Blink-182 members Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker and Tom DeLonge are back on tour.

Blink-182 have refocused.

Six years after acrimoniously breaking up, the California pop-punk trio of singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus and tattooed drum demon Travis Barker are back on the road — and ready to release Neighborhoods, their first new album since 2003.

But getting their groove back didn’t exactly happen in the blink of an eye.

“It took a while to get to that point,” 39-year-old Hoppus admitted during a recent conference call. “It took, first of all, reconnecting as friends after not having spoken for about five years and then it took getting back into the studio, as well as getting back out on the road. I mean, it all felt really naturally right at the beginning — it felt like home because I think we all feel like Blink-182 is our real home. But at the same time, after not really having worked together or even been friends for a few years, it took a couple of months to kind of find that oh, yes, this is how it all works.”

Since they buried the hatchet in 2008, after Barker barely survived a fiery Lear Jet crash, the threesome have grown up somewhat. Their 2009 reunion tour found them balancing the sophomoric snot-punk firecrackers of their early days with more mature material and presentation — a trend that continues on Neighborhoods, according to some early reports.

Fans will get to hear for themselves when their latest tour visits eight Canadian cities from Montreal to Vancouver this month. But before then, Hoppus and DeLonge got on the blower with reporters to talk everything from priorities to Pet Sounds. Some highlights:

On whether the band is their main priority:

Hoppus: It’s not a side project at all. Blink is our priority as a band, as people — it’s what we’ve done since Day 1 for almost 20 years at this point. The other projects that we have in our lives allow us to kind of break away and do something creative and bring that knowledge and those skills back to Blink as a band. But Blink is no side project by any means.

On being able to relate to their older material:

DeLonge: That’s something I even personally wondered about when we were getting back together ... But I remember the very first time we played when we got back together and it made me feel exactly the same way I feel the hour before we go on stage. Before I go on stage with whatever I do — any of my bands or whatever — I always have this very specific hour where I blast music and I listen to old punk rock music that I listened to in junior high and high school. And when I listen to those old punk bands, it gets me so excited because the whole idea is that it makes me feel the way I felt when I started playing guitar, and my whole reason for wanting to break out of suburbia and go do something bigger. When we start playing the Blink songs, I totally feel that same way. That’s the most exciting thing about it. It transports you back to a time when you just had so much angst and you need to change things up in your young adult life or teenage life and that’s the best thing about this band: It’s like eternal youth.

On their new album:

DeLonge: There’s a lot of new elements ... We have these songs that are total throwbacks — I mean, exactly what people would know of what Blink is, you know. But then we have these songs that are madly different and experimental. And then we have songs that are like prog- rock Blink ... So I really think that we have a tremendous, diverse palette on this. And what’s really cool too is because of the way it was recorded, all the songs sound so different from each other.

On their longevity and influence:

Hoppus: I don’t personally ever think in those kinds of terms. I’m very grateful that a lot of bands that are having a lot of success right now cite us as an influence. That’s a huge honour. But you know, we’ve always just kind of done our own thing and kept our head down.

And it’s strange for us because for some reason, now it seems like it’s cool to like Blink-182. And before it was always like we were the joke band that was largely written off except by the people that understood what we were all about.

DeLonge: Yes, it’s weird. And maybe that just happens to bands that have been around — I mean, we’re approaching 20 years and maybe at some point, people just say, “F---. OK. Fine. It’s not going away, I’ll love it.”

On what advice they’d give new bands:

Hoppus: Don’t try; no hope. No. It’s very difficult. It’s gotten — I used to think that it was really hard back in the day for small bands to break because of this big huge major-label institution that you had to become part of. I think it’s actually harder now.

On their album title:

Hoppus: We heard Thriller was taken. We heard The White Album was taken and Pet Sounds apparently is taken as well. Who would have thought that?

DeLonge: And then there’s that hip-hop guy that just named his record I’m Gay, which was at the top of my list ... I’ll talk to you about that later.

darryl.sterdan@sunmedia.ca

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Blink-182 Canadian tour dates:

Aug. 16 | Montreal | Bell Centre, with My Chemical Romance, Manchester Orchestra

Aug. 17 | Toronto | Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, with My Chemical Romance, Manchester Orchestra

Aug. 25 | Winnipeg | MTS Centre 2 Aug. 26 | Saskatoon | Credit Union Centre, with Rancid, Against Me!

Aug. 27 | Edmonton | Rexall Place 2 Aug. 28 | Calgary | Saddledome, with Rancid, Against Me!

Aug. 30 | Victoria | Save-On Foods Memorial Centre, with Rancid, Against Me!

Aug. 31 | Vancouver | Rogers Arena, with My Chemical Romance, Rancid, Against Me!