Twitter War: Blink 182 Drummer Travis Barker vs. Aussie Promoter AJ Maddah, Extortion Accusations After Barker Pulls Out of Australian Tour

Australian Soundwave Festival promoter, AJ Maddah, "drums up" a twitter war with Blink 182's Travis Barker, after the drummer pulled out of the band's tour in the "Land Down Under" due to his serious fear of flying. The Australian Hearld Sun reportd that while Travis stayed behind in the US, Maddah angrily tweeted at the drummer and made extortion accusations of $1.5 million.

It all started early this morning when the promoter was asked about refunds on Twitter by fans missing Barker. Maddah responded by claiming that Travis insisted on taking one-third of Blink's $5 million fee, despite his no-show. The tweet battle proceeded as follows:

Maddah: "I'm told we can't refund and there will be no discount on the $5m fee because @travisbarker insisted on being paid in full."

He added: "What he has done to Tom and Mick is extortion. He thinks he's a f---ing gangster."

Barker tweeted back: "Where u getting your information from, man? None of this your writing on your timeline is true. This is all bulls---!'"

Maddah replied: "I have been super nice and supportive up to this point, but that stops now!'"

Another tweeter asked if Maddah empathised with Barker's fear of flying and he responded:

"I don't blame him for not flying, but demanding ONE AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS from your band mates to allow them to play is low."

Barker: "Stop talking s---. Your spreading lies/stories & disrespecting me. Your not speaking to my management, your just fabricating s---."

Maddah questioned: "Really dude? You didn't insist on being paid 1/3 even though your not coming?"

Barker begged: "Pick up the phone, man. Dying to talk to you."

After some time passed, Barker gave a final Tweet at Maddah:

Spoke with @iamnotshouting All is G and this was a HUGE lack of communication. AJ is a stand up guy and we both were given wrong information

With that, the "Twitter Match" concluded, and the result was apparently a draw. According to Travis, he was not trying to extort anyone or collect a shady paycheck for a tour that he had to back out of due to his flight phobia.

After smothering the "flare up orchestrated by other people," in Maddah's words, he later admitted to his followers that Travis is indeed a good guy who loves his fans and that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. The details of the phone conversation between the two feuders have not yet been released.

Barker's written apology to his Australian fans for skipping the tour along with the entire twitter war can be found on his twitter page here.

For these two grown men to allow this entire feud to unveil over hours of back-and-forth tweets, we simply have to ask ourselves, "what's their age again?"