To some, Angels & Airwaves is only a band, a side project of sorts for Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge.
But in reality, Angels & Airwaves is a multi-media art project that stretches beyond the ambition of mere music.
“We’re going to be taking large concepts about the human race and developing them into different forms of media,” said DeLonge, the brains behind Angels & Airwaves, speaking by phone after a planning meeting in Los Angeles.
| If you go |
| Angles & Airwaves at the DC101 Chili Cook-0ff |
| Where: RFK Stadium. |
| When: Gates open at 11 a.m. Saturday |
| Info: $35 in advance, $60 at the gate; dc101.com |
Angles & Airwaves is set to perform Saturday at the DC101 Chili Cook-Off.
Angels & Airwaves, which long ago surpassed DeLonge’s other band Blink-182 in terms of scope if not album sales, boasts four full-length albums beginning with 2006’s “We Don’t Need to Whisper.” The band also has a feature-length film “Love,” the documentary “Start the Machine” and tours frequently. DeLonge is also working on a news aggregate initiative (strangetimes.com); another feature film; and recording a live Angels & Airwaves performance. Perhaps the most ambitious project in the works is based around a character named “Poet Anderson”and will feature animation, a live action movie, music and more.
Angels & Airwaves’ big ideas are in contrast to an age when iTunes singles and Tweets dominate.
“We would much rather do something much more strategic and long-term and ambitious,” DeLonge said, adding that once people get it, they’ll get it.
DeLonge came into the public consciousness when San Diego County-based Blink-182 hit it big in the late ’90s. When Blink went on hiatus in 2005, DeLonge put together Angles & Airwaves. Blink-182 regrouped with a new album last year and continues to tour.
DeLonge no longer struggles with balancing his Blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves careers.
“I’m at this point in my life that I just do what I want,” DeLonge said. “I think both those fans are always going to fight over the attention they feel they deserve, and rightfully so. I do hope that people will just be excited or interested at all in just me as a person and the projects I set my time on. I definitely don’t see myself as Tom DeLonge from Angels & Airwaves or Blink-182. I just see myself as Tom DeLonge now. I didn’t feel that way years ago. It took a lot to become my own person.”
“I’m excited to have all of these things that help define me rather than just one.”
