More about: Blink 182

Tom Delonge has revealed a long statement detailing why he unexpectently left Blink-182 last January.

With Mark Hoppus reportedly hitting the studio with Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba, the ex-Blink frontman has squashed any hopes of him returning to the pop-punk trio any time soon.

Talking to Radio.com, Tom revealed in a lengthy interview: "What people don’t know about me, because I’ve never been out there telegraphing it, is that I’ve been building companies for a long time and I learned quite a hell of a lot. And, the skill sets that I’ve acquired for the past 15 years in terms of understanding the monetization of the arts—I built a platform that Kanye and Nine Inch Nails and Pearl Jam would use to monetize all of their art, their fan clubs, ticketing and all that stuff—to building hard core skateboarding companies and surf companies where the culture involved is super snobby and picky.

"So, at this point in my life I just know a lot of things and it’s a better use of the skill sets that I’ve acquired to be doing what I’m doing now than just being on stage playing the songs over and over again—even though it’s fun as s–t when there’s pyrotechnics and lasers—I love that. But I’ve never needed attention to feel good about myself… even though it’s f—–g awesome and I love attention, don’t get me wrong, but I need to create things. That’s where I win emotionally I guess."

He goes on to confess that, "I hit a very specific part in my life,I’m 39 years old. If I was to continue to stay in the studio for a year to write a record that I need to rehearse for eight weeks to go on tour for another six months, and it’s only about those twelve songs I’m going to be severely limited in what I can achieve artistically and I’m going to be looking back when I’m 50 kinda going, ‘Fuck, I really love all these other forms of art, I really wish I could have done something with it. So what happened was that I decided that... just to do it. I decide to do it because it afforded me the ability to be with my family a hell of a lot more. It afforded me to inspire other artists."

Tom Delonge released his first post-Blink solo album back in April entitled, To The Stars. Listen to a track from it, here.

More about: Blink 182