Travis Barker addressed a number of sensitive and emotional topics during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, including his life-changing 2008 plane crash and the passing of his mother when he was a teenager.
The blink-182 drummer is promoting his new documentary, Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear, which is now available to stream on Hulu and Disney+. He opened about his grief and struggles regarding the aforementioned topics on Cooper’s CNN podcast All There Is.
The 2008 Learjet plane crash killed both pilots and two associates of the drummer, with the only survivors being Barker and his friend DJ AM, who died of a drug overdose a year later. The incident left Barker afraid to board a plane for more than a decade, before he eventually started flying again in 2021.
“After my accident, I had a lot of survivors guilt with my two friends and the pilots that passed,” Barker told Cooper. “It was killing me.”
When Cooper asked about what happened with DJ AM, Barker responded, “No one really knows. AM was suffering because he wasn’t waking up with kids. He just went back to work… I did my best with my post-traumatic doctor, who was awesome. And even my burn center doctor, my friends and family were awesome. But it was kind of hard to have anyone be able to relate to me. And AM was sober for, I think, 15 years now. And he was just so inspiring and so motivating. And I never doubted his sobriety. He was just, so strong. I had spoken to him a lot, like, right before he had passed.”
He continued, “I was back in blink and we were touring, I remember him writing me and saying like, man, you don’t care about me anymore, whatever. I’m like, nah, I can’t wait to play more shows with you, you kidding me? And I get to New York, supposed to meet up the next day. I see my manager and he’s like, dude we can’t get ahold of Adam, something’s up with him. The following day I’m in a session working on my album and my drum tech comes and brings a computer and he just like, it’s like a TMZ article and it’s DJ AM passes away. And I’m, I was like…It was, like, the worst, I don’t know, movie I was trapped in, you know? I couldn’t believe it.”
Barker went on to say, “I don’t think any of us know if it was an intentional overdose or an accidental, but, yeah… We could relate to one another. And one of the last things he had said, which I always run back in my head, is it was through texting. He’s like, man, honestly, I just feel like doing a bunch of drugs and saying fuck it. And I was like, you know, no. Once again, I thought he was bulletproof.”
Regarding the loss of his mother, who passed away from an autoimmune disease shortly before Barker started high school, the drummer said, “Right before [she died] I remember they were like, you gotta get down there, and luckily I got down there the day she passed. And had a chance for her to say, like, pursue music, like I really want you to pursue music… From the time my mom said that to me, it was like tunnel vision. I feel like when a parent passes like this, I feel they’re an angel and they help you so many ways guide you… To me, she’s not just dead and gone. I do feel her presence. It’s almost ignorant to think I could just be so blessed to have everything I have now without her and a lot of people that have passed.”
He also credited his parents for instilling his love of music, saying, “My mom loved The Police, The Beatles, Elvis Presley; my dad raised me on Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens. They really wanted me to pursue the drums. So it came time I took lessons and my mom was watching everything, like learning paradiddles, learning flams, learning basic beats. So up until the time she passed away, she was as good at drums as I was.”
Watch Travis Barker’s full interview with Anderson Cooper below.
