Sublime

Sublime is one band that many people know well. Many people didn't realize how many difficult obstacles Sublime went through. Sublime played their 1st concert in the summer of 1988. Sublime was a garage band that no one knew about. (Carey, Chris)Sublime’s group consisted of Bradley Nowell on guitar and vocals, Floyd Gaugh who was known as “Bud” on the drums, and Eric Wilson on bass guitar. Brad had a dog that appeared in many concerts and record cover and the dogs name was Lou also known as Lou Dog. Lou Dog was a dalmation and that mascot of the band. Sublime’s 1st concert was at their hometown in Long Beach, California.(The History of: Sublime) Eric and Bud were friends when they were growing up as children. Both of them grew up in Long Beach, California. Billy Wilson, Eric’s father taught Bud how to play the drums and read music. During their high school years Eric and Bud with the help of the future manager of Sublime, Michael Happoldt formed The Juice Brothers. This is about the time when Brad joined their group.(Sublime:Information from Answers) Sublime played with many bands such as The Melvins and The Vandals to Firehose, HR of Bad Brains, Eek-a-Mouse, Butthole Surfers, and the Stone Temple Pilots. (http://sublimespot.com) They played another concert with Pennywise, Bad Brains, Deftones, Slipknot, and Kottonmouth Kings at Cypress Hill’s Smokeout Festival on October 24 in California. Someone asked Sublime, and Gaugh said “It'd be great to get back into the studio and make some new music. It'd be great to tour again. But we're taking it a step at a time and as long as each step feels good, then we'll keep on going. One major project under development that we're psyched about is code-named "Brad's House." Some tours that made them gain popularity were The Three Ring Circus Tour and Band Aid III tour by playing with bands such as The Lordz of Brooklyn, The Westly Willis Fiasco, and Bad Religion.( http://www.ultimate.com) Sublime started to record in 1992 with the Skunk Records and created the album “40 oz to Freedom”. After 2 years, the album sold 30,000 copies without a distributor. Sublime got a lot of their ideas from Bob marley’s reggae. The album “Robbin the Hood” sold 2,000 in 2 weeks out of the back of their truck. The group’s music mostly appealed to surf, skate, and snowboard communities. One of their most listened to song “Date Rape” was produced on the album “40 oz to Freedom”. One thing Sublime said was “Our goal is to create a long career of catalog pieces and a loyal and constantly growing fan base. And, of course, to get lots of free beer." That is what they intended in doing when they started the group.(http://sublimespot.com) Sublime produced the album Robin the Hood, with the label Skunk Records. Sublime’s music was a mix between reggae, surf rock, hip-hop and punk. On this album, the song Date Rape was the most popular. The band’s popularity grew during 1994-1995. (http://www.answers.com) Many songs sublime became popular for were Doin’ Time, Wrong Way, Santeria, Garden Grove, and What I Got. The song What I Got won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video in 1997. The album Sublime gave Sublime the most popularity because it produced the most popular hits and many people all over the nation started listening to them.The band went to many different popular concerts and tours. They had many tours but at the Sno-Core Tour in Colorado, Sublime destroyed their hotel room and also the ski resort by their hotel.(http://www.ultimate.com) Vans Warped Tour was a huge popularity boost for Sublime. The band’s drug use started fights with the management of big tours. Bud was arrested several times for possessing weed. Band member Brad started tearing the band apart slowly by his addiction to heroin and cocaine. Bud and Eric were affected by Brad’s addiction a lot because they were friends with him for 10 years. On May 25th, 1996 Brad was found dead from a heroin overdose. Friends Eric and Bud were so devastated that they never continued with Sublime. They ended up starting another band called Long Beach Dub All stars but it did no gain popularity. Brad Nowell was never forgotten, and was known as one of the most influential musicians of the 1990’s. (www.ultimate.com). “Jason Westfall, one of Sublime's managers, was quoted as saying that the surviving members of Sublime had no interest in continuing to perform and record under the "Sublime" name. "Just like Nirvana, Sublime died when Brad died", Westfall said.” One time Sublime did reunite for a concert in Nevada on February 28, 2009. During this concert, they got a new front man Rome Ramirez. The idea is to provide free addiction recovery service to underprivileged teens in Brad's honor. The entire Sublime family was devastated by Brad's loss and we would like to help prevent that from happening to others. The band has agreed to allocate proceeds to get this started. We'll begin with one facility but our hope is that we can get other bands and organizations to join us and we can eventually scale it all across the country.”  Sublime’s songs started to appear on video games such as Guitar Hero World Tour, Tony Hawk’s Underground, BMX XXX, Aggressive Inline, and Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2. Also many of their most favorite songs even appeared in movies such as Idle Hands, Fun with Dick and Jane,Grind, Mallrats, Knocked up, and Can’t Hardly Wait. Even cartoon shows were supporting Sublime by using their songs in the theme songs such as Hong Kong Phooey and Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits. (www.answers .com) Therefore, Sublime a historical group that made a difference in music. Even though they went through many hard times, Sublime is still an inspiration to all bands today.