Mark Hoppus

Mark Hoppus
Date of Birth	March 15, 1972
Home Town	Ridgecrest, California
Genre	Pop Punk Punk Rock Alternative Rock Skate Punk
Occupation(s)	Musician Record Producer
Instrument(s)	Vocals Bass Guitar
Years active	1988-present
Associated acts	Blink-182 +44
Website	http://himynameismark.com

Mark Allan Hoppus (born March 15, 1972) is an American musician and record producer. Hoppus is one of the founding members of the pop punk band Blink-182 and the pop punk/alternative band +44. He plays bass guitar and provides vocals. As of late, Hoppus has produced albums for groups like Idiot Pilot, New Found Glory, The Matches, and Motion City Soundtrack.

Biography

Mark Hoppus was born in Ridgecrest, California on March 15, 1972. At the age of 15, Hoppus got his first bass guitar as a gift from his dad and earned money for a set of amplifiers by helping him paint his garage. Hoppus never took bass lessons, instead he taught himself by playing to bands such as the Descendents, The Cure, and Bad Religion. Hoppus played by himself and sang in the band Pier 69, primarily covering songs by The Cure. He also played in a band called The Attic Children in 1988, during this time he lived in Washington D.C. He later moved to San Diego, where his sister Anne (now Anne McMurray) introduced him to Tom DeLonge in August 1992. DeLonge was a friend of Anne's at the time, and constantly complained about wanting to join a band. When Hoppus first went over to DeLonge's house, he was told DeLonge would be at the local skate park. Hoppus went over and found DeLonge skateboarding with his friends. Hoppus wanted to impress DeLonge, so he climbed on a lamp post, jumped off and cracked both ankles and heels and was on crutches for three weeks. He then started playing with DeLonge in his garage and they recruited original drummer, Scott Raynor. They went on to form Blink-182. In 1998, Travis Barker joined the band during a tour in California. Blink-182 went on to record many more albums which made the band very successful. The band recorded two number one hits, "All the Small Things" and "I Miss You". As of 2005 the band went on an indefinite hiatus. Hoppus wanted to continue to write music so he started +44, a new band with fellow Blink-182 band mate Travis Barker. In 2006 they released their first album entitled When Your Heart Stops Beating. The band have recently signed a deal with Interscope Records and are currently in production of their second studio album.

When asked about a possible Blink-182 reunion, Hoppus usually replied with "I don't know. Ten years ago I would never guess that I would be where I am now, I can't guess where I'll be ten years from now." On February 8th 2009, Blink-182 presented at The Grammys; before presenting the award Hoppus said "Blink-182 is back!"

Personal life

Hoppus married Skye Everly in 2000 after meeting on the set of Blink-182's "All the Small Things" video shoot. Two years later, Skye gave birth to their son, Jack Hoppus on August 5, 2002. The three currently reside in Los Angeles, California. On August 11, 2008 in an article released, Mark is suing a father and son who lied to him about automated checkout machines at McDonald's restaurants. Mark invested more than half a million dollars in it back in October 2003.

Musical gear

Hoppus has been seen sporting his signature Fender Mark Hoppus Jazz Bass in a variety of different colors since the days of Blink-182. Though considered to be a Precision Bass, Hoppus's signature consists of a Jazz Bass body with a Precision Bass neck and pickup. Recently, Hoppus's signature underwent a slight modification. The bodies are now made of Ash instead of Alder, making the bass lighter. The pickup locations were switched from their usual positions. The pickup that was placed under the E and A strings was also placed under the D and G strings and moved above the original position, placed higher than the pickup under the E and A strings, giving the D and G bass strings a warmer, thicker bass sound. The pickups Hoppus uses are Seymour Duncan Quarter-Pound pickups, the same as is on the Fender Precision Bass. The current colors of his +44 touring basses include Olympic White, Sunburst and See-Through Blond all coupled with a tortoise shell pickguard. Besides his signature basses, Hoppus was seen using one other bass guitar live on stage: the six-stringed Fender Bass VI, most notably for the song "I Miss You". Mark also use Fender Precision Bass which was first seen in Dammit, What's My Age Again? and All The Small Things His P-Bass like his signature bass has only one volume knob. His P-Bass last appearance was in the video Stay Together For The Kids with a Sunburst Colour and White Pickguard.His Sunburst P-Bass was also with Mark recording (+44)'s second studio album. Prior to the use of Fender Basses, Hoppus heavily used Ernie Ball Musicman Stingray basses in various colors during the early days of Blink-182 up until the early Enema of the State period.

For live sound, Hoppus plugs his basses into three Ampeg SVT Classic bass heads running into two Ampeg 8x10 SVT bass cabs. Prior to the use of the all-tube SVT Classic heads, Hoppus used two Ampeg SVT-4 Pro heads which only feature a tube preamp.

Companies

Hoppus and Tom DeLonge co-owned two companies, Atticus and Macbeth Athletics, Hoppus has since sold his share in both companies; as well as loserkids.com.

HiMyNameIsMark

"HiMyNameIsMark" (also known as 'The Morning Zoo') is a podcast that was set up in the wake of the hiatus by Hoppus, and can be found at HiMyNameIsMark.com. Every few weeks he released a show of songs by underground bands, interviews with band members and/or friends, and reminisces about happenings in his life. He is often joined on the show by his friends Chris Holmes (+44's engineer) and James Ingram (+44's assistant engineer). In 2005 Hoppus won the "Best Podcast" award, beating out many of the hottest podcasts.

Non-Musical

Mark Hoppus was a guest actor on an episode of the UPN show, Haunted, in 2002. He also wrote columns for Risen Magazine's March/April and May/June 2005 issues entitled "Beyond Us".. Mark Hoppus was also confirmed to be a part of the 2008 film, "One Nine Nine Four", a movie about punk rock in the 90's.

Solo discography

For Hoppus' work with Blink-182 and +44, see Blink-182 discography and +44 discography, respectively.

Recording

Year	Album title	Band	Record label	Credits
1988	The Attic Children Demo	The Attic Children		Vocals and bass
1998	Look Forward to Failure	The Ataris	Fat Wreck Chords	Vocals on "That Special Girl"
2002	No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls	Simple Plan	Atlantic Records	Vocals on "I'd Do Anything"
2002	Box Car Racer	Box Car Racer	MCA	Vocals on "Elevator"
2002	Sticks and Stones	New Found Glory	Drive-Thru Records, MCA	Bass on "Something I Call Personality"
2004	The Passion of the Christ: Songs	Various Artists		Vocals on MxPx's song "Empire"
2005	Panic	MxPx	SideOneDummy Records	Vocals on "Wrecking Hotel Rooms"
2005	Commit This to Memory	Motion City Soundtrack	Epitaph Records	Vocals on "Hangman"
2006	White Heat	Renee Renee		Vocals and bass on "Paper Doll"
2006	Kevin & Bean's Super Christmas	Various Artists		Vocals and bass on +44's cover of "Christmas Vacation" by The Descendents
2007	Changes	Vanilla Sky	Universal Music Records	Vocals on "Nightmare"
2009	Fired Up soundtrack	Richard Gibbs	Screen Gems	Co-wrote and Vocals on "Until the Stars Fall From the Sky"

Producing

Year	Album Title	Band	Record Label	Credits
2005	Commit This To Memory	Motion City Soundtrack	Epitaph Records	Producer
2006	Wake Up	Something for Rockets		Produced two songs
2006	Decomposer	The Matches	Epitaph Records	Produced "What Katie Said", "Sunburn vs. the Rhinovirus", and "The Barber's Unhappiness"
2006	We're Up to No Good, We're Up to No Good	Rory	111 Records	Producer
2006	Punk Goes 90's	Various Artists	Fearless Records	Produced Mae's cover of "March of the Pigs" by Nine Inch Nails
2007	Wolves	Idiot Pilot	Reprise Records	Co-Producer
2007	One Track Mind	Something for Rockets		Producer
2008	Spread The Rumors	Socratic	Drive Thru Records	Producer
2008	TBA	Feverclub		Producer
2008	Our Lunar Activities	Our Lunar Activities		Producer
2009	Lies Sell Stories	Koopa	Pied Piper Records	Producer
2009	Not Without a Fight	New Found Glory	Epitaph Records	Producer

Writing

Year	Album Title	Band	Record Label	Credits
2006	In with the Out Crowd	Less Than Jake	Warner Bros. Records	Co-wrote "The Rest of My Life"
2009	Nothing Personal	All Time Low	Hopeless/Subcity Records	Co-writer

External links

• Mark Hoppus' official website
• Mark Hoppus' official twitter account
• Mark Hoppus' official MySpace profile

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Mark Hoppus. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Less Than Jake Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.