Celebrating the Pursuit of Tone with Tom Delonge

This week marks the 2 year anniversary of the premiere of the Ernie Ball documentary, The Pursuit of Tone with Tom DeLonge. The documentary highlights blink 182/Angels and Airwaves award-winning guitarist and songwriter Tom DeLonge in an exclusive AT&T Original documentary. Experience the stories behind Tom’s early influences in the San Diego skate scene to his sonic evolution from blink 182 to Box Car Racer and Angels and Airwaves as well as his passion for film, novels, animation and constant artistic exploration. The series is available OnDemand from DirecTV and AT&T Uverse.

How do you see yourself? How do you see the world? What does that look like as an animation, what does that look like as a song? That journey is way more important to me than fame or money.

For over two decades and 25 million albums, Tom’s guitar tone and riff-driven style has become one of the most identifiable sounds in music today. Combining melodic and intricate riffs, roaring overdrive with ambient soundscapes, and soaring delays to create explosive anthemic soundtracks that are undeniably the sound of California punk and alternative rock.

The Definition of Punk

The punk rock ethos exists in a form where kids can adopt it and become unique and become individuals and celebrate the fact that they’re outcasts. And the more of an outcast you become the better you feel about yourself.

Tom’s Gear

Tom DeLonge plays with Ernie Ball Custom Gauge Nickel Wound 52’s and Skinny Top Heavy Bottom electric guitar strings. When playing acoustic guitar, Tom chooses Earthwood Phosphor Bronze Medium Light strings.

The Ramones to NOFX

It wasn’t about musicianship, it was about emotion and the band can be a vehicle to emote something and the complexity of the music has nothing to do with the emotion.

In this clip, Tom recalls when he first discovered NOFX, the power of punk rock and how the Ramones made starting a band attainable.

The Adventure

Hear from Tom DeLonge about how he realized when he had broken real ground with his Angels and Airwaves song, “The Adventure”.

It grabbed ahold of a nerve.. it’s like an electric wave through your body. It doesn’t happen on every single thing but it happens every so often. This is what I was meant to do, was this one little thing.