The decision to re-prioritize his life, putting Blink-182 on the back-burner was a difficult, and life-changing one. "You know what? It was you guys," DeLonge says with a chuckle referring to a press release given to posted by Radio.com station KROQ in Los Angeles."It was when you guys released a press release that I knew nothing about." The release was penned by the band's publicist at the request of his former Blink bandmates Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker.

"Up to that point, I was so stressed on trying to handle everything. In many ways, the decision got made for me. I was thinking, okay cool, now I don't have to stress any more. Because I was juggling all of it and I knew for about five months prior to that, that s-- was going to hit the fan. And it was going to hit the fan when everyone says 'Okay, we're ready to go record, okay, we're ready to go tour, okay, where you at, what are you doing, come on, what are your priorities-what's your priorities?'" DeLonge repeats that last part for emphasis, as if he is about to be crushed under the weight of the question.

"I was stressing because I was in the middle of a whole bunch of contracts with authors and animators and filmmakers and I was getting my company off the ground. I had just hired ten people, we got our space and we were doing construction, we were getting ready to launch a retail store� and then all of a sudden KROQ let out the announcement and I was like, okay, well, s-t, it's gonna make it much easier now."