friend David Kennedy. Box Car Racer was intended as a one-time experimental project but evolved into a full-fledged band involving Barker. The side project would cause personal conflicts between DeLonge and Hoppus; the latter was not a member of the supergroup and felt betrayed. The moody subject matter on Box Car Racer was incorporated into the sound of Blink-182, who explored experimentalist elements on their eponymous fifth studio album (2003). After the success of Box Car Racer, DeLonge declined a solo recording deal offered by Geffen Records because he believed it would cast negative light on Blink-182, but it loomed over the band in addition to growing internal tension. While the trio embarked on a European tour the following fall, DeLonge felt increasingly quarreled both about his creative freedom within the group and the toll touring impacted on his personal life. He eventually expressed his desire to take a half-year respite from touring to spend more time with family matters, a decision that Hoppus and Barker asserted was a lengthy interruption. DeLonge did not blame his bandmates for disappointment with his requests, but was dismayed that they apparently could not understand them. He protested Meet the Barkers, a reality television series starring Barker which was produced for a 2005 premiere, and disliked surveillance cameras, feeling his personal privacy was invaded. Blink-182 agreed to perform at Music for Relief's Concert for South Asia, a benefit show to aid victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, but further arguments that ensued during rehearsals rooted in the band members' increasing paranoia and bitterness toward each other. DeLonge judged the band's priorities to be "mad, mad different" and claimed that they had simply grown apart as they aged. This communication breakdown led to heated exchanges resulting in his departure from the group, which Geffen announced on February 22, 2005 would be going on an "indefinite hiatus", and he would not speak to Barker or Hoppus for several years, although he called the latter his greatest friend. DeLonge underwent a complete reassessment of his prime concerns in the aftermath of the band's break-up—a move "bearing the hallmarks of a nervous breakdown"—and went on a three-week "spiritual journey" in complete isolation away from his family, contemplating his life, career, and future in music. DeLonge was psychologically hurt by the band's dissolution, likening it to a divorce and calling it a "traumatic experience" and a "disaster." He