What's his age again? Blink-182 tatted drummer Travis Barker turns 49 today.
The Scorpio from Fontana, California has been the band's drummer since 1998 when he replaced their original drummer, Scott Raynor, during The Poopoo Peepee Tour supporting their second LP, Dude Ranch.
While Mark and Tom might provide the comedic relief and juvenile antics, Travis sits behind them, business, providing the flashy foundation that has kept one of rock's most successful power pop bands on the beat
"My number-one thing with other drummers is I want them to enjoy themselves," he wrote in his book, Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums.
"Dude, you’re a drummer—you’re the coolest one in the fucking band. Act like you love being there and give me a reason to watch you."
The consummate musician, Travis has a long history of always wanting to play and rarely collaborating with the obvious.
Some of the people he has worked with include: Avril Lavigne, Bebe Rexha, Halsey, Lil Wayne, Machine Gun Kelly, Post Malone, Trippie Redd, Willow Smith, XXXTentacion, Yelawolf, Yungblud, and $uicideboy$.
Perhaps his most celebrated collab outside of blink was when he and Adam Goldstein (aka DJ AM) started performing under the moniker TRV$DJAM.
Travis played live drums to Adam's mixes on the ones and twos. It was a wholesome celebration to music spanning a variety genres from techno to metal to hip hop.
It all ended in September 2008 when a private Lear Jet carrying Travis and Adam crashed during takeoff in South Carolina. Adam, the two pilots, Travis' assistant Chris Baker and bodyguard Che Still all died.
It was a miracle he survived.
“The plane’s on fire and my hands are on fire so I unbuckle my seat belt and I jump right into the jet, which holds all the fuel,” Travis said on Good Morning America.
“I basically ignited my whole body in fire. I'm so soaked in jet fuel, there's nothing I can do to put the fire out,” he explained. The burns ended up covering 65% of his body.
He didn't fly for 13 years until he fell in love with Kourtney Kardashian.
“I think the power of love really helped me," he explained to the LA Times last year. "Kourt made it so I fly, my kids fly now. She healed us."
The morning before the flight his three-year-old daughter, Alabama, pleaded with him not to go on the plane because she predicted, "the roof is going to come off."
After never forgetting Travis' near-miss followed years later with Mark's successful battle with lymphoma, the band was inspired to patch things up and regroup with guitarist Tom DeLonge for what became the One More Time album and tour.
"When he told me he was sick, that was like the gnarliest… nothing matters, really," DeLonge told Entertainment Weekly last year. "It wasn't about fame or money or how big blink was or anything, it was like 'you're gonna get through this s---, and we're gonna go dominate.'"
The tender title track of the album showed off the softer side of the band in a real way about how friends and bandmates shouldn't have to go through extreme circumstances to express love for each other.
Incredibly mature song for the band who tell more dick jokes per show than anyone.
Blink only has one confirmed gig listed on their website, headlining When We Were Young in Vegas next fall.
Get your tickets on the blink-182 website where you can also sign up to get on their email list for more dates as they are announced.
