Travis Barker has been talking a lot about one of the worst days of his life in the lead-up to Sunday’s (Aug. 16) premiere of his decade-in-the-making documentary Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear. In a new interview on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, Barker revealed that his then-toddler daughter Alabama Barker had a foreboding feeling about him leaving for a gig in South Carolina on Sept. 19, 2008.
Barker told Shetty that a week before the show near the University of South Carolina, he asked his manager if there was any way to pull out of the gig. “I don’t really need to do this. I was just so content with being home with the kiddos,” Barker said. “He was like, ‘bro, you can’t cancel this late.’”
So, he flew down for the show with his best friend, Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein, but before he left, he had a heartfelt moment with Alabama, now 20, that has stuck with him to this day. “I say bye to ‘Bama. She’s young at the time. She’s three or four years old,” said Barker. “She’s like, ‘Dad, don’t go!’ She’s bawling, and she doesn’t usually do that. She’s like, ‘The roof’s gonna come off,’ and I’m like, ‘What is she talking about?’”
They played the show, and even though they were supposed to leave the next morning, Barker recalled that the crew was in a hurry to get back to Los Angeles, so they booked a “super last-minute” private plane ride. Though there were a lot of hoops to book a private plane for Barker back then, even before the accident that day — including him knowing who the pilot was, the plane’s maintenance history, “I want to know everything” — the drummer said none of those precautions took place.
His crew got to the airport around midnight and he described a foggy night and him seeing one plane in the distance that was “really small,” and when they pulled up, he thought, “‘this can’t be our plane. There’s no way.’”
But it was their plane and Barker said he called his dad, Randy, and showed him the plane and said, “‘Pa, I have an awful feeling … like, I just don’t know. This plane’s small, I feel weird.’” He said his dad assured him it would be fine and asked him to call when he got home. “I knew something feels off and I even told my dad, ‘If something happens to me, please make sure the kids are taken care of,’” Barker said.
A short time later, during takeoff, the plane crashed and Barker and Goldstein were the only survivors of the accident that took the lives of two of Barker’s closest friends, assistant Chris “Lil Chris” Baker and bodyguard Charles “Che” Still, as well as pilot Sarah Lemmon and co-pilot James Bland.
Both Barker and Goldstein were seriously injured in the crash, with Barker sustaining burns on 65% of his body, requiring 27 surgeries in the subsequent years. Goldstein, who had struggled with substance use before the accident, was found dead a year later in his New York apartment from a drug overdose.
Barker, who did not fly again for 13 years — he took his first plane ride since the crash in 2021 on a trip to Mexico with then-girlfriend Kourtney Kardashian — said if the same situation came up today he’d handle it much differently. “All the signs were there. Now older me would just say, ‘I think I’m not gonna get on the plane.’”
The film follows Barker’s career with Blink and includes appearances from the Roots drummer Questlove, late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, Rancid singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and longtime Blink-182 bandmates bassist/singer Mark Hoppus and guitarist/singer Tom DeLonge.
Watch Barker talk about Alabama’s fear of him flying below.
