SCOTT Raynor may not be recognisable to many – but at one point he was in one of the biggest pop punk bands in the world.
The former drummer is now a proud member of the San Diego Police Department, getting sworn in January 2023.
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But two decades before that, Scott was the original drummer of band Blink 182 – singing about first love and cracking jokes with Mark Hoppus and Tom Delonge.
Scott first joined the band when he was 14 years old, and at the time was in a Metallica and Misfits-inspired band called The Necropheliacs.
Introduced to Tom Delonge at a party by a bandmate, the pair hit it off and together they began to create music inspired by punk band The Descendants.
In 1992, they were introduced to Hoppus and the trio formed what became Blink 182. Their demo album, Buddha, was picked up and they were eventually signed to a record label MCA after a bidding war.
However, around that time Raynor’s parents moved to Reno, Nevada, prompting him to have to flay in and out of San Diego in order to remain in the band.
In 1994, their first album, Cheshire Cat, largely went under the radar as they began to build their name by playing shows.
Raynor stayed with Hoppus’s parents while they recorded the album, eventually dropping out of school and finishing his diploma on the road.
The band’s second album, Dude Ranch, came together in 1996 and broke them through as one of the biggest up-coming artists of the time. This was largely thanks to their single, Dammit, which remains consistent on the band’s set list to this day.
However, tension began to grow in the band, and by Scott’s later admission, he stopped caring about the group as much. He put this down to wanting to sign to rival label Epitaph over MCA, before being overruled.
In 1998, things grew worse between the bandmates, with Raynor turning to alcohol in order to cope. Things got so bad DeLonge and Hoppus gave him an ultimatum to quit the band or go to rehab.
While Raynor agreed to the treatment, he was eventually let go from the band anyway and replaced by Travis Barker, who had previously filled in for Scott when he was forced to miss a show due to a family crisis.
Before joining the band, Barker was the drummer for The Aquabats, who were known for their superhero-inspired blue and black latex outfits.
What happened next
Scott has only done one interview since leaving the group, telling AbsolutePunk in 2004: “It’s hard to describe 6 years of being in blink and why it ended for me in a summed up kind of way. It also is impossible to describe without getting personal on both sides.
“The best way for me to put it is that everything got kinda haywire in my personal life, and in the band, and with Mark and Tom. They wanted different things than me and at the same time our friendship was put to the test.”
He added he was no longer friends with Hoppus and DeLonge, saying: “We went down our different paths which to me was the right one. They are doing things that they wanted to, that I wouldn’t have done, and vice versa.”
However, he noted that he was unhappy they decided to remove him from the band by telling him over the phone.
Since that point, Blink-182 became international megastars, with their next album, Enema Of The State, becoming one of the best rock albums of all time.
Scott continued to play music in numerous bands, and has been a vocal advocate for StandUpForKids, a charity aimed at helping homeless youth in California.
In 2023, after six months of training, he became a member of the San Diego Police Department, and was sworn into the role with the rest of his class.
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