With Blink on indefinite hiatus, DeLonge pushed himself to new limits. Out went So Cal pop- punk, in came proggy effects-laden soundscapes.

Where was your head when you were putting Angels & Airwaves together?

“That was more than Box Car Racer. That wasn’t me testing myself, that was redefining myself. I changed everything, I changed all of my amps, learned how to produce, how to play piano, learned all about pedals, I learned everything.”

Did having a second guitarist in the band change your playing?

“It was good to have those options. [With Blink] I was always stuck in this framework that it had to be certain way because we could only perform it a certain way, and people would think that we’re cheating or something. That’s wrong. We shouldn’t have ever thought that way but I did so I stuck to such a specific template. That slowly started to change.”

How did your rig change?

“I went to Voxes [AC30H2] and Fender ’65 Twin Reverbs together. That changed everything for me. A Mesa/Boogie is like a nuke: you plug it in and it fills up every piece of the sonic spectrum. If you use a Vox and you ring out a chord it only fills that one specific spot in the spectrum and you need other things to happen.”