Six years after the world lost Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington, Blink-182 paid tribute to the late singers on their new album.
Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker reunited to release One More Time…, which officially dropped on Friday, October 20. The sixth song, “More Than You Know,” seemingly contains a subtle reference to both the Linkin Park and Soundgarden/Audioslave singers. “I feel a bit cursed, I’ve been numb and sinking down like a stonе / I don’t feel pain, but I feel more than you’d ever know,” sings DeLonge, 47, on the chorus.
“Numb,” as Linkin Park fans would know, is the song that closed out the band’s 2003 album, Meteora. It’s also one of the group’s most well-known songs, reaching No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. Similarly, “Like a Stone” is Audioslave’s most successful and recognizable song, having topped the U.S. Alternative charts in 2003 (reaching No. 31 on the Hot 100). Cornell fronted the alt-rock supergroup after Soundgarden broke up in 1997.
Cornell and Bennington both died by suicide in 2017. The 52-year-old Cornell was found dead in his Detroit hotel room following a Soundgarden concert that May. Bennington, 41, was discovered dead in his home in Palos Verdes Estates, California, two months later.
Ahead of Bennington’s death, Linkin Park and Blink-182 were scheduled to perform two shows together that summer, dubbed “Welcome to Blinkin Park.” Following the news of Bennington’s passing, Blink-182 released a statement via social media. “[We are] wrecked by the loss of our friend and amazing musician, Chester Bennington,” the band said. “We could never imagine playing ‘blinkin park’ without his incredible talent and voice. It just would not be possible. We send our deepest sympathies to his family, bandmates, friends, and fans.”
Hoppus, 51, Barker, 47, and then-member Matt Skiba would participate in the Chester Bennington Memorial concert in October 2017. Blink-182 joined the surviving members of Linkin Park for a rendition of “What I’ve Done,” with Blink also performing “I Miss You” in tribute to Bennington. The night also featured members of Korn, System of a Down, Avenged Sevenfold and Sum-41.
One More Time… is Blink’s 10th studio album and the first to feature the trio of Hoppus, DeLonge and Barker in over a decade. The group last recorded together for 2011’s Neighborhoods before DeLonge left the band in 2014. Skiba, 47, of Alkaline Trio, filled in until DeLonge returned in October 2022.
In the leadup to the album’s release, the band sat down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to discuss their reunion. “On the album, [the title track] ‘One More Time’ is kind of written about why does it take these catastrophes — like me being in a plane crash or Mark being sick — for our band to get back together?” said Barker, referring to the 2008 plane crash that nearly killed him and Hoppus’ battle with large B-cell lymphoma in 2021.
