Tom DeLonge, one of the founding members of the band Blink 182, announced on Tuesday that he is reuniting with his former bandmates, Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus, for a 2023 World Tour beginning in March next year. The trio will reunite after seven years since DeLonge left the band in January 2015 and was quickly replaced by Matt Skiba of the Alkaline Trio. 

As part of their 2023 world tour, Blink 183 will perform in multiple destinations across the world, including the Lollapalooza music festival in South America in March 2022. The reunited Blink 182 will also release a comeback single called Edging on October 14.

Also read:Blink-182 reunite after 8 years, plan world tour, new music

But why did DeLonge part ways with Blink 182 in the first place? There is no straightforward reason and multiple explanations are available for their separation. 

For starters, when DeLonge left Blink 182 in January 2015, the band released a statement saying that DeLonge’s decision to leave was completely unplanned and happened immediately.

“A week before we were scheduled to go into the studio, we got an email from [Tom’s] manager explaining that he didn’t want to participate in any Blink-182 projects indefinitely, but would rather work on his other non-musical endeavours” the statement said, adding, “No hard feelings, but the show must go on for our fans.”

The statement did not go well with DeLonge as it seemed to paint him as someone without any accountability for his colleagues. He released ‘open letters’ on both Instagram and Facebook where he addressed his fans on the departure from Blink 182 in which the singer surprised everyone by saying that he “never left the band”.

“Never planned on quitting, just find it hard as hell to commit,” he said in the open letter. “And even as I watch them act so different to what I know of them to be, I still care deeply for them. Like brothers, and like old friends. But our relationship got poisoned yesterday. “

The “non-musical endevours” that DeLonge engaged in concerned his long-time fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrial activities. Since leaving the band, he has worked in this area.

He wrote several books for children, launched websites to make more people aware, and even started directing a sci-fi movie starring comedian Richard Kind.  

Also read: Blink 182 2023 world tour dates

In 2019, he gave a definitive reason as to why he left Blink 182 in an interview with The Stars Academy of Arts and Science. 

“As an artist, I’d kind of conquered what I wanted to do with music, so I thought this is a great time to kind of do something else,” he said in the interview. Referring to his interest in extraterrestrial activities, he added, “I left my band and all that I was known for, because this is the moment in time that I can change the world for my kids and everybody else’s.”