Blink-182's Travis Barker almost died. A new documentary celebrates his life before and after

NEW YORK (AP) — The inferno rages onscreen three minutes into “ Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear.” Dashcam footage lifted from a police car shows the blaze: It's 2008, and Barker has survived a plane crash in South Carolina. Four others did not.

And then, a cut. The documentary, which follows the Blink-182 drummer from 2017 to 2026, is a celebration of Barker's life before and after the life-altering accident, a central event in a career full of them. The film began as a mirror of his memoir, 2015's “Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums,” but became something else entirely after a producer suggested it end with the image of Barker, then still unable to fly due to post-traumatic stress disorder, walking toward a plane.

Ending on that note, “where this thing still has power over me,” didn’t sit well with him. Instead, he boards a plane at the end, but the documentary’s final images are a slide show of family photos, including his wife Kourtney Kardashian and kids.

“I almost died,” he says. It “could be helpful to share my life.”

Barker's resume is long, and a two-and-a-half-hour documentary can only cover so much of it. The film hits most of the big notes, quickly establishing Barker as a rebellious kid with a supernatural drumming ability from age 4, when he got his first kit, to now, at 50.

And that's with many projects in-between: From the SoCal punks Feeble, which he joined while working as a trash collector, to his stint in the ska band The Aquabats and multiplatinum, pop-punk legends Blink-182 — the band that skyrocketed Barker into superstardom.

Also covered? His love of skateboarding and car culture, his clothing brands, side-projects Box Car Racer and +44, turntable duo TRV$DJAM, various experiments and collaborations in hip-hop (Bun B, Lil Wayne ) and beyond.

But it all began with drumming, and hilariously enough, Animal from “The Muppets” — his first drumming hero — until he discovered cross-genre greats like jazz legends Buddy Rich, Dennis Chambers and Elvin Jones as well as Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee.

“Where drumming got really serious for me was after my mom passed, so it was therapy,” he says, reflecting on his childhood. “It’s like my life. It’s like oxygen to me.”

It's also a kind of sport. Barker has long been a dedicated, athletic percussionist, and he likens it to a boxer's meditative state. “It’s like when you see a fighter and he just goes for broke the first round. There’s sometimes where I just feel like that,” he says. “Something just takes over my body.”

Many events in life threatened that euphoria, but none quite as physically as the plane crash. “I was in a burn center for six months on morphine and I had 30 surgeries,” he recounts. “Seventy percent of my body was burned.” At one point, he didn't only fear if he would be able to drum again — even walking was a question mark.

Even before the crash, Barker's life — as marked with musical triumphs as it has been — offered lessons in resiliency.

“Whether it was my mom passing away or my plane crash, I learned — and through watching friends of mine and just living life — I’ve seen traumatic experiences either destroy someone or define them,” he says. “Every loss I had, or every everything I took to the chin, it made me stronger. At the time, I can’t realize it, right? I can't like really wrap my head around it. But ... that’s why I went so hard and I was so determined to play music and so determined to succeed. Plan B was only making Plan A work. You know? There was no Plan B.”

The same tenacity can be applied to his sobriety and dedication to flying again — a journey emboldened by his family. “I fly all the time now and I feel turbulence and I can’t even tell you what’s going on in my head. And I just look over and my wife’s perfectly OK,” he says. “My son loves airplanes and plays with airplanes and it’s so innocent. It’s so beautiful.”

“They’ve been my greatest joy,” he says of his children, who grow up on screen across the film's near-decade of filming.

As someone who has lost a lot and thought about what it would be like to lose even more, when it comes to the topic of legacy, Barker has a simple dream. “I think I’d want to be remembered for my music and my drumming and being a great father, husband, and son and brother,” he says.

As for the doc? “Maybe my story helps somebody,” he pauses. “I don’t love how everything happened. I don’t like the losses that happened. But I like how hard I had to work. I like that I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I liked that I had to navigate and find my way. And the journey was awesome.”

FILE - Kourtney Kardashian, left, and Travis Barker appear at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

Travis Barker poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Travis Barker poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Travis Barker poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Travis Barker poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — At least 47 people were killed and dozens of buildings collapsed in cities across western Colombia on Monday after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the South American nation.

The quake trapped residents under debris, leaving more injured and forcing people to evacuate their homes as far as the capital of Bogotá.

The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometers). The quake also was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.

Local officials confirmed that at least 18 people had been killed in the city of Pereira, two in the city of Manizales, and 27 people in the Valle de Cauca department, where Colombia's third-biggest city, Cali, is located.

The quake left cities across the west of the country — Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales — ravaged. A mix of residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks. Colombia's interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.

Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city from his home in hills of the city as buildings collapsed. Residents in the city and rescue workers were searching the rubble for survivors.

“My entire house shook,” he said. “I've never lived through such a powerful earthquake.”

Colombia's Geological Service said Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks. Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.

The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighboring Venezuela in late June, destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people. At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.

In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travelers taking shelter and screaming, and people running through rubble in a panic.

Pereira's mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died and that many more were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings.”

In nearby Manizales, a city nestled in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Jorge Eduardo Rojas, the mayor of Manizales said two people had died in the city “because of the quake” and asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.

Authorities in the rural state of Choco, the epicenter of the quake, reported injured people and damaged buildings in the capital, but provided few details.

In Cali, a city 2 million people, Mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.

Small earthquakes, known as “temblores,” are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare. In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia, killed more than 1,100 people.

Colombia’s newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella said Monday that he had personally taken charge of the government’s response to the emergency in San José del Palmar following the earthquake that struck the country.

“You are not alone. The state is present and taking action,” he said.

Patients are evacuated from a hospital after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)

Residents stand outside the Cathedral of Manizales after it was damaged by an earthquake in Manizales, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026.(AP Photo/John Jairo Bonilla)

Residents and rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)

Residents and rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)

Residents and rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)

Government workers stand outside their office buildings in Panama City, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026, after feeling an earthquake with an epicenter in neighboring Colombia. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

People leave their homes after a quake was felt in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

A man leaves an apartment building after an earthquake struck Cali, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)

People stand outside their homes after a quake was felt in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

People stand outside their homes after a quake was felt in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Government workers stand outside their office buildings in Panama City, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026, after feeling an earthquake with an epicenter in neighboring Colombia. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

People stand outside their homes after a quake was felt in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

People stand outside their homes after a quake was felt in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/John Wilson Vizcaino)