Three years after the plane crash that let him “looked death right in the face”, Travis Barker talks about how the fateful accident changed his life forever. Blink-182 drummer reveals that he considers his life now as a second chance after surviving the crash which killed some crew members and his good friend DJ AM.
The rocker said he switch his old ways: his addiction to painkillers and how the event led to the reunion of his band. “Before the plane crash, I was battling a painkiller addiction. For years. I can proudly say I didn’t even take any pain medication after I got out of the hospital. They told me I’d be on some of the medicine for the rest of my life, but I got off all of them. They made me a completely different person.”
But what really helped Barker recover was his love for his children. Travis explains: “If I didn’t have kids, I think I would have went the other direction. I mean, when I got out of the hospital I was on 21 forms of medication. The doctor said that I would be on half of them for the rest of my life. I was on 5150 [psychiatric] watch for two weeks…suicidal, crazy. I then slowly went off my meds. I had my kids looking up to me and wanting me to bounce back…Just to be given a second chance, knowing my partners didn’t get that. I had to make the most of my time.”
After his hospital stay, Barker vowed to eat well and swim everyday if he will be able to walk again. Indeed, the drummer kept his promise: “I’ve been vegan since I got out of the hospital. It’s another eye opener. It changed my life in a number of ways. I mean, I run every day now. I never ran before.”
Another good thing that came with the accident is the reunion of his band, Blink-182. “I never thought in a million years that Blink would be back together,” Travis says.
His bandmate and guitarist Tom DeLonge, who left the band in 2005, sent him a letter while he was in the hospital.
“I’m in a hospital. Shit’s not going so good. I get transferred to L.A. I get to the point where I can actually read and I see a letter from Tom. I don’t have the same feelings that I had six months earlier if he had written me a letter. I’m sitting on a bed and the doctors are talking about possibly amputating my foot and I’m reading this letter from Tom and there’s a picture of his kids. It was heavy. I wasn’t bummed at all. I had no ill will. I had no f–d up feeling towards him. I wanted to reach out to him.”
It has been three years and Barker said has doing fine now but there’s one thing that he is still trying to overcome.
“I don’t fly. It’s an obstacle. I’m working on it though. I’m trying to get hypnotized, trying to talk to a doctor who retrains your brain. Maybe he’ll help me fly again one day.”
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