Mark Hoppus Reveals Blink-182 Album Potentially Breached Geneva Convention

June 3, 2013

Here’s one to make you feel old, old, old – Blink-182‘s seminal Enema Of The State album was released 14 years ago yesterday. To celebrate, vocalist Mark Hoppus himself jumped onto a Reddit thread to reveal that the pop punk heroes were forced to change the original album artwork after being told by the American Red Cross that it breached the Geneva Convention.

After a fan posted a Reddit thread celebrating the anniversary of Enema Of The State‘s release, Hoppus posted to say thank you and gave r/blink182 some trivia about the iconic 1999 record’s cover, which features porn star Janine Lindemulder dressed as a nurse applying a rubber glove:

“There are three different versions. Initial release version has the red cross on the nurse’s hat and a capital ‘B’ Blink-182. We’d always preferred the lower case ‘b’, so the artwork was changed to the second version: red cross on the nurse’s hat, lower case ‘b’ blink-182 (my favorite).

“We were then contacted by the Red Cross that, as we are in no way a medical organization (which I would debate. one time I changed a band-aid), we should not have a red cross on our artwork. If we continued using the red cross logo, we would be in violation of the Geneva Convention. (for real).

“Thus, the third iteration of the artwork: no red cross, lower case b blink-182.”

Hoppus went on to say that the album had changed the lives of all 3 band members and that it still made him happy to hear guitarist Tom DeLonge play the opening riff to What’s My Age Again?.

Blink-182 are currently in the studio working on what may be the follow-up to 2011’s Neighborhoods.

Gallery: Blink-182 – Soundwave 2013, Sydney