After a hiatus from performing after front man Brad Nowell’s death in 1996, Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh have teamed up with Rome Ramirez, who has been featured in The Dirty Heads’ single “Lay Me Down,” to work on a second generation of the ’90’s band Sublime. Because of legal challenges from the late Nowell's family on usage rights for the band name, the trio is now officially titled as Sublime With Rome. The State Press spoke with bassist Wilson prior to their performance at Arizona Fall Frenzy.
The State Press: This is amazing to have you guys performing the songs we’ve only been able to hear on the radio for a while. How did you find Rome Ramirez?
Eric Wilson: I just ran into him at the studio and did a video on RAWsession, and I told Bud, and he decided to step in. And we’re having a great time.
SP: Now before you guys were to perform at Cypress Hill's Smokeout Festival 2009 in San Bernardino, California, there were some major problems brought up about continuing to call yourself “Sublime.” From what I can tell, Sublime with Rome is a legally okay name. But has the dust settled with those issues now?
EW: That was a lot of politics about the rights about using the name. We could’ve taken it to court and be stuck in litigation right now. But we just laid off of it so they would be happy.
SP: Your ska punk sound really plays well with the college crowd. That fact on top of playing a venue in a college town, how are you feeling to be playing a show that will inevitably be packed with original fans and current college students?
EW: I’m just really excited to play songs that we wrote years ago. But yeah, we’re just playing for them all. We’re excited to have our old fans and to have these fans. It’s just good to be liked.
SP: Now coming back after a good amount of time, having a new person on board, missing an essential player and having so many experiences under your belt, has the touring life changed for you?
EW: Back then … it was an experience to figure out where we were going to sleep the next night. We slept on people’s floors and stuff like that; now it’s a lot different. We travel with a big crew and everything goes smoothly. Back then, we used to do everything by ourselves and it was really tough. We didn’t have the fan base we do now. I really like the way it’s going now.
SP: There was an MTV online article put out last year that quoted “the celebrated Long Beach ska/punk misfits ... were contemplating a full-fledged reunion with a mysterious ‘unknown singer and guitarist’ filling Nowell’s spot. Well, over the weekend, at a Mexican restaurant in Sparks, Nevada, that reunion officially happened.” The Mexican restaurant meeting almost makes me chuckle a little. Did you really make the reunion official over lunch?
EW: Rome had a band at the time actually. We just jumped up on stage on their equipment during the show to see what the people thought. We didn’t want it to be [traditionally] advertised.
SP: You guys have had Facebook requests to go abroad to Buenos Aires and Argentina. How are you feeling about that possibility?
EW: We have a show set for Brazil. We’re definitely going to be going anywhere we’re liked. We went to Costa Rica in ’94 or something, but we just went there to go surfing. We ended up playing a show using some other band’s equipment. But we haven’t toured in South America yet.
SP: After looking around, I couldn’t find the story of your start with music. When did you get together?
EW: I’d played in bands with Bud and I played in bands with Brad — just a couple of garage bands. And I called up Brad, and I told him about Bud. We practiced a lot. We were so stoked that Brad transferred down to Long Beach and we just started playing all the time. Brad’s girlfriend at the time found “sublime” in the dictionary, and we just thought that would be a cool name for the band.
SP: In June, you played on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and debuted your new song “Panic.” What sort of response did you guys get to this new song?
EW: It went really well just about everywhere we play it.
SP: Last year, Bud had mentioned in an interview that he was interested in recording new music later on, and Rome recently put up a video confirming you taking a break from tours to work on recording. How do you feel about that at this point?
EW: We’re going back to the studio in October. We’re really happy about it. We already have some ideas; we just need the time to pull it all together.
SP: What should we be expecting next from you guys with this new album?
EW: It will definitely sound like Sublime, because it’s what we love.
Reach the reporter at lkjorda1@asu.edu
