| To the Stars... Demos, Odds and Ends | |
|---|---|
| Tom DeLonge | |
| Released | Template:Start date |
| Length | 25:51 |
| Genre | Pop punk, alternative rock, acoustic |
| Label | To the Stars |
| Produced by | Tom DeLonge & Aaron Rubin |
| Album guide | |
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To the Stars... Demos, Odds and Ends (often shortened to To the Stars) is the debut solo album by Tom DeLonge. It was released on April 21, 2015 (following his departure from Blink-182 in January 2015) through DeLonge's multimedia company also titled To the Stars. The album To the Stars is said to contain tracks from DeLonge's "personal stash", which include songs originally intended to be recorded with Blink-182, as well as tracks originally meant for Angels and Airwaves. The eight-song album was released on vinyl, CD and digital formats.
Background[]
A few weeks after DeLonge's announced departure from the pop punk band Blink-182, through social media he expressed his interest in releasing demos he wrote for a potential Blink-182 album. The album To the Stars was formally announced on February 28, 2015, and DeLonge later elaborated that the album was one of four albums he would be releasing in 2015; he intends to release two solo albums and two Angels & Airwaves albums.
Promotion[]
Leading up to the album's release, DeLonge released several songs for online streaming with accompanying music or lyric videos. He first released an online stream for the track "New World" on March 10, 2015. A lyric video for the track "The Invisible Parade" was released on March 24, and the song itself may have been inspired by DeLonge's brother who served in Iraq as a Naval lieutenant. On April 7, an online stream for the track "Circle-Jerk-Pit" was released, and a few weeks later a music video for the track was released on April 21.
The official music video for "New World" was released on April 2, 2015. It was directed by Mark Eaton and consists of time-lapsed scenes of DeLonge destroying various instruments, a laptop and sound equipment at his studio Jupiter Sound in San Diego, using a Squier Stratocaster guitar and a sledgehammer. These scenes are interspersed with others of DeLonge wandering the streets of San Diego, holding the same destroyed Squire Stratocaster held together with duct tape. NME described the video as being "symbolic" and Billboard said that it is "hard not to think of this as an eff you to his old band, as he packs up his stratocaster and hits the streets."
Track listing[]
- "New World" – 3:34
- "An Endless Summer" – 4:09
- "Suburban Kings" – 4:10
- "The Invisible Parade" – 3:29
- "Circle-Jerk-Pit" – 1:59
- "Landscapes" – 2:14
- "Animals" – 3:41
- "Golden Showers in the Golden State" – 2:35
Personnel[]
- Tom DeLonge – guitars, vocals, bass guitar, piano, synth strings, production
- Brooks Wackerman – drums
- Aaron Rubin – production, bass guitar on "An Endless Summer", recording engineer, mixing engineer
- Brian Gardner – mastering engineer
- Tom Lord-Alge – mixing engineer on "Suburban Kings"