Two months before the release of their major label debut, Sublime’s Bradley Nowell was found dead in a San Francisco motel room, the apparent victim of a drug overdose. At 28, the same age his father was when he passed, his son Jakob picked up where his dad left off by playing a show with the surviving members of Sublime at Coachella last April.
The Coachella performance marked the beginning of a new chapter for Sublime and paved the way for their return to the studio, this time with Jakob Nowell leading the charge. This upcoming project will be their first full-length album since their 1996 self-titled release. Nowell revealed the news in a new Rolling Stone interview, sharing that he spent a week in the studio alongside Blink-182’s Travis Barker and producer John Feldmann.
“Travis is an old-school fan and scholar of the Sublime catalog,” Nowell said. “They feel like family members now too, man. There was that feeling from everyone that what we’re doing here is something generational and special on an emotional, spiritual, familial level.”
Barker echoed the sentiment. “I grew up on Sublime. 40oz. to Freedom changed the way I listened to music,” he said in a statement. “I’m so honored to be working with the guys in Sublime. Creating music for this album has been so fun and exciting. Bradley comes through his son Jakob while writing in the studio and performing. Chills every day in the studio when he sings and plays guitar. This is going to be really special.”
While writing new material, Nowell dives deep into his father’s archives to rediscover the essence of Sublime’s signature sound. “We’re combing through and trying to distill down what makes a Sublime song a Sublime song,” he explained. “It’s been this fun learning process to get close to and get to know my lost family member in a spiritual sense. I think we leave so much of ourselves, like this blueprint of our DNA, in the work that we create and put out there. So really it’s been also a fact-finding mission.” It should also be noted that this is far from Nowell’s first rodeo as a professional musician. He was a founding member of LAW, and was their vocalist until his departure in 2021.
While the goal is to release a full album, Nowell said that they’re testing the waters first by gauging fan reactions to a few singles. “If it feels threatening and lame and just not a cool thing to do, we probably won’t continue onwards,” he admitted. “But if there’s even a little bit of interest and it seems like we’re doing our job right and respecting that legacy, then of course, making music is what we want to do. It’s Bud [Gaugh] and Eric [Wilson]’s job, man. It’s what they know how to do.”
Fans can expect the first single from the project to drop this summer.
