CIRCUS: Do you really care if people take you seriously?

HOPPUS: I don't see how people could really take us seriously. That's not one of the things that we strive for with our band. We take our music as seriously as we can. We try to write good songs. We try to write decent lyrics. As far as our band goes, we are not a serious band at all.

CIRCUS: How involved are you with the whole extreme sports scene?

HOPPUS: Totally. I mean, we grew up in S. California. So we always skated, snowboarded, and we tried surfing. We always try to do stuff like that, all of the time.

CIRCUS: Let's say Dude Ranch becomes very huge. Would you champion that whole scene to the masses?

HOPPUS: Yeah, definitely. It seems that punk rock music has always been the soundtrack to those kind of sports. If you watch any of the videos or anything, it's always punk bands on those. [There is] a lot of energy in those sports obviously, and there is a lot of energy in the music. They just seem to go hand-in-hand with one another. Yeah, we will do everything that we can to support things like that. We did the Warped Tour which was awesome, and it obviously ties all of that together.

CIRCUS: Regarding the Warped Tour, how would you compare '96 to '97?

HOPPUS: Both tours were super fun. They were awesome tours to be on. In '97, more kids had been turned on to it. Obviously, the tour has been growing every year. The first year was just in clubs. [For] the second year, it was in bigger venues and the third year was in almost bigger venues. It seems like the kids are catching on. Obviously the kids that were there from the beginning, ]who] were involved in the scene knew all about it from the get-go The kids who are just starting to get turned on are understanding what it's all about now. They are really starting to support the shows which is awesome. They are learning about all of these different kinds of music which is involved in the whole punk rock thing. The whole ska punk, ska, the hardcore, and the power punk. So they see how it all comes together with the board sports. I think it's almost like educational for the kids.

CIRCUS: Still touring in vans or have you moved up in the world to a full on tour bus?

HOPPUS: We have always toured in a van. That's where we came from. Tour buses are so expensive. there is now way you can possibly come back from tour with any money. We are trying to support ourselves as a band. So we have pretty much shied away from the bus. [For] the Sno Core tour, we are going to try and take out a bus because a lot of those places are almost impossible to drive to. Driving in the snow totally sucks. It's like the worst thing ever. We did a tour one time where we were honestly driving through blizzards. We almost died several times sliding off the roads and it was a real nightmare. So we might try to get a bus for that tour just because there is no way that any of us can drive through the snow.

CIRCUS: Venues in different parts of the country are shutting down slamming and stage diving. Are your shows affected by this at all?

HOPPUS: It doesn't seem like anyone ever pays attention to those rules anyway. From the scene that we came out of, it just seems natural that kids are going to slam-dance and that kids are going to stage dive. I knew that some people go to shows and they just want to go off. They just want to slam dance and stage dive, and that's how they have fun. I have always felt that that was totally cool. I can see the other side too, where people were like 'well, I don't want some guy bashing into me the whole night while I'm trying to watch a band.' The best way to handle that is if ou don't want to be in the pit, don't go there. If you don't want some guy jumping on top of you, then don't stand right in front of the stage. When I was growing up, and I was trying to convince my parents to let me go to punk shows they always said the same thing. "Oh, but they are doing that slam dancing thing there." It seems like it's so simple that people just don't understand. Again, if you don't want to be in the pit, don't go there. The people that we don't like are the people that go to the shows and they think that the pit is some place for them to take out their aggression because their dad won't let them join the football team or something like that.

CIRCUS: Do you guys get the frat boy guys that have 200 pounds of testosterone, but no idea of what the hell they are doing in the pit?

HOPPUS: There are kids like that have come to our shows. As soon as we notice somebody there to just beat people up, we call them out and berate them and they usually leave everybody alone. There are definitely people that come to our shows with the wrong attitude. What's fortunate about our band is that people come to the shows and they know that it's lighthearted and fun. It's not as aggressive as a hardcore band like Sick Of It All or something like that. So I think that kind of helps out also. I don't know how somebody can come to a Blink show and get all narly aggressive and beat people up.

CIRCUS:What are some of the other gands that you guys try to support?

HOPPUS: We have always been really good friends with Unwritten Law. It's like us, Unwritten Law, and Buck O Nine all started areound the same time. We really all have grown together. We always try to help each other out. It's always awesome when you are on tour, and you end up playing shows with those bands. It's so rad to see your best friends doing well.