With the recent release of their fifth studio album, The Dream Walker, Angels and Airwaves have left fans in awe with music that has encouraged to explore the infinite boundaries of the universe. In the past, many have criticised Tom DeLonge’s “nonsense” in believing aliens but for a person that clearly knows his shit, who could blame him? He is, in the words of Albert Einstein, “passionately curious” and with his creativity and drive in pushing himself to reach his full potential, he’s way more introspective than most rockstars.
I know you have a strong interest in the extraterrestrial life. Does the title of new album imply that you’ve always wanted to be The Dream Walker?
Well, the title of the album is alluding to something different than that. I’ve always been obsessed with the infinite boundaries of space. When you think about it, we spend half of our life dreaming and we don’t really talk about dreams, we don’t really talk about nightmares, we just kind of worry about our daily life. We don’t totally know what its [life] purpose is so this project that we’re doing with Poet Anderson is kind of a mainstream way to package a bunch of ideas about a topic we know very little about. I’ve always been fascinated with that, like you know, who’s to say when we sleep we’re not experiencing something in a different location of the universe. We have no idea, there’s no limit to space, there’s no limit to what’s happening and that for me, is really interesting.
What makes this album stand apart from all the others?
This one is the most musically diverse and the largest progression and evolution the band has ever had. I think just looking at the compositions themselves, it’s the most evolved and the most challenging to make for that reason, and probably the most adult record. I think a lot of people will listen to this and notice the kind of dramatic step in maturity on the songwriting.
The Dream Walker is essentially a multimedia project. Do you feel more creatively energised when it comes to making a concept album?
Yes I do. This is not so much a concept album, it’s a concept property, where the album is supporting the property and the novel that will be coming out is quoting that property. The animation/short film is supporting the property and the feature film will be as well. This a project where many different artists come together and communicate one specific theme in their own way and all these pieces come together to create the whole. It’s a little bit different when it comes to a concept record, everything that follows is supporting the album, that’s not the case with this.
Would you say that the new album resonates a futuristic sound from the band?
The band was always meant to be futuristic, aspirational, anthemic and atmospheric. I always wanted it to sound like music from the future [laughs]. I don’t know if it does or not. There’s some songs off the record where I wanted them to sound like they were from the 80s [laughs].
It’s fascinating that you have a strong belief in aliens [and anything related to space]. How have you dealt with people’s skepticism and what has maintained this belief?
It was a lot more difficult when I first started talking about the possibility of different life forms and different levels of consciousness out in the universe. When I started doing that, 15 years ago, people would laugh it off and claim that there’s no proof that there’s life in the universe even though we are proof of life in the universe [chuckles]. We are proof that life can happen within the intricate, expansion of space. A lot of it was my obsession of trying to find the reason for why we’re here, how we got here, what we’re supposed to do, where we might go as a race. And within that kind of cosmology, you start to research a lot of different things that are a lot of fun to look into and that’s when you have the future of space programming, UFOs, ancient religious texts, physics and all the above, you know.
So nowadays when you talk about it, it’s not that weird. I mean NASA, a couple of months ago just held a podium about the inevitability of finding life. NASA is now saying, no matter, what we’re gonna find life; so what do we do about it when we announce it? And they’re inviting the Vatican, physicists, scholars of all different walks to figure out how to communicate this [information on finding life outside of Earth] to the public. So I’m not so much on a limb by myself anymore but it’s what drives me in this band and it’s what drives me with this project. The company that the band is part of is called “To The Stars” and basically, we’re taking non-fiction things about the human race and communicating them with many different artists in fictional ways. It’s kind of the basis of what I’m doing for the whole second part of my life.
You also made a children’s book, The Lonely Astronaut On Christmas Eve, I think it’s really cool that you also make music under Angels and Airwaves and then you’ve released other things too, so essentially you’re reaching out to another different audience, not just in a musical sense.
Thank you. That’s kind of like what our goal is; to do very ambitious things and to really go beyond our comfort zones and challenge ourselves as artists. One of the biggest challenge was how do I, you know, co-write a novel? How do I write a screenplay? How do I direct a feature film? How do I make an animated short film and work with different textures and colours and people and mediums that I’ve never done before? And that to me is the greatest challenge and then on top of that, how do I write a record that get’s people talking in the end? [laughs] So it’s been a lot but it feels right.
Having a strong focus on space, Interstellar (2014) and Gravity (2013) are films which are both emotional and require deep thinking. Would you say that this is the intention of the band when it comes to approaching creative music projects?
Everything about what we do is meant to inspire people to think differently for themselves and the way they see the world and their place in this universe. I mean, that’s everything about what we’re doing and you could just see that when something sounds like that. One of the greatest things when Interstellar came out was we got mentioned by three different large entertainment sites in reference to our last movie [Love (2011)] which was one of the last top 10 space movies of all time. We’re like so tiny and insignificant [in the film industry] and I was so happy to be lifted into those things. We have tried so hard to really put forward ideas that make people think and it’s worth mentioning from people that validated that because I didn’t do this by myself, I found this with other artists.
I feel like you’re creating much more of an impact, not only through your music but through your short films as well, which is incredible because not many musicians do that.
Thank you. I don’t think any musicians do that. I don’t think any musician has done what we’re doing. Musicians have done concerts, musicians have done movies that are made to support the record like a rock opera etc. Nobody has done this where we come up with a theme and all of the things that support the theme. Most people make a movie that’s all about the record. You know, if you don’t do that stuff, there’s no vanity projects here. This whole thing is a pretty large thing.
Albert Einstein once said, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.” Do you believe that musicians secretly have a scientific mind?
I do because they may not know it but what they’re trying to do is assemble a bunch of pieces and test it on humanity, you know? [laughs] You’re putting together a bunch of elements of different shapes, sizes, colours and textures and then you go and then you test it as an experience on a person and then you sit back and wait until you measure the results [laughs]. It’s very similar to science, I think a lot of musicians have a fascination with science because it’s a very technical way of understanding human experience and the way we measure experience based on feelings. I think the results are very accurate.
You’ve mentioned that you’re very fascinated with the idea of human consciousness and that Angels and Airwaves is basically a by-product of that. What started this curiosity on the psychology of the brain?
Well, we don’t understand it for one. There’s more synapses and connections in the human brain and all the grains of sand are all on the beaches of the world. So you gotta imagine how complex this organ is and we really don’t know how it works. There’s books being written that everything you see is only there because our human brain is perceiving it and they have a lot of data that suggests that is true. So there is nobody at the forest, that forest does not exist but as soon as you go to that forest, your brain takes a bunch of you know, weights of probability and create matter. So, it’s a really interesting concept that the only reason why things exist is because of the human brain assembling waves of light and probability to create something that’s tangible, and that to me is quite a fascinating approach to what is happening around us.
I think people underestimate how smart you are because seriously, they probably think “Oh this guy believes in aliens, he must be stupid.”
People have no clue, when I research UFOs, I’m reading books on physics, I’m reading books on ancient religion texts, I’m reading books on the geopolitical order and political science and that’s what it means. I mean all this stuff is wrapped up into one worked up mythology where not many people know about. Generally, people don’t read things on spaceships. But hey, whatever [chuckles].
Being a lead vocalist in both Blink-182 and Angels and Airwaves, do you feel that being in both bands has given you more personal satisfaction as a musician?
It has because I’m able to live with an eternal youth and legacy of how I grew up and who I grew up with and what I believed in and all the luck that I came into contact with. Angels and Airwaves gives me the ability to expand, to not be in any kind of box, to challenge myself as an adult and to challenge myself as an artist and that’s not saying Blink isn’t challenging, it’s totally challenging, it’s just two completely different things. One has a legacy so you don’t really wanna break it, the other one has no legacy so you’re trying whatever you want to make it, you know.
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The Dream Walker is out now!
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