page_title: We Don't Need to Whisper
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: We Don't Need to Whisper / Background
caption_attribution_description: 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator John Kerry (D-MA) at a primary rally in St. Louis, MO at the St. Louis Community College - Forest Park. John Kerry challenged incumbent President George Bush. The campaign produced one of the highest voter turnouts in recent history. With President Bush keeping the White House and Republicans majorities growing in both houses of Congress. Photo by Thomas True
context_page_description: We Don't Need to Whisper is the debut studio album by the American rock band Angels & Airwaves. Recorded at Neverpants Ranch in San Diego, California, and produced by guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge, the album was released on May 23, 2006, through Geffen Records. In February 2005, DeLonge departed from his former band Blink-182 after months of heated exchanges and increasing tension within the trio and spent the following three weeks in complete isolation, contemplating his life, career, and future in music.
  Inspired by personal crises and global events, We Don't Need to Whisper was conceptualized as DeLonge taught himself to play instruments and created his own home studio. He recruited his longtime friend and guitarist David Kennedy of Box Car Racer, as well as drummer Atom Willard and bassist Ryan Sinn to form Angels & Airwaves, who were primarily inspired by arena rock groups such as U2 and The Police. DeLonge's later public statements regarding the band's music prompted media interest and concern from his relatives and family.
  We Don't Need to Whisper peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 and has since sold nearly 800,000 copies.
context_section_description: Blink-182 consisted of guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker, and by 2004 had been regarded as the most successful pop punk act of the time since the releases of Enema of the State (1999) and Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001). During its brief hiatus in 2002, DeLonge suffered a herniated disc in his back and collected several darker musical ideas he viewed unsuitable for the band; the ideas were used in supergroup Box Car Racer's self-titled album, recorded with assistance from Hazen Street guitarist and longtime friend David Kennedy. Box Car Racer was intended as a one-time experimental project but evolved into a full-fledged band involving Barker. The side project would cause personal conflicts between DeLonge and Hoppus; the latter was not a member of the supergroup and felt betrayed. The moody subject matter on Box Car Racer was incorporated into the sound of Blink-182, who explored experimentalist elements on their eponymous fifth studio album (2003). After the success of Box Car Racer, DeLonge declined a solo recording deal offered by Geffen Records because he believed it would cast negative light on Blink-182, but it loomed over the band in addition to growing internal tension.
  While the trio embarked on a European tour the following fall, DeLonge felt increasingly quarreled both about his creative freedom within the group and the toll touring impacted on his personal life. He eventually expressed his desire to take a half-year respite from touring to spend more time with family matters, a decision that Hoppus and Barker asserted was a lengthy interruption. DeLonge did not blame his bandmates for disappointment with his requests, but was dismayed that they apparently could not understand them. He protested Meet the Barkers, a reality television series starring Barker which was produced for a 2005 premiere, and disliked surveillance cameras, feeling his personal privacy was invaded. Blink-182 agreed to perform at Music for Relief's Concert for South Asia, a benefit show to aid victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, but further arguments that ensued during rehearsals rooted in the band members' increasing paranoia and bitterness toward each other. DeLonge judged the band's priorities to be "mad, mad different" and claimed that they had simply grown apart as they aged. This communication breakdown led to heated exchanges resulting in his departure from the group, which Geffen announced on February 22, 2005 would be going on an "indefinite hiatus", and he would not speak to Barker or Hoppus for several years, although he called the latter his greatest friend.
  DeLonge underwent a complete reassessment of his prime concerns in the aftermath of the band's break-up—a move "bearing the hallmarks of a nervous breakdown"—and went on a three-week "spiritual journey" in complete isolation away from his family, contemplating his life, career, and future in music. DeLonge was psychologically hurt by the band's dissolution, likening it to a divorce and calling it a "traumatic experience" and a "disaster." He had been known for his role in the Blink-182 as "the low-brow prankster" and wanted to restart his career without worrying whether fans would find him funny. The background of Angels & Airwaves was based on DeLonge's endorsement of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, travelling the political circuit with the Democratic Party candidate; DeLonge was inspired by Kerry's need for widespread reform and likened his presidential campaign to a drug, remarking later that it "really changed [me]." He rediscovered the epiphany developed during his tour with Kerry and applied it to the philosophy of Angels & Airwaves, while he redefined himself as he learned to play piano and self-produce and formed his own home studio.
caption: DeLonge's time spent on the campaign trail with US presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 created an "epiphany" within the musician to change the world.[4]
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