Sublime Releasing First New Disc Since Bradley Nowell Died

Marc Thomas Kallweit

Legendary Los Angeles ska punk band Sublime have signed to Fueled by Ramen, and this summer will release their first LP since original frontman Bradley Nowell died in 1996. The group - now billed as Sublime With Rome - features surviving members Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson alongside twenty-two year old Rome Ramirez, who joined the reformed group in 2009.

Sublime Debut New Singer At SmokeOut Festival

The band is currently cutting the disc at Sonic Ranch studio in El Paso, Texas with producer Paul Leary, who worked with the band on their self-titled 1996 LP. “Everything’s been going amazing in the studio," Ramirez said in a statement.  "The music has been coming along great, and we’re confident that we’re making a record that will stand the test of time.  We can’t wait for the fans to hear it, and are already planning a world tour to bring it to them live.” Details of the tour will be announced shortly.

Judge Rules Surviving Members Of Sublime Cannot Use Band Name

After Nowell's death in 1996, Wilson and Gaugh carried on for five years as Long Beach Dub Allstars. Meanwhile, Sublime's legacy grew as teenagers across the country discovered the band's music. Sublime tribute bands began attracting gigantic crowds, and in 2009 Wilson and Gaugh recruited Ramirez began performing as Sublime until Nowell's estate filed a laswuit claiming they didn't own the rights to that name. The matter was quietly settled last year, and Sublime began performing again - only this time under the moniker Sublime with Rome.

The Nowell estate bears no grudge. “Sublime with Rome earned the fans' approval with their live performances by showing it was never about replacing or forgetting Brad - it was about celebrating the music," Nowell's widow Troy Nowell-Holmes said in a statement.  "And now the next chapter begins.  Rome is such a great songwriter and with Bud and Eric's amazing talent to back him up, Sublime with Rome will thrive and shine in its own right.  I can't wait to hear the new material because I know how talented they all are.”

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter