Travis Barker

Travis Barker (born  November 14, 1975, Fontana, California, U.S.) is a high-energy drummer best known as a member of the pop-punk band blink-182 and considered “one of the most famous drummers of the new millennium” by Rolling Stone magazine. Barker also collaborated with other bands and performing artists, including Suicide Machines, Lil Wayne, Pharrell Williams, Snoop Dogg, and Ludacris. In 2016 Rolling Stone added Barker to its list of 100 greatest drummers of all time.

Early life

Barker was born to Randy Barker, a steelworker, and Gloria Barker, who ran a day care center. When Barker was four years old, his mother bought him his first drum kit. He subsequently started taking lessons. From an early age, he was thought by his mom to be destined to become a rock star. She died a few months after being diagnosed with Sjögren syndrome when Barker was in his teens. “Don’t stop playing the drums, Travis. Follow your dreams,” she said to him before she died, Barker later wrote in his memoir, Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums (2014).

Despite opposition by his father, Barker got his first tattoo when he was 15. The experience helped him realize his passion for music, and from then on, he became singularly focused on a music career. He played in his high school’s marching band and jazz ensemble. After graduating, he moved to Laguna Beach, California, and earned a living as a garbage collector while playing gigs with punk bands. It was during his time with the band Snot and Feeble that he met Chad Larson, who, in 1994, cofounded the ska punk band Aquabats. In 1996 Barker joined the Aquabats, which at the time was playing several tour dates with blink-182. In 1998 Barker replaced blink-182’s drummer, joining the group alongside bassist and vocalist Mark Hoppus and guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge.

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Rise to rock fame

Barker and blink-182 were quickly propelled into the spotlight, owing to the band’s breakthrough 1999 album, Enema of the State, which featured porn star Janine Lindemulder on the cover. The album sold more than 15 million copies, catapulting blink-182 to the forefront of the pop-punk scene. Its success was followed in 2000 with the live album The Mark, Tom & Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!). After Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001), the band united with American punk rock giant Green Day to headline the Pop Disaster Tour.

The group’s next album, blink-182 (2003; sometimes described as the untitled album), featured the hit singles “Feeling This” and “I Miss You.” Two years later, however, blink-182 went on an indefinite hiatus.

Plane crash and blink-182 reunion

On September 19, 2008, Barker, his assistant Chris Baker, security guard Charles Still, and friend Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein departed from South Carolina in a private jet, on their way to California. During takeoff, however, one of the plane’s tires burst; by the time the crew decided to abort takeoff, the jet was going too fast to safely halt, causing it to speed past the end of the runway. The jet crashed into a fence and became engulfed in flames. Four of the six passengers on board died. In his escape, Barker suffered severe burns on more than 65 percent of his body. His recovery involved more than 25 surgeries.

At the 2009 Grammy Awards, with Barker still recovering from the crash, blink-182 members announced that they were reuniting. Their next album, Neighborhoods, was released in 2011; it peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 chart. Earlier that year Barker had also released his debut solo album, Give the Drummer Some, which reached number nine on the Billboard 200. It featured stars such as Lil Wayne, Pharrell Williams, RZA, Raekwon, Tom Morello, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, and Busta Rhymes.

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In 2013, with a lingering reluctance to fly, Barker skipped blink-182’s Australia tour. He eventually began flying again, and he credited the crash as motivating him to give up abusing drugs. He continued to record albums with blink-182, among them the chart-topping California (2016) and One More Time... (2023); the latter spent a record-tying 20 weeks at the number one spot on the Billboard 200. Barker also collaborated with various other artists, including hip-hop duo $uicideboy$ on Live Fast Die Whenever (2019). He also played drums for Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne on the albums The Best Damn Thing (2007) and Love Sux (2022) and for rapper MGK (formerly called Machine Gun Kelly) on the albums Tickets to My Downfall (2020) and Mainstream Sellout (2022).

Personal life

In 2001 Barker married Melissa Kennedy; the two divorced within a year. He next married Shanna Moakler, a model and Playboy Playmate, in 2004. The couple had two children and were featured in the MTV reality show Meet the Barkers (2005–06). They divorced in 2008. In 2022 Barker married for a third time, to Kourtney Kardashian; the couple had an elaborate ceremony at a castle in Portofino, Italy. They publicly broadcast their attempts to have a baby, which included in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, on the TV show The Kardashians. Kardashian eventually became pregnant naturally, at age 43, giving birth to a baby boy in late 2023.