Of course, their hit streak isn't dependent on streaking, and it helps that the band is even bigger on pop hooks than pubescent gags. Similar-sounding pop-punk bands like Green Day and the Offspring have created a demand for which there isn't nearly enough supply. The challenge now is to make sure they don't become strictly known as merry pranksters.
"I think we get pigeonholed as a joke band, but none of our songs are joke songs," declares Hoppus. "'What's My Age Again?' is kind of lighthearted for sure, about staying young and acting infantile. But the songs themselves are serious songs about girls, love, life, and problems." Their next single, "Adam's Song," is as serious as it gets, based in part on a teenager's suicide note. It's grave enough that Hoppus has taken to proclaiming that he wrote it about being lonely on tour, which is partly true, though there's no mistaking the lyrics' will-reading passage. The band is emphasizing the song's non-suicidal aspects because "we don't want any kids ever thinking that we're suggesting it's cool; the whole song's about there being something better out there," DeLonge says.
This more earnest side isn't hard to isolate once you separate DeLonge and Hoppus, who — unburdened from the constant duty of amusing each other — turn from Goofuses to Gallants, upstanding goofballs a girl could take home to Mom. "We're totally mellow. No drugs, no drinking. Good movies, good food, our dogs, and our ladies," DeLonge swears. "We're totally antidrug, and none of us drinks," echoes Hoppus in a separate conversation, as if applying for a chamber of commerce battle of the bands. Finn confirms this suspiciously wholesome self-characterization: "When we did Saturday Night Live, they didn't even go to the after-party, which I couldn't believe, because it seems like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. But they just wanted to go back to the hotel and talk to their girlfriends."
For dirt, we figured we could count on Janine, the ex-porn queen who played nurse for the Enema album cover and "Age" video. No go. "I kind of see 'em as my kid brothers," she says. "The first time we met, they were very curious about the adult industry, and they wanted to know the inside scoop on making movies. They're like little boys — just curious.... I have an 8-year-old son and he just adores them. He understands their humor." Bolstered by her newfound mainstream recognizability, Janine has quit adult movies and gone back to school: "See, I left it up to Blink-182 to put me on the straight and narrow!"
Finn lets a secret out of the bag. "You know what's funny? They didn't even know who Janine was." The record company delivered a stack of photos of potential cover girls, and the band members just happened to pick her, says the producer. "It was me who told them that was Janine from the porno movies. So it's kind of funny that they've been lumped in with Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit, who play up that kind of pimp lifestyle, because Blink is so notthat."
