Angels and Airwaves

 

Origins and formation: 2004–2005

Tom DeLonge began working on new material during Blink-182's final tour in 2004 and shortly after they began their hiatus in February 2005. For half a year he worked alone in his home studio before gathering musicians to form the band. Upon fiddling randomly for several weeks with the band's logo, Tom realized that if he were to invert the middle "A" of the band's acronym into what appeared to be a "V", he would have the name of his daughter, Ava. As rumors were floating around about the band's "break-up", DeLonge chose to abstain for half a year from any interviews surrounding the issue (Tom Merod) and his future plans; instead he concentrated on writing and recording in his home-based studio. In September 2005, he finally spoke publicly in Kerrang! magazine, where he unveiled the name of his new band, "Angels & Airwaves". The band included former Hazen Street guitarist and high-school friend David Kennedy, former Rocket from the Crypt drummer Atom Willard and former The Distillers bassist Ryan Sinn. Atom Willard told Shave Magazine that the experience of all the members of the band made the band formation very easy. "There’s nobody trying to figure out what is and what isn’t going to work, not just for themselves but for music and for a band, what life’s going to be like on the road and all that kind of stuff. Everybody had enough experience to just buckle down and do the work. It really has made it easier than anything else."^[4]

Beginnings and honing their sound: 2005–2009

Soon after forming the band began recording their debut album in Tom's home studio in California. The band recorded from mid 2005 to early 2006. Angels & Airwaves had no other choice but to release "The Adventure" as their first single, after a fan hacked into Tom's email account and stole four demos from the album. "The Adventure" was leaked onto radio stations, causing the band to release it on May 18, 2006. They released their first album, We Don't Need to Whisper, a few days later, on May 23, 2006. The album reached 4th on the Billboard 200, and went gold. Later that year the song The War became another single. The band toured for most of 2006 and early 2007 and then retreated to the studio at the start of the year to work on the follow-up.
On April 23, 2007, AVA announced that Ryan Sinn would not play at the Free Earth Day concert at the M.I.T. campus due to difficulties within the band. Following this incident, on May 15, Sinn posted on the Army of Angels fan club message board stating that he was "no longer a part of Angels & Airwaves," and had received a call on the evening of April 19 concluding his relationship with the band.^[5] Matt Wachter (former bassist of 30 Seconds to Mars), filled in for the show and was later confirmed as a permanent member.
The new album, titled I-Empire and the first song "Everything's Magic" leaked to the internet, and on August 25, 2007 it was the most requested song on California radio station KROQ. Angels & Airwaves began streaming the song on their MySpace profile on August 28, 2007. It also became available on iTunes, and reached number three on the iTunes Rock Chart on September 11, 2007, before the song was even made available for nationwide airplay. The band shot the video for the single on January 20 and 21, and it premiered on MTV2 Unleashed on February 25, 2008. The band came out with a third single, "Breathe", that was released onto the internet June, 20.
Angels & Airwaves performed at every location on Warped Tour 2008.They also underwent a Fall tour in support of Weezer.

Artistic evolution: 2009–2011

The band took a break from performing in 2009 while Tom Delonge reunited with Blink-182 for a summer tour. During their time off, Atom Willard joined Social Distortion as their touring drummer, while Matt Wachter and David Kennedy began work on the upcoming film. When Delonge and Willard returned in the fall, the band resumed production of their next album. Love is the third studio album by Angels & Airwaves, which was officially released worldwide on February 14, 2010 after being delayed from Christmas 2009. Fuel TV also released it two days earlier for Modlife members, along with Mark Hoppus' remix of Hallucinations available to those who donated when downloading the album The album was released free of charge due to "corporate underwriting". They began producing it in January 2009 but progress was slow due to Blink-182 reuniting and going on tour. The band finished the album in time for its release on Valentine's Day 2010. Love was downloaded nearly 500,000 times during the first 48 hours after its release day making it the most downloaded album in history. The first single from the album, "Hallucinations," was made available for free through the band's Modlife on December 23, 2009. The band have also released the video via Modlife on March 7, 2010.
The band toured North America, starting March 27 in Anaheim, CA. The tour wrapped up on May 30 in Ventura, California, and Delonge returned to Blink-182 to prepare for their upcoming album and European tour. Delonge originally revealed that there will be another tour rumored to have UK dates after the release of the Love film in the autumn, but plans were changed due to Delonge's commitments with Blink-182.^[9] "Epic Holiday" is on the soundtrack to the German film Kokowääh with Til Schweiger.
The second studio album Love:part 2 in the Love project will be released in November 11, 2011.Tom has described the album as better than the first part of Love and has also confirmed that there would be a box set with the two Love albums and a DVD of the movie.The supporting tour for Love: Part Two will take place in Spring 2012.
The first single to be released was, "Anxiety", and was premiered following LOVE Live on August 10, 2011. The music video for "Anxiety" was then released on YouTube on August 11, 2011.It was made available for purchase on iTunes on September 14, 2011.

[edit] Departure of Atom Willard and future: 2011–present

Before the release of Love: Part Two, Tom Delonge revealed that Angels & Airwaves had already begun working on two new albums and two corresponding films. On October 4th it was announced on their Facebook page that Atom Willard departed from the band. The departure seemed to be a mutual understanding and Atom thanked the members of Angels & Airwaves for a great 6 years of making music together. No information has been released in regards to a new drummer or a possibly temporary replacement for the corresponding Love: Part Two tour.Also on October 7th, it was announced that Angels & Airwaves would be part of the lineup for the Soundwave Festival in Australia, over the course of February through to March in 2012. Considering the short amount of time following Willard's departure and the announcement, the band have possibly found a replacement drummer.

[edit] Films

Main articles: Start the Machine and Love (2011 film)

Start the Machine is a documentary that focuses on the break-up of Blink-182, the genesis of Angels & Airwaves, and the making of their debut album We Don't Need to Whisper. It was released on DVD on June 17, 2008.^[14][15] Start the Machine was filmed over a course of almost 3 years.
Love (formerly titled I-Empire) is a science fiction film directed by William Eubank and starring Gunner Wright that was released in a special event called Love Live on August 10, 2011. Tom said, "It starts in the Civil War and you travel through time and space. There's a couple of different storylines. The main one is, a guy gets sent up to the International Space Station, and he gets abandoned up there. He doesn't know why. So throughout his years of being stuck up there, he sees the Earth starting to collapse below. He ends up basically becoming the last person alive. And then decades later, he wakes up one day and there's something outside of his spaceship, in low Earth orbit with him."On January 10, 2011, the new trailer for the movie was released.
In an interview in August, DeLonge revealed that he has actually began writing the next Angels and Airwaves films. He went on to say that the first film was meant to be an arthouse film but the next will be a lot grander.

Band members

Current members

• Tom Delonge – vocals, rhythm guitar (2005–present)
• David Kennedy – lead guitar (2005–present)
• Matt Wachter – bass, synthesizers, backing vocals (2007–present)

Former members

• Ryan Sinn – bass, backing vocals (2005–2007)
• Atom Willard – drums, percussion, programming (2005–2011)