Every once in a while, something from the early days of pop-punk reappears online that perfectly sums up why we all fell in love with the genre in the first place. This week, it’s Blink-182’s original press release announcing their name change — and it’s every bit as gloriously unfiltered, ridiculous, and self-aware as you’d hope.
Back in the mid-90s, before Enema of the State and All the Small Things sent them into the stratosphere, Blink were just three chaotic San Diego kids causing trouble under the name “Blink.” Everything was going fine until a band from Ireland threatened to sue them for using the name. Most groups might’ve quietly changed it and moved on. Blink, though? They wrote a whole statement that reads more like a stand-up routine than a press release.
The letter opens with the line: “Blink—just the sound of the word brings a smile to your face, as visions of goats and midgets dance in your head.” From there, it spirals into total blink-style nonsense, joking that they were being “forced by a techno band from Ireland” to change their name, and after “a fist fight or two,” had finally decided on Blink-182.
And then there’s the million-dollar question: why 182? The band clearly didn’t know either, tossing out theories like how many times Mark had “lubed up” to Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi, or how many times Tom had “dry-skinned” to the same scene. It’s childish, it’s stupid, and it’s somehow still genius.
The rest of the press release doubles down on the chaos. It teases a new single called They Came to Conquer Uranus (because of course it does), and brags about their new music video for M+M’s, featuring “women and guns and explosions.” It even includes a section about touring with Pennywise, MXPX, and Unwritten Law — all while signing off with, “Love and kisses on your pink parts, blink-182.”
Reading it now, decades later, it feels like the purest snapshot of who Blink-182 were before fame: raw, sarcastic, and completely allergic to taking themselves seriously. The letter isn’t just a reminder of their name change — it’s a perfect example of how the band turned even a legal headache into something hilarious.
It’s weirdly comforting to know that the same spirit that fuelled that 1990s press release is still alive in Blink today. They’ve grown up (sort of), sold out arenas, reunited, broken up, and come back again — but the humour, chaos, and don’t-give-a-damn energy never really left.
So yeah, the press release that made Blink-182 “Blink-182” is back in circulation — and honestly, it might be one of the funniest pieces of band history ever written. Proof that even when they were being sued, these guys were still having a laugh.
