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Music

Tom Delonge Is Out of Blink-182 and Will Be Replaced on Tour by Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba

Woah.

In what will assuredly be the biggest punk story of the year (1999), Blink-182 guitarist Tom Delonge has bowed out of the band for the near future. He will be replaced for the time being by (as you can probably tell from our sweet Photoshop job above) Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba. Radio.com is reporting that in a statement from their publicist, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker explained what's going on:

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“We were all set to play this festival and record a new album and Tom kept putting it off without reason. A week before we were scheduled to go in to the studio we got an email from his manager explaining that he didn’t want to participate in any Blink-182 projects indefinitely, but would rather work on his other non-musical endeavors.” Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus plan to honor all Blink-182 commitments including the Musink Festival and are excited to have singer/guitarist Matt Skiba join them for this project. “No hard feelings, but the show must go on for our fans.” Additionally, Skiba will continue to make new music and tour with the Alkaline Trio.

It was announced today that Blink will be playing Barker's Musink Festival with Skiba as a temporary replacement. And Delonge will continue his work with pretending people listen to Angels & Airwaves.

UPDATE: Now Tom is saying he didn't quit the band via an Instagram of the Tron Guy. Makes sense!:

To all the fans, I never quit the band. I actually was on a phone call about a blink 182 event for New York City at the time all these weird press releases started coming in… Apparently those releases were 'sanctioned' from the band. Are we dysfunctional- yes. But, Christ….. #Awkward #BabyBackRibs

A photo posted by Official Tom DeLonge (@tomdelonge) on Jan 26, 2015 at 12:49pm PST