We were backstage during today's TRL Rock Band special, crammed into a tiny room at the Times Square Hard Rock with Angels & Airwaves, Sebastian Bach and Flyleaf. (Poor us, right?) The tight quarters gave us a chance to get up close and personal with AVA's Tom DeLonge. Here's what we found out about his band's new album, his addiction to pain killers and what the deal is between him and his former Blink-182 bandmates.
Buzzworthy: Tell us about your documentary, Start the Machine.
Tom DeLonge: The documentary is being finished right now, and it was submitted to Sundance. It's an odyssey, and we've been working on it for two years. It started out as a making of the record and then the story got pretty insane. I broke my back years ago and got spun out on all these narcotics, so when we were making the first Angels & Airwaves record [We Don't Need to Whisper] all that stuff kind of exploded and I went out into the press with all these crazy things and all this controversy erupted.
BW: Because of something you said?
TD: Yeah, 'cause I went out and said [the band] was the second coming of Christ. But that's what's funny in the documentary; I was like, "If God came down I really, truly believe it wouldn’t be bigger than this record." [Laughs.]