Travis Barker Gushes Over Billie Eilish And Olivia Rodrigo In New Interview

In the last several years, pop-punk pioneer and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has been introducing a new crowd to the music he helped make famous. To reach that younger audience, Barker has jumped in to collaborate with some surprising names including Machine Gun Kelly.

Barker isn't just going through the motions, though - he genuinely loves the new wave of young artists reinventing pop-punk. Speaking with Billboard, he gushed:

"I like Olivia's album, I love everything Billie’s done. I won’t say, 'This is pop-punk.’ I’ll say, this music that came out, let’s say like Avril’s ‘Love Sux’, let’s say Jxdn’s ‘Tell Me About Tomorrow’, and ‘Tickets To My Downfall’ [Machine Gun Kelly], were all inspired by pop-punk."

Speaking specifically about Olivia Rodrigo, he continued, "Olivia Rodrigo is probably going to make an album that has a little bit of pop-punk influence and some other influences too. Billie's going to make whatever magical music she’s going to make and she’s going to be inspired by so much. You don't have to follow the rules or keep it as sterile as the record label or whatever the rollout plan may be."

Barker also opened up about the motivation for him to start DTA Records. He wanted to create a label with the purpose of mentoring and guiding musicians, not just abandoning them the second they struggle:

"I wanted DTA Records to be the label that doesn't drop you the minute it doesn’t work, or you throw it against the wall and it doesn’t stick and you’re just on your own. I don’t want the artist to go in and make an album by themselves and not have the help or the guidance from me."

The bottom line is this: we need more people in the music industry like Travis Barker.