Estevan Oriol/DGCLast month, Blink-182 played their first shows with Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba filling in for the departed Tom DeLonge. Now that the commotion around his debut appearance with the band has died down, Skiba is "hopeful" that Blink has future plans in store.
"There's a lot of things that have to happen before we can make any solid plans or any solid statements," Skiba tells Billboard. "I don't really know what the status is, but we are hopeful to do more stuff in the future. How soon that's going to be, I don't know."
In order to prepare for the Blink shows, Skiba had to learn 27 songs in two month of "labor-intensive" rehearsals.
"When you're playing with such great guys and such great musicians, it's a lot of work but fun work," he says.
Skiba joined Blink-182 after drummer Travis Barker and bassist Mark Hoppus reportedly released a statement saying that founding guitarist DeLonge had left the band, which DeLonge then denied. After a public back-and-forth, DeLonge decided to move on with a solo career. When Skiba heard about DeLonge's departure, he was just as shocked as everyone else.
"I knew I was meeting Mark and Travis for lunch, but I didn't know why," Skiba remembers. "It took me a good week to kind of wrap my head around what they had just asked me to do."
"Tom and I have always been very friendly," he adds. "We've toured with Blink several times over the years, and Tom and I have always been friends. I'd like to think that we still are."
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