The Sugar Ray Story: Chapter 1
The whole story starts with the dreams of young Rodney Sheppard. He dreamed of making music like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and KISS. When Rodney was in sixth grade, his mother took him and his cousin (who is Sugar Ray's merchandiser) to the Forum to see a KISS gig on their 1979 "Dynasty" tour. Rodney was fascinated..."It changed my life." During Rodney's second year of high school in Newport Beach, Rodney Sheppard met Stan Frazier. They fixed up an idea of getting a band together so Rodney got on guitar, Stan on drums, and a friend, Nick Sopkivich was a multi-instrumentalist, joined on other instruments. Rodney couldn't play any guitar solos so he got on bass. They gave themselves a name: The Tories.
They played covers of British songs. The band quickly realized that their music was unpopular on the college circuit. They then decided to make some changes. They changed their name to Shrinky Dinx and recruited a local bass player, Murphy Karges. His first bass was an $80 blue Hondo which was out of tune but it started him off. With Murphy there, the band started playing 80s hit covers such as "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy and Robert Palmer's "Bad Case of Loving You."
At a college gig, they were playing an AC/DC cover when someone in the audience jumped on stage and joined in on the chorus. His name was Mark McGrath. Once he leapt up on stage with the band, he was quickly accepted as their new frontman. At this point, the band wasn't making enough money to live on so they each had odd jobs. Mark was going to the University of Southern California (USC), getting his degree in communications, and being a truck driver. Rodney was a tele-marketer, Murphy was a failed secrurity guard turned pizza chef, and Stan was a paralegal.
After a while, the band attracted a small following in the area. They started writing their own material and one song was "Caboose." A friend of theirs inherited $5000 and helped them finance a music video to many record executives and got paid little attention until it was received by Atlantic Records President, Doug Morris. He didn't like their name or their music but he felt that there was some potential there, especially in their looks and offered them a contract.
They still had the name Shrinky Dinx but the company that makes the Shrinky Dinx toy, filed a lawsuit. The band had to change their name so they decided to nam themselves, Sugar Ray after Sugar Ray Leonard, Mark's favorite boxer. Sugar Ray went into the studio to write and record their debut album in late 1994.
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