Mark Hoppus recalls Blink-182's '00s rivalry with Green Day on tour: "We were frenemies"

3 May 2025, 08:00

Blink-182 and Green Day in the '00s. Picture: Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty, Radio X, Naki/Redferns/Getty

By Jenny Mensah

The Blink-182 bassist and co-founder reflected on the band's joint Pop Disaster Tour with the punk rockers.

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Mark Hoppus has recalled the rivalry between Blink-182 and Green Day and joked that it spurred them on to create their American Idiot album.

The All The Small Things rocker appeared on The Chris Moyles Show this week where he was quizzed about the Blink and Green Day's Pop Disaster Tour in 2002.

Asked how much animosity there was between the two bands, Hoppus replied: "It was as - yeah I mean there was issues on the tour, but I think as bands we were friends and kind of frenemies almost. Like, we were always trying to out do one another".

"I tink we walked into the situation a little cockier than we deserved to be," admitted the rocker. "And they definitely were out for blood. So, I think it made for a really great tour, actually."

What it was posited that Green Day - comprised of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool - just wanted to prove they were the biggest band and went onto write American Idiot shortly after, which Hoppus had previously taken credit for, the 53-year-old added: "I did that. I helped that whole thing. I made that whole thing happen."

Watch him discuss Blink's relationship with the punk pop trio here:

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Hoppus also opened up his "brutal" cancer battle four years on and revealed he wasn't sure he was going to make it.

"I think it was four years ago today," he recalled live on Radio X. "I was playing video games and I was talking with my son, who was away in college, andI felt a weird thing on my shoulder and three days later I was getting ready for chemo."

The Dammit singer went on: "The chemo was brutal, it was awful. My form of cancer, my doctor told me the good news is that I had a 60 per cent chance of getting through it and never having to deal with it again, but the bad part was that the chemo is one of the worst that you could undergo and it was bad.

"I don't recommend it. Zero out of five stars, but it saved me so it was all good."

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Despite the doctor's prognosis, Hoppus admitted that he didn't think he was going to make it through as he believed he would be on the "wrong side" of the 60 per cent and began thinking about who would look after his family.

"It was pretty dark," he revealed. "It was awful and I really thought that I wasn't going to make it and I thought I was on the wrong side of that 60% and I was mentally preparing for my family moving on and what my wife was going to do when I was gone and who was gonna raise my son and all that kind of stuff".

Watch the moment the Miss You rocker surprised Blink superfan Captain Crapbeard on The Chris Moyles Show below: