It's been a long and wild ride since sublime's first gig way back in 1988 in Long Beach, California. The explosive debut not only set off a small scale riot, but also marked the
40 oz to Freedom, which was originally recorded for under $1,000, has gone on to sell thousands of copies with the first 30,000 being sold directly from the trunks of the band members' cars.
40 oz to Freedom was not only on the Billboard Alternative New Artist Albums Chart for over 50 weeks, spending the last 30 weeks in the top 20, but also broke into Billboard's Heatseeker (Top 50 New Artists Chart) while spending 5 weeks as the Bill board Pacific region #1 new artist top seller. The album became an indie icon exemplifying the synthesis of life and art.
Utilizing samples off of everything from old Minutemen records, hip-hop and conversations with street denizens to just plain old bong sessions in the garage, sublime so much embodies the D.I.Y. ethic that has come back to haunt them at times. Much like the problems that De La Soul and other early Native Tongue artists experienced with using samples, sublime has was forced to pay up or remove samples from their albums. In fact, their signature sounding track, “Get Out,” which lyrically dictates the bands approach to making music, unfortunately had to be cut from 40 oz.
Robbin' the Hood, the experimental masterpiece released in 1994, also on Skunk, was recorded on a shoe string budget, partially on 4-tracks, in various living rooms and abandoned houses around LBC as well as with some charitable free time from Mr. Brett (Epitaph) at the legendary West Beach Studios (whose past occupants include The Minutemen, Bad Religion, and The Descendants). This subversive album, woven together with punk, dub and crazy spoken word, was never meant to be a follow-up to the conceptually classic 40 oz; it served as a precursor to the untapped possibilities of sublime. Robbin's eclectic bou illabaisse of sonic manipulation has now gained thousands of listeners.
Sublime's D.I.Y. ethic and intensity has garnered them shows with local and national music icons such as Firehose and Mike Watt, HR of Bad Brains, The Melvins, The Vandals, Rage Against The Machine, Avail, Ramones, Supernova, Greyboy All-Stars, No Doubt, Butthole Survers, The Mentors, The Ziggens, and of course, Duran Duran.
Over ten major tours, three vans, and one motor home later, the band sas spread its garage-hall gospel all across America, creating a rabid grass-roots following everywhere they go, especially among the surf/skate/snowboard constituency best exemplified b y sublime's co-headlining gigs on last summer's inaugural Warped Tour, a hybrid of punk and skating with L7, No Use For A Name, Fluf and others that were organized by Warp Magazine. Also furthering the group's natural connection to the board culture was the Sno-Core Tour–with Guttermouth and Skankin Pickle–which destroyed ski resorts (and hotel rooms) throughout Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and California.
The 3 Ring Circus tour, a scary three-headed beast of a show, was conceived and released by sublime and its Skunk Records' employees on the unsuspecting West Coast in 1995. The 20-plus sold out shows on the Circus tour featured not only sublime, but the amazing and shocking talents of The Wesley Willis JFiasco and the Lordz of Brooklyn. The tour's diversity is a direct refelction of sublime's ability an d drive to combine seemingly disparate forms of music and cultures.
Sublime and Bad Religion were the featured artists at the Band Aid III benefit show for Lifebeat (a fundraising organization for AIDS research) at Bear Mountain, California. Sponsored by Warp and Snowboarding magazines, the bibles of the boarding culture, the show spotlighted the top board athletes and organizations that support that subculture.
In April, 1996, High Times and Skunk Records teamed up to bring a Legal Defense Fund Benefit Show to the House of Blues in Los Angeles and Wetlands in NYC. Sublime headlined all three sold-out nights, which also featured the likes of the Greyboy All-Stars, Wayne Kramer, Weapon of Choice, Slightly Stoopid, DFL, the Wesley Willis Fiasco, and the Lordz of Brooklyn.
When Brad Nowell woke up in a San Francisco hotel around 6:30 a.m. on May 25, his life appeared to be turning around. The 28-year-old singer-songwriter for the ska/hip-hop/punk-rock trio Sublime had a reputation for wildness and womanizing, but he was trying to change. He had been married the week before in a Hawaiian-theme ceremony in Las Vegas, and now he was doing what he loved, touring the country with his band, which had just finished recording an album that, to everyone who heard it, sounded like a smash. In fact, Nowell felt so good that May morning, he decided to take his Dalmatian Louie for an early walk along the beach. He tried to get Eric Wilson, Sublime's bass player, to join him--"It's a beautiful day out there," Nowell said--but Wilson closed his eyes and pretended to snore. It would be the last time anyone would see Nowell alive. A few hours later, Sublime's drummer, Floyd ("Bud") Gaugh, found him lying on his hotel-room bed, dead of a heroin overdose.
Nowell left behind his new bride Troy, an 11-month-old son Jakob and a host of might-have-beens. The group's final album, titled simply and aptly Sublime (MCA), was released last week and might have been the band's ticket to becoming the hottest new act in the music industry. Nowell might have been to ska what Kurt Cobain was to grunge--a big, blazing talent who introduces the mainstream to a new musical world. Nowell, however, played the Cobain role a bit too well, and Sublime, like Nirvana, will be best remembered as a band with history-making potential that perished before reaching its full potential--or, in Sublime's case, before most Americans had even heard of it. Says Gaugh: "The band died when Brad died."
Will morbid curiosity attract some listeners? Of course. But MCA is trying to avoid looking like postmortem profiteers. A press release accompanying advance copies of the CD expresses a wish to avoid "the appearance [of] exploitation of Bradley's death," although it then goes on to say that "if there is one last gift" Nowell could give to his bandmates, his widow and baby boy, it was "financial security."
Nowell's last gift to everyone else is this outstanding album. The first song on it, Garden Grove, features a scratchy, staccato guitar riff, characteristic of ska, along with sampled snatches of sound and music. The result is a feeling of restful introspection coupled with an underlying sense of urgency. On April 29, 1992 (Miami), the band combines an itchy ska beat with a kind of enlightened gangsta-rap attitude to capture the incendiary, anarchic mood on the streets during the nationwide Rodney King uprisings. Nowell is not just channel-surfing through these emotions and genres, and he's not parodying them, as the Beastie Boys once parodied rap and heavy metal. Instead Nowell uses eclecticism to explore and understand his own shifting thoughts and moods. There is a purpose to his pastiche, and his bright, versatile voice holds everything together.
It was Nowell who first introduced his bandmates to ska and reggae, when the trio were middle-class, punk-rock-worshipping youngsters growing up in Long Beach, California. They formed a band in 1988, and when clubs refused to book their strange-sounding hybrid act, they founded their own label, Skunk Records, just so they could proudly tell clubs they were "Skunk Records recording artists."
In 1995 the band played on the very first Warped tour (an annual skateboarding/ska/punk traveling music festival) and became the very first act asked to leave the tour (for a week) because of unruly behavior. This group was too punk rock even for punks. Explains Gaugh: "Basically, our daily regimen was wake up, drink, drink more, play, and then drink a lot more. We'd call people names. Nobody got our sense of humor. Then we brought the dog out and he bit a few skaters, and that was the last straw."
The drinking, the unpredictability, even the out-of-control Dalmatian, were all part of Sublime's volatile appeal. Gaugh says he and his bandmates were looking for extremes, for the raw experience that could help them write and perform compelling rock. For Nowell, harder drugs than alcohol were part of his wild ride to artistic inspiration. Gaugh says now, not surprisingly, that it was "definitely the wrong way."
But for rock stars, it has been an all too popular way.
In 1992, realizing the hysteria they were creating, Brad and co-conspirator/producer Miguel pawned the band's equipment and founded their own label, Skunk Records, to release and self-distribute their now cult classic, 40 oz to Freedom. “Basically, we created Skunk Records so that I could have a business card,” explains Miguel, “and so we could say `Skunk Recording artists sublime'.”
Nevertheless, the band's album lives on and deserves to be heard. Simply put, it is the best rock release of the year so far.
Like such cutting-edge performers as Beck, Tricky and Rage Against the Machine, Sublime draws confidently on the group's new CD from both alternative rock and avant-garde hip-hop, creating a sound that is sharp and soulful. The band also tosses reggae and ska (a faster, jerkier reggae precursor) into the sonic mix, resulting in songs that are hard to categorize and harder still to resist. While much of today's pop wallows in recycled schlock rock from the '70s (Kiss) and rehashed alternative rock from last week (just turn on the radio), Sublime offers up a sound that is fresh and potent.
The night before Nowell died, Gaugh says, his friend told him he was giving up heroin and that his next hit would be his last. Of course, addicts always say that. It's usually a lie. Unfortunately for Nowell's friends, family and fans, this time it proved true.
