‘It’s Almost Pure Chaos and Fun:’ Sublime Readies Fourth Era With ‘Until the Sun Explodes’

As the son of Sublime‘s late Bradley Nowell, and frontman for the genre-blending band himself since 2023, Jakob Nowell is something of a scholar when it comes to the group’s history and legacy. So he views this incarnation — which releases a new album, Until the Sun Explodes, on Friday (June 12) — as “the fourth era of Sublime.”

There is, Nowell tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in Long Beach, Calif., “Sublime classic,” the group his father, drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson formed during 1988 and ran through the elder Nowell’s death in 1996 from a heroin overdose at the age of 28. The trio released three albums — including a five-times platinum self-titled effort in 1996, released two months after Nowell’s death — and scored enduring hits such as “What I Got,” “Santeria” and “Wrong Way.”

Gaugh and Wilson’s Long Beach Dub Allstars, launched in 1997, was Sublime’s second era according to Nowell, followed by Sublime With Rome from 2009-2024, fronted by Rome Ramirez and including Wilson for most of its run (with Gaugh on board for the first two years).

“So I consider us, like V4 of Sublime,” explains Nowell, 30, who was 11 months old when his father died. “I hope people consider it a renaissance. That’s definitely the goal with this record and all the sounds we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to perform up there. It’s just a fun, messy, chaotic punk band that your parents used to love and showed you, or that you just discovered two years ago and you love it for your own reasons now.”

Gaugh, 58, adds that, “It just seems like a natural progression — wouldn’t it be cool if we could bring something new to the fans who haven’t seen Sublime before and give them their Sublime, because everybody’s listening to what their parents were hearing 30 years ago. So we’re giving something to the new fans and the old fans alike, and giving (new fans) something for their very own — ‘This is my Sublime. This isn’t just my parents’, grandparents’, aunts’ and uncles’. This is my band, too.”

Doin’ Time

A new Sublime, and a new Sublime album, were not necessarily fixed on the Long Beach scene’s bingo card, however. Or on any of the band members’.

With Gaugh, Wilson and others from his father’s posse as designated godfathers, Jakob Nowell developed a natural interest in music early, teaching himself how to play guitar. Nevertheless, he says, “there were times I was running full-force to it and times I felt a total imposter syndrome — ‘What am I doing? This is not me!,’ just trying to figure out who I am. You definitely wrestle with it.” He struggled with drug use and alcoholism as a teen, becoming sober when he was 17 with the help drug interventionist Todd Zalkins, a childhood friend of his father’s. Nowell and other family members established the non-profit Nowell Family Foundation to provide addiction recovery support for musicians.

He went on to receive a degree in creative writing from Long Beach State College but gave himself over to music in bands such as LAW and Jakobs Castle, the latter of which released its debut album, Enter: The Castle in 2024 and is planning another for next year.

“I was super-stoked,” Gaugh says, “because (Nowell) was staying true to himself and he was doing his own thing. It was important for him to set himself aside from (Sublime). I truly respected that he wasn’t going the ‘nepo route’ and glom off our success. He really was a musician in his own right, so it was like, ‘OK, he’s into this kind of music and that’s just how it’s gonna be. No pressure from Uncle Bud or Uncle Eric.”

Nowell confirms that being part of the Sublime universe in any way, shape or form “didn’t seem like the right thing. It seemed inappropriate…and even if I did, would I even be good enough, or would I be capable? So I spent a good 10 years in my own projects, just trying to cut my teeth and play around the country, at first to empty rooms and then a modest following.”

Nowell did, however, agree to play with Gaugh and Wilson during a December 2023 benefit concert for Bad Brains’ Paul “H.R.” Hudson in Los Angeles. “I was 28, the age my father died,” Nowell recalls. “I’d taken this trip to the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma (Calif.), the last venue he played. And then I got the call to do (the benefit). There were just so many coinciding factors.” Gaugh, meanwhile, remembers that “when we were rehearsing for that first show, hearing his voice sounding identical to Brad’s, it gave me chills. I haven’t experienced that since Brad left, and feeling it once again was confirmation that we were doing the right thing.”

In the wake of that show, Nowell was open to Gaugh and Wilson’s overture “to play together again and use the name Sublime. I felt like I was capable of doing this now. I’ve built up my chops enough to do this part justice. It definitely came with a certain sense of paranoia and dread and uncertainty. But now, with two years under my best as the frontman for the project, I’m feeling pretty confident — obviously.”

How The Sun Exploded

Sublime moved forward with playing select shows and festivals, including Coachella during 2024, and teamed with the roots reggae group Stick Figure on a single, “Feel Like That,” shortly afterwards; it was the first new release under the Sublime name in 27 years and reached No. 7 on the Alternative Airplay chart. There was talk of making a full album with Travis Barker of Blink-182 and John Feldmann of Goldfinger, but Sublime ultimately decided to keep things closer to home, recording Until the Sun Explodes with Jakobs Castle producer Jon Joseph at Harbor Martyr Studios in San Pedro.

The 21-track set — including spoken-word skits — features an expanded version of Sublime, too, with guitarists Trey Pangborn and Zane “Zayno” Vandevort and DJ Product (nee Doug Boyce) in the mix. Joseph contributes some instrumentation as well, while Nowell’s grandfather Jim Nowell, who passed away earlier this year, pops up on “Maybe Partying Will Help…Pt. 2” There are also guest appearances by H.R. (“Trey’s Song”), Garrett “G. Love” Dutton (“Come Correct),” Fletcher Dragge from Pennywise (247-369) and the bands Fidlar (“Backwards”) and Skeggs (“Favorite Song”).

Nowell acknowledges that while a new Sublime album “was another big never-will” for him, performing with the band made the prospect more agreeable. “Truth be told, we just kept playing together at rehearsals and soundchecks,” he explains. “We’re all very jam-oriented musicians, so we’d have these little parts we’d return to that started to sound like they could be (new songs), and it seemed natural to move forward with that.”

And his almost scholarly knowledge of all things Sublime also gave Nowell a sharp perspective on exactly what Until the Sun Explodes should encompass, sonically and stylistically.

“I think Sublime, at its core, is a California punk rock band that experimented with many different genres,” Nowell explains. “They revered thee classic reggae and dub records from Jamaica — Johnny Osbourne, King Tubby, Jacob Miller. They were also listening to a lot of rad hip-hop and stuff that was happening concurrently in the ’90s, in Long Beach and L.A. They just had to try their hand at it all, how a punk band would do it. It’s just messy and frenetic…and that’s how you get that classic sound.

“That’s what we went for on (Until the Sun Explodes), too, the same sensibility. it’s a paradox; we entirely revere the music, but the very nature of the music is (to be) super irreverent, right? It’s almost pure chaos and fun…and hopefully people get the same feeling here as they did on (1992’s) 40oz. to Freedom and the stuff they did back then.”

One And Done?

Until the Sun Explodes has received a warm welcome so far; both the title track and the album-opening “Ensenada” hit No. 1 on Alternative Airplay. The group has a number of shows lined up as well, starting June 13 at San Diego’s Petco Park and also including its own Sublime Festival on June 27 in Portland, Ore. Sublime will also be part of Vans Warped Tour stops in Montreal and Orlando, Fla., is on the bill of the Louder Than Life festival during September in Louisville, Ky. and the Aftershock Festival during October in Sacramento, and will host the Sublime Reef Madness Cruise during November.

“We’re looking into next year already, too,” Gaugh says. “I know that we are already looking to schedule some Australia/New Zealand dates next year. I can see a Pacific Rim tour happening. I can see another European vacation. We’re looking forward to doing some more laps around the good ol’ U.S. of A….The shows have been amazing. We’re selling out. And I think this album is going to blow the doors off people when they hear everything.”

It may well be the only time they hear this incarnation of Sublime on record, too.

Until the Sun Explodes has been positioned as the “last” Sublime album, and Nowell says that’s certainly how he’s viewing it. “Unless a child of mine wants to make another one one day, this is the last one I’m gonna make,” he confirms. “I think you have to know your goals, set out to achieve them, and if you do you must then create new goals. I love doing this and it’s truly healed me in many ways, and allowed me to grow as an entertainer and performer. But I wish to carry the flag forward in different ways now.”

Nowell says he’ll continue to “play a few Sublime shows every year and keep the faces smiling,” but his primary focus will be on Jakobs Castle as well as SVNBVRNT Records, the label he operates with Vandevort, working with other southern California artists he says “are making local kids really excited, just like when Sublime started. This is the real renaissance that I hope my time with Sublime can clue people into. These are the true people who have inherited the mantle.”

If Until the Sun Explodes does well, however, Nowell knows there will be requests for more, and he does allow that “my feeling could change in the future. But it would be enough into the future where it would be a moot point. I’ve done what I thought was impossible and I’m very proud with the results. I would want Until the Sun Explodes to feel like epilogue, the victory lap, a celebration of Sublime’s history and a love letter to my father and all of his friends and the scene that raised me and touched so many people’s lives. After this I’d really like to pass that along and help the kids who want to do something similar.”