By: Sam Prevot
--
Pop-Punk will get a fresh sound with the recently announced duo of Blink-182 and All Time Low’s Mark Hoppus and Alex Gaskarth.
On January 24th, All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth and Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus made an announcement that shook the pop punk world.
The two have been working on a side project, a duo named Simple Creatures, and dropped a lyric video to a single titled “Drug.” The song officially hit music services the following day.
It was everything I expected it to be, and maybe more. At the open, you get the familiar Blink-182 vibes we’ve all come to know and love with the simple “Na na na na…” Then Hoppus’ voice rings out with Blink-esque lyrics “I got a feeling that the weather's gonna change, so I'm turning off my brain for a minute.”
He sings the first verse and pre-chorus, leading into Gaskarth’s chorus. The chorus leans more towards All Time Low’s usual style of metaphors and a less straightforward style. “You got me going around in circles in my head,” Gaskarth sings, “the signals that we send, electric confidence.”
The chorus ends with the catchy hook, “Can’t get enough of your drug,” followed by the same “Na na na” from the start.
The instrumentation of the song is a fresh blend of the familiar and the new. Traditional pop-punk guitars and drums are paired with piano and more synthetic sounds that Gaskarth began experimenting with on the most recent All Time Low LP, Last Young Renegade.
Now, this collaboration came as a surprise to many, but there were a few signs that something like this was coming.
All Time Low has always cited Blink as a source of inspiration for their music (Jack Barakat even has a Blink tattoo), and members of both bands have been close since they met each other. In the past, Hoppus and Gaskarth have collaborated, with Hoppus featuring on All Time Low’s song “Tidal Waves” from 2015’s Future Hearts.
This relationship between the two bands culminated in Blink taking ATL out on the road on 2016’s ‘The California Tour’ with A Day to Remember and All American Rejects. Basically, an emo kid’s dream lineup.
Fans will be happy to know that Gaskarth and Hoppus have also announced a Simple Creatures EP, scheduled to drop in March. That’s ‘it’ for official announcements, but the two have dropped hints about more on the horizon.
In an interview with Rock Sound magazine, Hoppus alluded to more in the near future for Simple Creatures, as well as All Time Low and his own band.
"There’s lots of other stuff in the can, we have a whole second EP ready to go in the summer some time, depending on when All Time Low has their record come out or Blink has their record come out. We’ll kind of weave it between those two."
He also shared the title of Simple Creatures’ debut EP. Strange Love will consist of six tracks. However, no specific release date information was given aside from the March 2019 timeline the duo shared on social media. The two also intend on performing live as Simple Creatures, so maybe we will see another Blink-182/All Time Low tour in the near future.
So, maybe the debut of Simple Creatures shouldn’t have shocked us. Nevertheless, the release and news of an upcoming EP is generating a lot of buzz.
I don’t think it’s too much to say this song outshines the most recent All Time Low releases. If the rest of the EP is anything like “Drug,” listeners are in for a real treat.
--
Sam Prevot currently works at Bleacher Report where she is a Social Stories Production Assistant. She is a 2018 graduate of Quinnipiac University.