Sublime Bio

It's been a long and wild ride since SUBLIME played their first gig back in the summer of l988. Any local scenester will tell you they were there, and that it was this performance that ignited the infamous "Peninsula Riot" of Long Beach in an explosive July 4th engagement. SUBLIME, once the "below average garage punk band that every kid wants to play his party," has steadily escalated from backyard beer buddies, into a prestigious musical entity. Their underground credibility has landed them slots with everyone from The Melvins and The Vandals to Firehose, HR of Bad Brains and Eek-a-Mouse. They played the "bar-b-que" band on the LA stop of the Butthole Surfers-Stone Temple Pilots "Endless Bummer" tour. Sublime's recording history began in early '92 when they teamed up with Long Beach's legendary SKUNK RECORDS to create a cult masterpiece '40 oz. TO FREEDOM.' Two years, three vans, and five tours later, the CD has sold in excess of 30,000 units.- without a distributor! The "40 oz" record is still charting at the top of most local alternative retail charts two years after its initial release. Front man Brad Nowell contends, "We practically distributed the thing out of the trunks of our cars." Sublime's new release, 'R0BBIN THE HOOD' sold over 2,000 units in less than two weeks. Mixing an aggressive blend of thrash punk ethos with ska and dub rhythms, SUBLIME creates their own blend of sonic definition. "Hurtling hard-core punk passages are just the punctuation, not the entire grammar, of a band that also took significant cues from the reggae of Bob Marley," proclaims Mike Boehm in the LA Times Calendar. SUBLIME is on a mad mission of sound, utilizing samples off of everything from old Minutemen records, hip-hop fanfare, and conversations with street denizens, to just plain old bong sessions in the garage. Both albums were recorded for under $l0,000. That they didn't even bother to court the major labels says much for their refreshing, iconoclastic stance. The albums each contain nearly 20 tracks of Sublime's genre jumping "shtick" Some tracks on the new CD were recorded at world famous Westbeach Studios. Others are strictly econo-core 4 track home recordings, invoking the d.i.y. approach of say early Beastie Boys. SUBLIME have developed a nearly fanatical base of followers since 1989. SUBLIME is not just a band, but a direct representation of a culture inherent to Southern California's beach cities. SUBLIME is a style and a vibe encompassing music, attitude, and alternative meets hip-hop, and surf-skate fashion which remains most apparent in the young and growing audience which the band attracts at every show. Theirs is a definite "scene" taking place at a SUBLIME gig, This scene knows the words to all the tunes, and relates to the many musical voices of this versatile trio SUBLIME is the perfect musical accompaniment to adolescence, just ask your kids.
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Blending a love of dance-hall and rock-steady reggae rhythms with an aggressive punk ethic, sublime spread its garage hall gospel all across America, creating a rabid, grass-roots following everywhere they went, especially in the surf/skate/snowboard communities. Their indie debut album, 40 oz. to Freedom, including the edgy morality play "Date Rape," was originally recorded for under $1,000 and is now considered an indie cult classic. Resistant to being pigeonholed as a certain type of band, the instant hit nature of "Date Rape" (which actually took three years to be discovered by commercial alternative radio) left sublime fighting to let the rest of their music speak for what they were really about. As the band once described themselves, "[we're] not a one-off, blow-up all at once kind of band. 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." The tragic death of singer/songwriter/ guitarist Brad Nowell this May cut the band's goal of a long-term career short. But not before sublime (Brad, drummer Bud and bassist Eric) recorded, a true study in versatility. Produced by legendary Butthole Surfer Paul Leary, sublime ranges from dancehall reggae to ska to psychedelic dub to Hendrix-influenced rock to early-'80s hardcore punk to amalgamations of all these styles. sublime's unique brand of genre-shifting musical experimentation yields unexpected--and remarkable--results in these eighteen tracks. Given that, it's no surprise that to date over one million copies of the album have been sold in the United States. sublime is a fitting tribute not only to this band's legacy, but also to the memory of Brad Nowell.