When Travis Barker Joined blink-182, He Learned 20 Songs in 40 Minutes

There is no doubting Travis Barker’s drumming abilities.

Still, when he first joined blink-182, Barker had a lot to learn in a short amount of time.

“It’s an hour before the show and I see the blink guys. I would watch them every day,” Barker recalled on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast. “And then they came to me and they’re like, ‘Yo Trav.’ And we had been friends. They’re like, ‘Our drummer just bailed on us. We have a show in 45 minutes. We’re not going to be able to play if we don’t have a drummer.'”

Luckily, that was no problem for him.

“So I went in the room, learned 20 songs in like 40 minutes, [and] played the next three shows with them,” he said. “And had a blast.”

How successful do you think blink-182 would be without Travis Barker? How quickly do you think you could learn to play your favorite band’s songs?