Blink-182 invites coronavirus-quarantined fans to submit footage for band's new 'Happy Days' video

Blink-182 invites coronavirus-quarantined fans to submit footage for band’s new ‘Happy Days’ video

The Poway-bred punk-pop band is asking fans to share videos of themselves ‘singing, cooking, excessive hand washing ...’

San Diego Union-Tribune

March 31, 2020 5:09 PM PT

Will a global pandemic and social distancing lead to your appearing in a new music video by blink-182?

In any previous year, such a question would have sounded a lot like an early April Fool’s prank. That is assuming, of course, anyone in any previous year would have had a clue what “social distancing” meant.

But in the age of coronavirus, social distancing and self-quarantining are the new normal — and the impetus for the invitation blink-182’s recently extended on the Poway-bred punk-pop band’s social media channels.

It reads: WANNA BE IN THE HAPPY DAYS MUSIC VIDEO?

The social media posts include a link to a Google Form, which contains a message addressed to BLINK FANS.

“Are you stuck at home?” the message begins.

“This is an unprecedented time that’s got everyone wishing for happy days, so we had an idea. Let’s make a music video to show how you’re spending your social distancing time.

“Show us what you’re up to — singing, cooking, excessive hand washing, attempting TikTok dances — we want to see it all!! Submit your video clips and we’ll use our favorites to make a video for ‘Happy Days.’

“Happy Days” is a song from 2019’s “Nine,” the band’s second album since guitarist-singer Matt Skiba replaced blink-co-founder Tom DeLonge in early 2015.

While the song pre-dates coronavirus, some of the lyrics to “Happy Days” take on a new resonance now, in particular the couplet: Walls of isolation inside of my pain / And I don’t know if I’m ready to change / I wanna feel happy days, happy days.

It is unclear when the band aims to release its “Happy Days” video.

It is also unclear what the status is for the band’s planned May 16 performance at Tijuana’s Parque Morleos, where blink-182 is scheduled to headline the Imperial GNP Festival.

Nearly two dozen other acts are also scheduled to perform at the festival, including Two Door Cinema Club, Jake Bugg, Zhu, Future Islands and Hippie Sabotage. Tickets appear to still be on sale. But with so many other festivals and concerts in April and May having been postponed or canceled because of coronavirus — including Coachella and Stagecoach — the fate of the Imperial GNP Festival remains to be determined.

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George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”