Sublime

SUBLIME

Formed: 1988, Long Beach, California; Disbanded 1996

Members: Floyd "Bud" Gaugh IV, drums (born 2 October 1967); Bradley James Nowell, vocals, guitar (born 22 February 1986; died San Francisco, California, 25 May 1996); Eric Wilson, bass (born 21 February 1970).

Genre: Rap, Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: Sublime (1996)

Hit songs since 1990: "What I Got," "Santeria," "Wrong Way"

Few bands of the 1990s had a career arc that was as full of promise, excitement, and tragedy as that of Sublime. A fun-loving trio of friends who created a wholly original style of music that incorporated reggae, pop, classic rock, ska, hip-hop, and spoken word, Sublime had perfected their sound on hits such as "What It's Like" and "Wrong Way" on their self-titled third album (1996). Their celebration was short-lived, however, as lead singer and musical life force Brad Nowell died of a drug overdose two months before the album's release, silencing the band forever.

Sublime sprang to life in the surfing community of Long Beach in 1988, but their roots stretched back to the early 1980s. Drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson grew up across an alley from each other and became fast friends. Wilson met singer Nowell in sixth grade, but the two did not begin making music together until 1988, when Nowell came home for a break two years into pursuing his finance degree at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Wilson, Gaugh, and Nowell began jamming and formed Sublime, but had difficulty getting gigs in local clubs due to their hard-to-pigeonhole musical style.

The trio gradually gained a following among the surfing/skateboarding crowd in the Long Beach area and caught the ear of Miguel Happoldt, who ran the label Skunk Records and agreed to release the band's debut, 40 Oz. to Freedom (1992), recorded for $1,000. Sublime's debut is the musical equivalent of attention deficit disorder, randomly zigzagging from mellow reggae ("Smoke Two Joints") and echo-laden dub to drum machine-assisted psychedelic rock covers of the Grateful Dead ("Scarlet Begonias"), lightning fast punk ("New Thrash"), jazzy hip-hop rapping ("Waiting for my Ruca"), and plaintive Caribbean acoustic pop ("Badfish").

An Unexpected Break

The group got an unexpected break early in 1994, when the powerhouse Los Angeles alternative rock station KROQ began playing "Date Rape," a song about a sexual assault and revenge told over a bouncy reggae-influenced ska beat. Though the song drew fire for treating a sensitive subject lightheartedly, the album began selling briskly and the group's following grew.

They followed up with an album that took their sound experimentation even further, adding more elements of surf rock, rapping, bizarre spoken word passages, hardcore punk, and salsa. Robbin' the Hood (1994) also features "Saw Red," a ska pop duet with Gwen Stefani, singer of the then little-known southern California band No Doubt. With fellow punk bands the Offspring and Green Day having paved the way for the success of new California punk, Sublime were primed for a breakthrough, but even they could not have predicted what came next.

In 1995 they played the first annual traveling Warped skateboarding/punk festival, from which they were ejected for a week due to their drunken behavior and because their dog/mascot, a Dalmatian named Lou, bit one of the skaters. Though they often sang about drugs and smoking marijuana, Nowell was being drawn further into an addiction to heroin.

On the strength of their wild live shows and albums, MCA Records signed the group in 1995. Nowell's long-time girlfriend, Troy, gave birth to their son, Jakob, in June 1995.

Sessions Yield a Sublime Masterpiece; Tragedy Strikes

After sending Nowell to a rehab center to clean up, in early 1996 the label packed the trio off to Willie Nelson's studio in Pedernales, Texas, to record with Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary, and later to Hollywood to work with producer David Kahne. Nowell was voraciously consuming drugs during the sessions, but his voice is smooth, confident, and clear on the album's songs.

Kahne and Leary were able to focus the band's energy on producing bright pop songs with reggae influences that were not as scattershot and wildly irreverent as their previous work, albeit without sacrificing the band's unique vision. The resulting album, Sublime (1996), is one of the decade's classics, producing one of the enduring alternative radio songs of all time, "What I Got." A reggaerap song floated on an appealing, folky acoustic guitar line, turntable scratching and a steady beat, like many of the songs on Sublime, "What I Got" is a story about the band's everyday lives. "Lovin's what I got / It's within my reach / And the Sublime's style's still straight from Long Beach," Nowell sings in his sweet cigarette rasp on the chorus.

With an album everyone felt was going to be a sure-fire hit, the group hit the road for a tour. On May 25, 1996, one week after marrying Troy in a Hawaiian-themed Las Vegas wedding, Nowell was found dead of a heroin overdose in his San Francisco hotel room by band mate Wilson. Two months later, Sublime was released, and "What I Got" became an instant radio hit. By the time they'd realized their dreams, Sublime had broken up, with Gaugh and Wilson going on to front the nine-piece quasi Sublime tribute band, Long Beach Dub AllStars.

A string of releases followed, including a rarities collection (Second-Hand Smoke, 1997), a live album (Stand By Your Van—Live in Concert, 1998), and an acoustic album (Bradley Nowell and Friends, 1998).

Sublime were unlike any band who came before them, but, like too many of their peers, the band never got to bask in the glow of their stardom due to the drug-related death of their lead singer. Their fans, however, were left with three albums of stylish reggae rock that sounds as fresh today as it did when Nowell was alive.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

40 Oz. to Freedom (Skunk, 1992); Robbin' the Hood (Skunk, 1994); Sublime (MCA/Gasoline Alley, 1996); Second-Hand Smoke (MCA/Gasoline Alley, 1997); Stand By Your Van—Live in Concert (MCA/Gasoline Alley, 1998); Acoustic: Bradley Nowell and Friends (MCA/Gasoline Alley, 1998).

gil kaufman