did writing the book? Was it. Did you find it came easy? It seems like you have a good memory for things, or was it an arduous process?

[Mark Hoppus]

It was both. It was both very difficult because the hardest thing about writing the book was thinking that anyone would care in the first place, because I'm just a dude that got lucky and played in a band, and I've gotten to see some cool things, and I feel blessed in that way. But I love my band so much, and I love Blink, and I love Tom and Travis so much that I wanted to tell the story of Blink 182. And then I started, you know, writing about how I got to be in the band. And so I was writing about my childhood and things like that. I had a great co writer who was almost like a bandmate. Like, I would write a whole bunch of stuff, and he would come in and say, this is cool. People don't care about this, or whatever. Or I would tell him stories, and he would write down my words, and I would be like, I don't like the way that I speak written down. I like the way that I write written down. So I go back and rewrite everything. But it was fun. I'm glad that I did it. I think it helped me a lot because I tried very hard in the book to make things even handed. And when I was writing about Banned arguments or being angry at this person, I would try and write it also from their point of view. So it made me think about old arguments from the other person. Like, specifically, like, arguments with Tom about, like, what's gonna happen, he's quitting the band or whatever. And I'm like, well, why did he do. Why was he like that back then? And so I think that helped me a lot with the old grudges and animosities, too.

[Sufi]

Did have Travis and Tom, did they see the book through the process? Did you wait till it was done? And what was their bounce the first time they read it?

[Mark Hoppus]

I don't think that they've read it yet. They've been supportive, incredibly supportive the whole time. I literally just got the first copy of my book three days ago, and I said, I got my first copy in my hands, and I called up my management. We got to get a copy to Tom and Travis immediately. And they can read it if they want, and they can ignore it if they want, but they've been nothing but super supportive, and I want them to have it.

[Sufi]

The only thing they can't do is make changes.

[Mark Hoppus]

They can't make any changes at this point. They can't say, hey, I don't want that.

[Sufi]

April 8, 2025. I really compliment the title, Fahrenheit 182. Did that come early or late? Because it's really kind of great.

[Mark Hoppus]

Thank you. That was my first idea for it. And I love my editor so much at Day Street. She is great. I said I wanted. Everybody else is like, you have to name it, what's my age again? Or this is growing up, or all the small things or some kind of that, you know? And I went to my publisher and I said, I really want to call it Fahrenheit 182. And she's like, I love it. That's it. And then for the back cover of the book, I was like, I don't want a bunch of blurbs on the back cover. I don't want to have to go to my friends and beg them to read the book and say something kind. She's, blurbs suck. We're not putting blurbs on your book at all. It's like, holy hell, this is a dream come true. I love my editor.

[Sufi]

I mean, I've blurbed a lot of books, and I love your editor, too. Yeah, I've done a lot of blurbing over the years. And I'll tell you, the worst thing that can happen is when you blurb a book and Then the book comes out and you're not on the back cover. They, like. They bury your blurb. And I'm like, did I not? This wasn't a. I kind of thought I'd be mediocre blurb.

[Mark Hoppus]

Sue, cutting room floor for your blurb.

[Sufi]

I mailed in my blurbs. Congrats on the book. It is so lovely to talk to you and hear your stories. Before we let you go, Josh has some questions.

[Mark Hoppus]

Okay. Go for it.

[Pashi]

You can only pick one of these as your ideal VK vacation. Relaxing, adventurous, or educational?

[Mark Hoppus]

For me, personally, educational.

[Pashi]

What is your favorite means of transportation?

[Mark Hoppus]

My favorite means of transportation is when they pick you up from the airport in the Suburban.

[Pashi]

Nice.

[Sufi]

Nice.

[Pashi]

If you could take a vacation with any family, alive or dead, real or fictional, other than your own family, what family would you like to take a vacation with?

[Mark Hoppus]

Take a vacation with any family ever. I would love to go, like, do the Oregon Trail.

[Pashi]

Okay. With who, do you think? With whoever was out there for the first time.

[Mark Hoppus]

Not the Donner Party?

[Sufi]

No, the Donner Party.

[Mark Hoppus]

I don't know any of the original. My mom has a pioneer spirit, and she's always had this pioneer woman energy about her and been fascinated by it. So I don't know any of the.

[Pashi]

Maybe Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark on the Oregon Israelis and Clark.

[Mark Hoppus]

That'd be awesome.

[Pashi]

If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be?

[Mark Hoppus]

My wife.

[Sufi]

Gotta answer. Great.

[Pashi]

You're from Ridgecrest, Is that correct?

[Mark Hoppus]

I am from Ridgecrest, yes.

[Pashi]

All right. Would you recommend Ridgecrest as a vacation destination?

[Mark Hoppus]

Absolutely not. It is in the middle of the desert. The only reason that the city is there at all is because the Navy has a military base in the middle of the desert where they test their ordnance and their missiles and their airplanes. The only reason it's there is because there's nothing there.

[Sufi]

It's so funny. Be like, bad news, it's a desert. Good news, it's where the Navy tests their missiles.

[Mark Hoppus]

But it's called. The base there was called China Lake.

[Sufi]

Okay.

[Mark Hoppus]

But there's no Lake within 100 miles. The nearest lake is.

[Sufi]

That's some real. Real estate agent shit.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, it's called China Lake. And when people showed up, they were like, they got stationed in China la. Like, where's the lake? Like, there was a lake here in prehistoric times, but now it's long gone.

[Sufi]

Seems deeply unfair to stay at a lake. Yeah.

[Pashi]

I've driven sort of past the exit to Ridgecrest a lot and up At Mammoth, I was told that, like, Ridgecrest is where, like the. There's an American manufacturer of mono skis where you just click two skis into one thing and it's like Ridgecrest is apparently the home for it. I assumed that it wasn't a straight up desert out there, but now I'm fascinated.

[Mark Hoppus]

No, it is an entire desert. It is straight up Mojave desert.

[Pashi]

Gotcha. Well, Seth has our final questions here.

[Sufi]

All right, Mark, have you been to the Grand Canyon?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes.

[Sufi]

Was it worth it?

[Mark Hoppus]

Yes.

[Sufi]

Great. Did you bring your whole family?

[Mark Hoppus]

Oh, I haven't gone as an adult. I went as a child, so I kind of got driven there.

[Sufi]

Yeah, it was cool. Pre divorce or post divorce?

[Mark Hoppus]

Pre divorce.

[Sufi]

Okay.

[Pashi]

Airstream or not Airstream.

[Mark Hoppus]

I think this was probably on the trip that the camper got stolen.

[Sufi]

Oh, gotcha. So it was sort of a farewell to the camper trip.

[Mark Hoppus]

Yeah, I'm glad. Exactly.

[Sufi]

But you know what? I'm happy the camper saw the Grand Canyon before it ended up getting and sold stripped down for parts of New England.

[Mark Hoppus]

Totally.

[Sufi]

What a delight to talk to you, Mark. Congrats on the book. This has just been wonderful.

[Mark Hoppus]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Sufi]

Thank you so much.

[Mark Hoppus]

Well, my friend, appreciate it.

[Pashi]

Bye. Drove cross country to Boston. Got out to see what was. What was going on. Truck stolen from the common, ran after it, but it was gone, baby, gone. Walk through a park in Fresno. Passed his sister like a spy. Took his kid to the Antarctic. Three day crossing to arrive. Forty foot, forty foot. Cut through forty foot. Seats, research stations, lectures, banquets. Oh, my. Does his son remember? Probably better not to.