Box Car Racer "Self-Titled" LP Geffen (US)

Vinyl is NM, Jacket is NM in shrink

Limited to /1000 copies

Out of Print!!

Pressed on Red with Black Smoke Colored Wax!

Track Listing:

A1 I Feel So
A2 All Systems Go
A3 Watch The World
A4 Tiny Voices
A5 Cat Like Thief
B1 And I
B2 Letters To God
B3 My First Punk Song
B4 Sorrow
B5 There Is
B6 The End With You
B7 Elevator
B8 Instrumental

Box Car Racer was an American band formed in in 2001. The group consisted of vocalist and guitarist and drummer of , alongside guitarist of . Anthony Celestino later joined the ensemble as a touring bassist. DeLonge created the project to pursue darker ideas he felt unsuited to his work with Blink-182. He invited Barker in order to refrain from paying a studio drummer, and fellow guitarist David Kennedy, whom DeLonge had met in the San Diego music circuit years prior. Box Car Racer was partly inspired and viewed as a tribute to , , and .

The group recorded the band's eponymous debut, , in quick fashion with a more DIY spirit. MCA Records issued the band's lone release in May 2002, which peaked on the Billboard 200 at number 12. Singles "I Feel So" and "There Is" also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with the former shooting to number eight. The band embarked on their sole headlining tour across North America in the fall of 2002 with supporting act . Box Car Racer created unresolved tension within Blink-182 and inevitably influenced the band's following studio album, the more experimental (2003). DeLonge shelved the project in mid-2003, feeling it as a whole had run its course; however, elements of Box Car Racer have resurfaced in DeLonge's later band, , which also features Kennedy.

Formation and origins Tom DeLonge formed Box Car Racer largely due to the side effects of medication prescribed for back problems.

Box Car Racer was conceived by guitarist/vocalist and formed during a break from touring. A European tour for Blink-182 in winter 2001 was delayed in the aftermath of the , and rescheduled dates in early 2002 were also canceled due to DeLonge's back problems. The roots for Box Car Racer began with DeLonge playing acoustic guitar during recording sessions for Blink-182’s 2001 album and grew from there. Feeling "bummed out" in the studio during the recording of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, DeLonge felt an "itch to do something where he didn't feel locked in to what Blink was." In a 2012 interview, DeLonge likened the creative state of Blink-182 to the art of , in which one has several different colors but, in the case of Blink-182's previous efforts, only employs one.

According to DeLonge, the project wasn't "meant to be a real band," but rather "something to do in some spare time that was really only expected to be on the low list of the totem pole of priorities in my life, and just to have an experimental creative outlet." The unnamed project went through other names, such as The Kill, and the record was initially titled . He eventually settled on Box Car Racer, which was actually the name of a band Barker was in just after high school that DeLonge liked. Although Barker felt the name was meaningless, DeLonge related it to similarities between the and . Whilst reading about the war, DeLonge was "freaked out" to learn that , the that was , was dropped from the bomber (commonly misspelled Boxcar). The record was originally conceived as a "-esque acoustic record" that allowed DeLonge to explore his dark songwriting abilities away from Blink-182, but the project quickly became louder and more plugged in when Barker joined the project. To complete the project he invited fellow guitarist David Kennedy, whom DeLonge had met in the San Diego music circuit years prior.

Kennedy had cut his teeth in San Diego hardcore group , and had become good friends with DeLonge the summer prior to recording. The two had chatted about bands, gigs and the underground scene, which sparked off more interest from DeLonge in exploring his more traditionally hardcore punk leanings. "We had been hanging out a lot last summer or whatever [...] it came about that we were talking about a type of music [with which] we were gonna experiment and do [...] Blink had some openings [in their schedule] and he said if we were gonna do it, that we had to do it now," said Kennedy. "And that's really how things evolved in the band. Just hanging around really." Despite this, DeLonge was in control of the material "to an incredibly hands-on level," and the material recorded on the album was formulated over the fall and when the musicians entered the studio, very little would be changed aside from certain lyrics. The sessions were particularly difficult for DeLonge, who suffered chronic back pain, the result of . "When your back is killing you and you have to have surgery and all this stuff, it's just kind of hard to keep a focus on the happier times in your life," he said in an interview with MTV News. "You end up writing all these songs about feeling sad and confused."

Debut album The band's logo.

Box Car Racer was recorded over the course of six weeks beginning in December 2001, primarily at Signature Sound in San Diego, California. Rather than spend "months and months refining and polishing everything for a major label and international pop market," Box Car Racer followed a closer DIY spirit. Sessions for the album commenced quickly, with the "ever-resourceful" Jerry Finn having sent one whole loud of equipment to Signature ahead of his arrival. Barker completed recorded his drums in one day at two recording facilities in Los Angeles prior to the Signature sessions. MCA representatives dropped in on the recording sessions and were pleased with what they heard. According to journalist Joe Shooman, while Box Car Racer was "essentially an outlet for DeLonge's more esoteric leanings, it very quickly became obvious that this was an album destined for release," largely due to Blink-182’s explosive popularity at the time. "Any musical project with which any member was involved was very likely to fly off the shelves." "I don’t think there was ever a doubt it was gonna be released — you have a project with two members of Blink-182 on it, it’s pretty hard not to turn a profit on that," said engineer Sam Boukas. "I guess if the record company wasn’t going to foot the bill, they were quite prepared to foot it themselves for Box Car Racer."

The creation of the Box Car Racer side project would cause great division in Blink-182, mostly between DeLonge and bassist . Hoppus was very interested in being a part of the project, but DeLonge did not want the record to turn into another Blink-182 album. DeLonge contended that the invitation of Barker was to refrain from having to pay a studio drummer. Regardless, Hoppus felt betrayed on the side project and it would become an unresolved tension that followed the band for the following few years. "At the end of 2001 it felt like Blink-182 had broken up. It wasn't spoken about, but it felt over," he said later. Despite tensions between the two, Hoppus lent vocals to the track "Elevator" and shared early ideas for the next Blink-182 album.

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