Tom DeLonge knows how he'd like people to listen to We Don't Need to Whisper, the debut album from his new group, Angels and Airwaves. "I really want the room to be dark, with black light or a candle," he says. "People should have headphones on, and they should be really comfortable, maybe sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. I spent a year and a half working on this record, trying my hardest to give people a moment of escapism. All I ask is 50 minutes of a lowered heart rate." In just over a decade with Blink-182, DeLonge went from the San Diego suburbs to the top of the world. The band sold over 20 million records worldwide, won a wide assortment of MTV awards, and sold out arenas everywhere from London to Tokyo.
So in early 2005, with Blink-182 on a break, DeLonge came to a crossroads. Rather than do a solo album or another version of his well-reviewed side project, Box Car Racer, DeLonge decided to start a new band. He recruited Box Car Racer guitarist David Kennedy, bassist Ryan Sinn (formerly of the Distillers), and drum god Atom Willard (previously of Rocket from the Crypt and the Offspring). The quartet headed into the studio—where they would try anything to find a new sound or a new song.
The name Angels and Airwaves popped into DeLonge's head while he was driving. He wasn't certain about the name at first, but then he realized that "Angels and Airwaves" abbreviated as "AAA"—and that if he inverted the middle A, it spelled AVA, which is also the name of Tom's daughter.
"This is the next half of Tom DeLonge's life. If you liked anything that I did in the past, this is very much the next step."
"The magic of Blink-182 was that the three of us came together to create this amazing band," he says. "But now there's no holds barred. I get to be me completely with a new group of talented musicians. We are on a different intensity level with this record, and it's something that we can't wait to share with the rest of the world.
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