Sublime are gearing up to release their first new album in 30 years. On Wednesday (March 25) the ska punk trio featuring original members drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson and now fronted by Jakob Nowell — son of late frontman Bradley Nowell — revealed that they’ve completed work on Until the Sun Explodes.
In a statement on Instagram, Nowell, 30, noted that they consider the group’s smash 1996 self-titled third album — which contained such iconic hits as “What I Got,” “Santeria,” “Wrong Way” and “Doin’ Time” — to be the “last” Sublime record that will ever be made. “There’s no replacing history, period,” Nowell stated. “Until the Sun Explodes the album is an epilogue, and ‘Until the Sun Explodes’ the single is the epilogue to the epilogue. It is a tribute to the expansive works of Sublime, it is an acknowledgment for all that my father has done for me my entire life, and most importantly it is a thank you. I love you dad, and I owe you my life.”
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Sublime was formed in Long Beach, Calif. in 1988 by singer/guitarist Nowell, Wilson and Gaugh. The band’s self-titled third album was released two months after Nowell died at 28 from a drug overdose, with the LP peaking at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart. They broke up in 1996 following Nowell’s death and reformed in 2009 with fan Rome Ramirez taking over as the lead singer/guitarist, changing their name to Sublime With Rome. Gaugh left in 2011 and then rejoined in 2023 when Jakob Nowell took over as lead singer following the winding-down of Sublime with Rome in 2024.
The new album is due out on June 12 and the title track is out now, complete with a video directed by Ryan Baxley and featuring skateboard legends Christian Hosoi and Omar Hassan. The clip for the song that perfectly encapsulates the bands unique mix of surf, punk, pop and ska finds the group chilling at a skate park and cruising in classic cars as Nowell pays loving tribute to the legacy left behind by his famous father, who died in May 1996 just a few days before the band was slated to embark on their first European tour.
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Jakob, whose voice eerily echoes his dad’s chill, caress me down manner, directly confronts the family legacy in the lyrics, singing, “Well it only goes til the sun explodes/ And I’d only hope that you know I owe you my life/ Do you know I owe you my life?/ Well do you know? Do you know?”
According to Vice, the band recorded more than 20 songs in a San Pedro, Calif.-area studio over the past year, with Gaugh revealing that they were joined in the sessions by FIDLAR singer Zac Carper, Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge, G. Love and Bad Brains singer HR. “The whole album came together rather effortlessly,” said Gaugh. “We like it to be natural, not composed and enforced. We didn’t forget our roots. It’s the same recipe; we added a couple of extra spices to bring it up to date and add that new market value. Maybe that’s speaking to our musical maturity, you know, ability to navigate the studio and our own instruments. Man, it’s been a real treat.”
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Sublime released the first single from the album, “Ensenada,” last fall, with the song giving the group their first No. 1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay chart in nearly 30 years; the song spent eight weeks at the chart’s summit. Sublime are headed to Australia and New Zealand in April, before headed back to the U.S. for a pair of sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on April 17 and 18 and then to Fort Worth, Texas for the first of three planned Sublime Me Gusta Festivals featuring sets from Slightly Stoopid, Iration, Long Beach Dub Allstars, The Ataris, HR and more.
