As MTV's Musical March Madness reaches the Sweet 16, there are no more easy matchups remaining — though, of any band still standing, perhaps none faces a tougher road to the Elite Eight than Blink-182, who find themselves up against a resilient Green Day in the West region.
After all, in their run to the Sweet 16, Green Day have more than lived up to their #3 seed, vanquishing the likes of Adam Lambert and U2, and now, they'd like to add Blink's name to that list. So, with Sweet 16 voting set to close Tuesday at midnight — and with the pressure clearly mounting — we asked Blink's Mark Hoppus to give us his take on Green Day and his band's chances of reaching the MMM Elite Eight.
"We're really honored to be in the Sweet 16. But now we've got to go up against Green Day, another West Coast team, [and they're] really strong," he said. "Coming off of this break, before coming into this tournament, our live game is a little off right now, so we've been working on that a lot. Green Day obviously, they have their new [live] album, so they have their road chops up, so it's gonna be rough ... we're going to have to bring our best game for sure."
Still, despite his assessment, Hoppus seems to be ignoring the fact that Blink are actually the favorites in their battle against Green Day. After all, not only are they tournament-tested (having already bested All Time Low and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to reach the Sweet 16), but they match up surprisingly well against the East Bay legends. So, really, this one may come down to one simple factor: sheer willpower.
"It's a really strong matchup. Each of them is amazing at their game," Hoppus said. "Billie [Joe Armstrong], he's always a team leader, always boxing out, always getting the tough scores. So, really, we're going to have to cover Billie as best as we can. I think that Travis [Barker] has Tre [Cool] pretty well covered. Me and Mike [Dirnt] I'd say is a dead heat. It's going to be who wants it more, for sure."
But at the end of the day, only one band can advance to the Elite Eight, so Hoppus is relying on his secret weapon to help put Blink over the top: the band's die-hard fans.
"There's no home-team advantage for anybody, so we really need the support of our fans to come out, vote for us, give us that extra energy we need on the court to come up with this win, because it's going to be a hard one," he said. "I gotta be honest: I love Green Day. They're all great guys, so it's going to come down to the fans."