Everything About Sublime and a Review of Their Most Popular Album
Table of Contents
- What’s Sublime?
- The Story
- Album Review/Fun Facts and Lyric Analyses
- Sources
1. What’s Sublime?
From 1988–1996 Sublime was an American punk band with heavy influences of reggae rock and ska punk (ska is a Jamaican genre and precursor to reggae). Formed in Long Beach, California, the band consisted of Bradley/Brad Nowell (lead singer/guitarist), Eric Wilson (bassist), and Bud Gaugh (drummer) and had the same lineup until Bradley’s overdose and the subsequent dissolvement of the band. Lou Dog was Bradley’s dalmatian and band mascot. Brad bought him for $500 from a guy who died him to a toilet seat in the front yard when he was a puppy. Later, King Louie became deaf after being on stage for so many years. (When Bradley died, Miguel Happoldt cared for Louie until 2001, when Lou died and had his ashes spread beside Brad’s tombstone and the sea, where Brad’s ashes were also scattered.)
Sublime, while active, gained little sucess until Bradley’s death in 1996, when their third and final self-titled studio album was released.
Later, the band Sublime with Rome was founded with Rome Ramirez and the former Sublime members after a judge banned them from using the band’s original name, which was tied to Nowell’s estate.
Links to Their Music
2. The Story (Focusing on Brad Nowell)
Brad Nowell was born in Long Beach, California, where he would grow up surfing and sailing. Wreckless, inattentive, and distracted (mainly due to his ADD), as he grew older his carless personality became more pronounced through disruption and mischief. “He was always testing just to see what he could get away with, and how far he could get,” his mother said.
When his parents divorced, his mother got custody, but he spent a lot of time with his father because his mom found him difficult to handle and normally couldn’t control him. In 1979, the two sailed around the Virgin Islands where Brad first was introduced to reggae music and moved in with his dad when he was twelve. That year the original lineup met and started preforming for friends and neighbors. They would play house parties, barbecues, in garages, and yards. They would practice for three or four hours a day and preform at night until the cops would show up.
Skip forward a few years and Brad was in his twenties. Growing up on Long Island, drugs were part of the culture, but he had always stayed away from heroin until his twenties when his curiosity outweighed his sense. His dad said that between its popularity in the music industry and his creativity, the drug had too much appeal to ignore. During one of their first large shows, they initiated what has become known as the Peninsula Riot in 1988 at Harbor Peninsula, a club in Long Beach. Seven people went to jail.
In 1990, Brad adopted an abused dalmatian puppy (Louie, named after his grandfather) who became the band mascot. “Lou dog just loved Brad because it was the first time he had ever been shown love,” a bandmate said.
In 1991, Forty Ounces of Freedom, their first album was recorded. After a show around that time is also when he met his wife, Troy Nowell. She invited him to a party, and they ended up staying all night talking. By this point, the band was only barely scraping by, financially, until a boutique record company (Gasoline Alley) decided to take a chance on them. But when they went in for a meeting and ended up waiting for hours, their infamous natures got the better of them and they ended up trashing the manager’s office. Lou Dog even got to take a dump in the office. Gasoline Alley swore that they would never work with Sublime, but the band was just too good. They were so talented, so unique, that they could get away with shitting in the manager’s office, cause chaos wherever they went, and still land a record deal. Eventually, a six-album deal was signed between the two.
Throughout the years though, Brad’s heroin addiction became unmanageable. His drug façade became part of his personality. His friends were waiting for the overdose call, and his mother even had to knee him in the groin to get him to stop using. 1994 was the first year that he became dedicated to getting sober. The knowledge that Troy was pregnant was the one thing that really motivated Brad to get sober. The band wasn’t doing great by this point, but in 1995 KROQ, an LA radio station, added “Date Rape” to its playlist, which became an instant hit. The following year Brad’s son, Jacob, was born.
He had everything he wanted: fame, money, and a son who he adored. But still, he was unhappy. His drug addiction was overwhelming. The power is held over him was immensely strong. It was the reason he was forced to go home and leave his recording prematurely. Troy didn’t want Jacob around his dad at this point in his life though, so she and his son were gone when he returned home. Learning this, Brad knew that to have a relationship with his son that he would have to get sober and remain sober, which he did for three months. During this time, the two got married, optimistic of Brad’s possible final recovery. This changed when he went back on tour. One night that year while on tour that year, Brad would give into temptation and take heroin at a party after a show. The next morning, he would go down to the beach with Louie to observe the scenery, his last walk before the march to the afterlife. When he got back to the hotel, he took out his heroin stash and gave his life for one last fix.
Bud Gaugh was the first to see Brad dead. He first thought he was asleep, but then he noticed no movement. Brad wasn’t snoring, moaning from a hangover, or shifting in a restless dream state. All he saw was Lou Dog whimpering on the side of the bed. That’s when he noticed the foam around Brad’s mouth, and he knew. Brad, aged 28 on May 25, 1996, was dead from overdose. Troy said that “My first reaction was being pissed. I wanted him there to yell at. Even though the whole time we were together he was flirting with death, you are never prepared for it actually happening.” The Behind the Music documentary (link here) said “Brad’s death had left Sublime without a lead singer, his wife Troy without a husband, and his son Jacob without a father.”
The band’s final gesture was releasing the self-titled Sublime album which “became a bittersweet tribute to lost potential." In videos, since Brad wasn’t around, they used Lou Dog to represent him. “Lou Dog was like Brad’s alter-ego,” Gaugh said. When Louis died in 2001, they scattered his ashes in the same place they scattered Bradley’s.
“Sublime is the Beach Boys on crack; they combine the beauty with the horror,” the documentarian said. It’s a story of how love costs a great deal of sacrifice, and how the hard fight for pleasure can so easily lead to the sedate of death. It’s how life euthanizes. Drugs were a main topic in much of Sublime’s music and part of the band’s personality, but it’s also why we have only three albums from them. But I try not to think of the great injustice, the great tragedy. Because it’s like Tim O’Brien said, “It wasn’t a war story. It was a love story.”
3. Album Review/Fun Facts and Lyric Analyses
Album Review: Sublime
Fun Facts
Analyses
(Anything underlined in a link).
The cool thing about “Garden Grove” is that when you listen to it, you feel like you’re floating over yourself and watching your experiences like a ghost; the perspective of the song is reminiscent of drug hallucination itself. But it’s not just about using drugs for fun, it’s explaining the usage of drugs — to escape a duller reality. You’re getting shit on, ragged on, hit on, hissed at, shouted at, picking up shit, waking up in a bed of sand. All these things are worth a needle in the arm or smoking pot that had a roach in it. Literally. That’s how bad it is. Some things are good: you got a VCR or a microwave, but come on, you’re paying to live, worth more death than alive, and the party you’re held hostage in isn’t even fun.
References
- “Lou Dog”
dalmatian rescued by Bradley - “All that I can see, I steal; I fill up my garage”
possibly a reference to the 1992 L. A. riots in response to the Rodney King trials. - “I got the deuce-deuce”
a .22 caliber handgun - “Tweeker pad”
a disorganized house
The first engravements on a tomb stone are the birth and death dates — the most important dates of your life no matter how important you think that date with the Starbucks girl was. People will look at the dates, do the math, and depending on how long your life was affects the degree of grief that people associate with your death. The longer you live, the less people mourn. They’ll get sick of you or get tired of taking care of you. They’ll say it was mercy when you die, but they’re just relieved that your life doesn’t affect them. They would rather have your death than your life taunting them. Sometimes, if you live long enough, the tragedy of your death hardly seems tragic at all.
“What I Got” perfectly reflects Sublime’s reggae mantra: love is the only thing that can pull you towards death and towards life. The consumption of it is intoxicating in the way only a drug can be. The repeated line, “Lovin is what I got. I said, remember that,” might sound cheesy to this generation, Z; we’re both the most insensitive and sensitive generation. And people might laugh at the line but say it’s wrong. Denounce affection and love and see how much worth you see in the world.
“Well, life is (too short), so love the one you got.” The punctuation of this line is important because without the parentheticals, the line simply says that “It is what it is,” and sometimes there’s nothing you can do but love. Or, at least, it’s the best thing you can do.
“Never start no static, I just get it off my chest — beat is from music.” So much of human culture is associated and bonded to music. It reflects our lives and emotions. But the best beat, Sublime says, that we can listen to, is the sound we’re born with and the one that we die without, leaving it behind: our hearts.
References
- This is a cover of Half Pint’s “Lovin’.”
- “And I can still get high.”
Reference to “The New Style” by the Beastie Boys. - “Never had to battle with no bullet proof vest.”
From The Fugees’ “Nappy Heads.”
In the “Wrong Way,” a fourteen-year-old girl is forced into prostitution by her abusive dad and brothers to make money. The narrator wants to help, but he ends up having sex with her and tries to rationalize his action by saying he’s “only a man,” making it seem like he can’t withhold his urges. He eventually does help her escape from the backwards, or wrong way, that her family has forced on her, but only ends up going backwards, or the wrong way, in the direction towards the dangerous familiarity she has always known. The phrase “wrong way” is also used to describe the means by which the two plan to kill the father to solve her problem
The narrator does a good job of making himself seem both heroic, abusive, and garners sympathy because of his genuine remorse for the girl and wish to help her. He says, “It’s up to you what you really want to do. Spend some time in America,” meaning that she is in America and has the right to be as free as everyone else. But later he says, “But I’m gonna make it hard to live/Big, salty tears rolling down to her chin/ And it smears up her makeup,” as he makes her cry. At the beginning of the song, he says “I gave her all that I had to give
I’m gonna make it hard to live” and then later that he has nothing to give, highlighting his hypocritical nature.
Sublime is a great story-telling band. They know how to create characters, and along with “Date Rape,” this is one that truly showcases their recurring theme of sexual exploitation and excellent storytelling.
4. Same In The End
Heavier than the rest of the songs, the song leans more punk than reggae, but is also one of my favorites on the album. The lyrics are quite brilliant as well. To contrast “Wrong Way,” where Annie is forced into prostitution by her father, “Same In The End,” talks about girls that enter into the prostitution market because of an absent father figure. “They give it up, and they give it up, and they give it up/ But they never ask why/ Daddy was a rollin’, rollin’ stone/ He rolled away one day and he never came home.” (A rolling stone characterizes a person who is never stays in one place for too long.)
Like in “Wrong Way,” the song also voices its opinion on what a man really is. “It ain’t hard to understand/ This ain’t Hitler’s master plan/ What it takes to be a man.” Sublime says that a man does not live have to live up to the perfect and strictly Nazi-Christan beliefs that Hitler preached in his General Plan Ost (plan to exterminate all Jews). A man has simple principles that he should live up to though, such as being present as a father, having morals, treating women with respect, etc… A different voice takes over in Verse 2 where the narrator is justifying his actions, “You only see what you want to believe
When you light up in the back with those tricks up your sleeve.”
Bradley is also probably singing about the birth of his son and the type of father he hopes to be for him. “Day that I die will be the day that I
Shut my mouth and put down my guitar/ Sunday morning, hold church down at the bar/ Get down on your knees and start to pray, oh/ Pray my itchy rash will go away, ow.” He wants to live his life making music and making money off it for his family, and never wants to give into cheap prayer to pretend any wrongful action he has performed can be rectified by God. The itchy rash most likely refers to heroin withdrawl pains.
More about the riots than the reason for the riots (the Rodney King trial) this song includes actual police calls and the experiences of the band, who claim they did participate in the looting.
“They said it was for the black man/ They said it was for the Mexican and not for the white man,” Bradley sings, saying that even though the riots were justified by the trial’s outcome, that it was really just an excuse to loot.
Probably Sublime’s most famous song, “Santeria,” is also the first song I heard by them. It’s a special piece of music. Santeria is a mixture of Catholicism, Caribbean culture, and African religion that slaves brought from West Africa. Today it is not as much a personal religion as it is an heirloom that is passed down. The link above gives a very detailed explanation, and I would recommend reading it.
The song is about a girl that cheated on the narrator. He says that he doesn’t “practice Santeria” and that he doesn’t “have no crystal ball,” that can help him get his girl back. He has trouble expressing his loss and says “I can’t define,” which some hear as “I can’t divine.” A Genius Lyric user wrote, which is a brilliant point:
“Both define and divine make poetic sense. If what he needed were easily quantifiable and tangible, he’d have found it and used it and said it already. But what he really needs is love, something that isn’t easily defined, nor is it easily conjured — try as we all might to summon it.”
Brad also uses enjambment for a double meaning:
“My soul will have to
[Verse 2]
Wait ’til I get back, find a jaina of my own.”
He expresses that his soul will have to rest, but he’ll also have to wait for the next perfect girl to come to him.
References
- “Jaina”
Hispanic term for lover or girlfriend - “Sancho”
The person your partner cheats on you with.
The song has pretty obvious meanings. The “Seed” is Brad’s semen, and the blood is a virgin’s blood. It’s about conception and how your parents have sex to get you and then you have sex and have kids or get STDs. First you are a seed, and then you plant them. The one line that is a bit confusing is the “I hope her parents love her so,” line. This could be included to juxtapose Brad’s love for the girl and her parent’s love for their kid. It could also be that the idea of having your parent's blood in you is a different bond than having a friend that you cut and mixed blood with and a girlfriend where you made her bleed by taking her virginity.
It’s a straightforward song, but there are still lots of ways you can take it.
Bradley is singing about a movement founded in 1989 that preached peace and love — similar to Sublime’s message. He talks about the young and reckless youth that he grew up around, and then his bandmates Eric and Bud that he had started to sing with a few years earlier. It’s take or give, a small history of the band, detailing everything from their peace message, “We didn’t fuss or no fight” to their band persona, “When all the little daughters wanna be my wife.”
References
- “Rudies”
A ska term for a rude Jamaican boy - “Had the 89 vision”
The ‘Stop the Violence Movement’ founded by KRS-One in 1989
“Pawn Shop” is about not only trading objects made of stone and metal but trading flesh and bone. Whether or not the “Pawn Shop” is an actual place in the song is important in interpretation. On the one hand, if it is, the song could be talking about the pride that you have to set aside when going to the Pawn Shop. In some cases, the trip is a more dignified way of begging, and the burden of poorness and those who take advantage of the poor are perfectly represented in pawn shops. On the other hand, the “Pawn Shop” could be music, places, or ideas that you trade in for ones you think will make you a better person.
References
- “Pawn Shop” was inspired by “War Deh Round a John Shop” by The Wailing Souls.
If you would rather listen to the more punk songs of Sublime, this is what you should start with; it’s arguably the most punk song on the album, and the least reggae. It’s a quick trip to Brad’s favorite surfing spots near Santa Cruz, where he originally went to college.
References
- “And I’m not here to brag or boast/I’m here to tell you about the spots that I love the most.”
An allusion to Sugar Gang Hill’s rapper’s delight
Johhny Butt is a fictional character and alter-ego of Brad, who struggled through his career with his addiction to heroin. Brad could have chosen the name for the generic first name, emboding a problem that so many people face, although faceless. The last name could refer to the excuses that he uses to keep using But it’s my last time…but it won’t hurt me…etc; he could even mean that he’s the butt of a cruel joke that the world is playing on him: giving him everything he wants but making it impossible for him to ever feel fufilled because of his addiction. Referenced in the lines, “So, shoot it up, shoot it up, it just don’t matter” which talks about his slow suicide of “shooting” himself over and over with a needle of heroin and not even caring because of his dependency upon the drug. He mentions his wish to recover in the line, “We’ve got a brand new dance, it’s called we’ve got to overcome.”
Brad would eventually die from a heroin overdose on May 25, 1996, leaving behind his wife, child, Lou Dog, and his bandmates. Sublime’s self-titled album would be released and become an instant success.
In short, Burritos is a song about depression. Not partying, looking at porn, drinking beer, listening, eating, reading, or doing anything that could be remotely mistaken for a sign of life. All he wanted to do was stay in bed and live in a dream state. Brad sings, “No, I don’t want to get a head rush/ ’Cause I ain’t even gettin’ out of bed, today.” Rather than be seized by the wildness of life and have his head spin from confusion and too much stimulus, he just wants to stay in bed.
References
- “Read about O.J.”
A reference to O.J. Simpson - “Keep on skankin’, Ronnie/ Skank the night away.”
Skanking is a style of dance associated with ska, ska punk, hardcore punk, and reggae.
Under my voodoo, meaning under my spell, is about a girl charmed by Brad and his personality. He says, “If your fated blood was in my prayers/ I damn well feel it were a lie,” saying that he doesn’t need help from celestial powers to get the girl — she’ll love him if he wants her or not. She’ll take any treatment he gives her because she’s that controlled by him; “Pray that I leave you high and dry.”
“Get Ready” is simply a song about the taboo of smoking weed and people who call the cops for some vague moral reason on people who smoke it. Brad sings, “If they catch you smokin’, they’re bound to drop the dime,” and precedes to call these people insufferable and fools.
The title could refer to a new wave of weed acceptance and a new generation of people who validate weed’s importance in cultures and music.
References
- “Are you willing, are you willin’ and able?”
Allusion to Bob Marley’s “This is Love.” - Inspired by “Get Ready” by Frankie Paul
- Includes samples from KRS-ONE’s “Speech.”
In my opinion, this is the richest song on the album, and my favorite. It’s a beautiful blend of rock, reggae, Spanish, story, love, sex, hate, family disapproval, and a motely of others. I personally think that Genius Lyrics does a great job of explaining the song (click the link here to see.)
Whether this song is another metaphor for Bradley’s relationship with heroin or an actual relationship can be debated, but either way, the emotion is clear: he knows this girl treats him poorly, and he wants to break up with her, but she’s too mesmerizing and won’t release him. He says, “I love her so bad, but she treats me like sh…/On lockdown, like a penitentiary,” and “The tension, it’s getting hotter/ I’d like to hold her head underwater/ [Bridge]/ Me and my girl/ We’ve got a relationship.” She’s trapped him, and he doesn’t know how to break free from her love.
References
- “Bradley’s on the microphone with Ras M.G.”
Ras was a DJ who worked with Sublime on the song. - “That we’re well-qualified to represent the L.B.C.”
Sublime played all over Long Beach, California at parties, in backyards, and anywhere they wouldn’t get kicked out.
4. Sources (Not Chronological)
- Lyric Genius (For every song)
- Brittanica
- AllMusic.com
- Sublime All Music Documentary
- Michael Happoldt- Wikipedia
- Wrong Way- Wikipedia
- SongFacts
- Santeria
