It feels like most of the “Kardashian fans” see Travis Barker’s marriage to Kourtney Kardashian as Travis punching above his weight. But I’ve always thought that Kourtney is really lucky to be with Travis, who genuinely seems like a nice guy who adores her and cherishes her. He’s 47 – he’s older and wiser and his f–k up years have long passed. He’s pure beast mode these days – he’s clean, he’s focused, he’s reunited with Blink-182, and he’s expecting a child with Kourtney any day now. He hasn’t had a baby in the house in 18 years. Anyway, Travis sat down for an interview with the LA Times where he talks about music, supergluing his hands back together, his fear of flying and whether he still has a crush on Kim Kardashian. Some highlights:

Fear of flying: “It takes a little piece of my life every time I fly. The amount of stress and anxiety it causes is just unbearable. It brings up all this old trauma, and sometimes I’m like, ‘Is this worth it?’ But I don’t like anything having a hold on me, either — I don’t like being afraid, and I don’t like having things from my past control my future.”

How he fixes his busted hands: “Super glue,” he explains, stretching out his fingers. Some bend in the wrong places, permanently altered from breaks and tears. The recent cuts on his knuckles came because he was drumming so aggressively that his skin kept scraping his cymbals. “The last show, it actually smelled like blood on stage,” he says, describing how he lost so much that it dripped onto his pants and seeped through them. “I was a little lightheaded.”

He’s been upping his workouts lately: “I just want to do superhuman challenging things when I bring someone into the world. That’s what this does to me.”

He doesn’t want the acclaim: “I’m like, ‘Please! Please. I want to be the quiet secret weapon.’ I’m not looking for the spotlight or anything like that.”

Appearing on The Kardashians: When fans of the show initially realized “the Travis that’s with Kourtney also plays drums in Blink,” he stifled his annoyance. “Yeah, that’s what I f— do. I’m a drummer. Celebrity is not my identity. Or Kourt’s. She’s so different than her sisters.”

His old crush on Kim Kardashian, which he documented in writing: Barker has long maintained that nothing physical ever happened between him and Kim — something his ex-wife, Moakler, disputes — and denies that Kourtney harbors any ill will over the relationship. “It’s like, ‘Kourtney’s fans are worried about Travis. He’s a womanizer.’ Stop it. I obviously shared all that stuff because I wanted to move past it. It was therapeutic for me. … That’s her sister. She knows we used to talk. Nothing bad was going on. You give people a little information and they think they’ve solved the mystery of ‘this is why they’re fighting.’ It’s just so ridiculous.”

[From The LA Times]

Yeah, I also think Travis’s old crush on Kim is one of the current reasons why Kim and Kourtney are beefing so much lately. Not that Kim and Kourt need a reason to beef (they did so long before Travis and Kourt got together), but Travis is definitely in the mix now. Do I believe that Travis still harbors some feelings for Kim? Eh. He definitely had a crush and they probably hooked up at one point, years ago, but that man is very much in love with his wife. Still, it definitely drives Kourtney crazy. As for the rest of it, I always come away from Travis’s interviews with so much respect for him and how he lives his life. He’s so driven and passionate.

Meanwhile, Kourtney dressed up as Kim-at-the-Met-Gala for Halloween. Love all of the jokes about “did Travis ask her to dress up as Kim?”

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Instagram.