Rocker Tom Delonge was high on a two-year addiction to painkillers when he called his new outfit Angels + Airwaves the "best band in the world".

The former Blink 182 star turned to medication to numb the pain of a back injury, and the side effects of the pills left him in a "state of euphoria".

DeLonge understands why people were hostile to his arrogant claims about Angels + Airwaves, but insists they were not the words of a mentally balanced individual.

He says, "We just finished a documentary that we've been filming for two and a half years which really gets into why I said all that s**t."

"I was a drug addict at the time, because of the painkillers I was taking for my back, and I wasn't saying things the right way. I was in such a state of euphoria because of the drugs, that I didn't realise how many people were going to get annoyed by me saying that."

"I was out of my mind. I wasn't on Planet Earth for quite a long period of time."