It's Sept. 3, and Blink-182 is about to tear through a bunch of snotty anthems and trademark masturbation jokes during its show at Salt Lake City's USANA Amphitheatre. Hours before the concert, bassist Mark Hoppus is sitting outside in a black T-shirt and gold sunglasses, drinking bottled water and talking about a few of the gut-wrenching tracks on the band's new album, "Neighborhoods."

"I couldn't," he says, "write a happy song for this record."

Everyone gets older. But when did Blink-182 -- the band that ran around naked in its most iconic music video (for "What's My Age Again?") and titled its 2001 fourth album "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket" -- get so damn serious?

"As people and performers, we definitely still have some stuff we need to work out, and we need to grow up with," says Hoppus, 39, via Skype. "[The album] is lyrically pretty heavy in a lot of places. Maybe that's where we are in our heads. We've gone through a lot of stuff over the past few years. We're in a better place because of it all-but we've gone through some shit."

Pop-punk fans who are still humming "What's My Age Again?" and "All the Small Things" won't find a single sunny ode to immaturity on "Neighborhoods" (due Sept. 27 from DGC/Interscope). Over spiky guitar blasts and bashed cymbals, the lyrics linger on restlessness and regret. The chorus of the album's first single: "And all these demons/They keep me up all night."

Hoppus, guitarist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker could have made "Neighborhoods" an even darker album -- or never have made it at all. An indefinite hiatus that began in late 2004 ended only after Barker survived a plane crash in South Carolina on Sept. 19, 2008. The tragedy claimed four lives and left the drummer in an intensive care unit for months with severe burns.

And when the members of Blink-182 reunited in 2009, they faced a future without Jerry Finn, their longtime producer who died in 2008 after suffering a brain hemorrhage. The band also returned to Interscope-the label that helped its 2003 self-titled album sell 2.2 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. This after the landscape of majors had drastically altered. "The label itself has no resources or capital to do what they used to," DeLonge says of the band's current label situation. "They just have you locked up on a contract."

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But the past eight years have also made the Southern California trio better songwriters. "Neighborhoods" is easily the band's tightest album to date. And the members have proved that they can still conjure a big audience. The band's 2009 comeback North American tour sold 93% of available tickets on reported dates, according to Billboard Boxscore. Since then, Blink-182 has landed partnerships with AT&T and Best Buy, and the members have incorporated their personal business ventures like Famous Stars and Straps and Macbeth Footwear into promotion for the band. The music video for "Up All Night," the arena-ready first single from "Neighborhoods," has garnered 2.3 million YouTube views in the two weeks since its online premiere-all the more impressive, as the band's previous video was released before YouTube existed.

Blink-182 broke up when pop-punk was still in vogue, and the band releases "Neighborhoods" as the genre lacks exciting mainstream representation. The group's peers have experienced free­falling sales. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Good Charlotte has sold 52,000 copies of its 2011 album, "Cardiology" (Epic), after moving 3.5 million copies of 2002's "The Young and the Hopeless," while Sum 41's latest, 2011's "Screaming Bloody Murder" (Island), has sold 36,000 copies, a far cry from the 1.9 million sold of the band's 2001 breakout, "All Killer, No Filler."

Judging from the band's recent touring numbers and single sales, however, Blink-182's tumultuous time apart may have been the best thing for its mainstream survival. "If you take the kind of break they took, it's in that sweet spot where the old fans are still engaged and the band's myth just grows during the hiatus," says Dennis Dennehy, executive VP of marketing and publicity at Interscope Geffen A&M. "They knew when to step back, and they knew when to step back in."

'I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE'

In late 2004, Blink-182 was coming off a self-titled album that had yielded three more top 10s on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart ("Feeling This," "I Miss You" and "Down") and a summer co-headlining trek with No Doubt that grossed $8.5 million, according to Billboard Boxscore. "Blink-182" had showcased a dark, adult side of the band, and was on its way to selling 2.2 million copies. Hoppus and Barker were gearing up for a planned spring 2005 tour and had some ideas for a new album, but DeLonge needed an extended break to spend time with his family. The tour was scrapped, and DeLonge, frustrated with his bandmates' refusal to take a break, stopped talking to them.

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The members quickly moved on to side projects: Hoppus and Barker formed alt-rock band +44. Its 2006 debut, "When Your Heart Stops Beating," has sold 274,000 copies, while DeLonge led rock outfit Angels & Airwaves and helped sell 589,000 copies of 2006 album "We Don't Need to Whisper," according to SoundScan. "I was in the mind-set that Blink would never get back together," says Barker, who also recorded with punk-rap group the Transplants and DJ AM in the downtime, "and it was on to the next chapter of my life."

Barker and DeLonge hadn't spoken for nearly four years when a Learjet 60 the drummer was aboard crashed during takeoff in Columbia, S.C., in 2008. Coincidentally, DeLonge was boarding a plane in South Carolina with the rest of Angels & Airwaves when the news broke; within minutes, he was crying in his seat. "I thought he was going to die," says DeLonge, who quickly reached out to his former bandmate. "Instantly after the plane crash, I was like, 'Hey, I want to play music with him again.'"

NEXT: THE BAND'S LONG-AWAITED STUDIO RETURN