Bradley Nowell's son will lead Sublime at Coachella
It's Leg Day for Jakob Nowell, who's fueling up for his workout on a recent afternoon with a late breakfast at a Long Beach diner just down the street from his gym.
The only son of the late Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell, Jakob got into weightlifting a few years ago and adheres zealously to his daily exercise regimen. “Working really, really hard,” he says, is a necessity for someone “not naturally good at anything. Growing up, there were all these boygenius shows like `Jimmy Neutron' and `Dexter's Lab' on TV. I was always like, These guys are just geniuses at 6 years old? That's f— up. I knew I was gonna have to cheat to be good, and the best form of cheating is to practice for hours and hours and hours.” He laughs over a greasy plate of steak and eggs.
“Plus, if you work out a lot, you can eat this and not feel like s—.”
What Nowell, 28, has been practicing lately is the music of Sublime, the beloved ska-punk trio his father led from the backyards of Long Beach to the brink of alt-rock stardom until his tragic death in May 1996, just two months before the release of the band's first major-label album. Bradley was the same age Jakob is now when he died from an accidental heroin overdose after a show at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma; within a year and a half, Sublime's self-titled LP had gone triple platinum thanks to unavoidable radio hits like “What I Got,” “Santeria,” and “Wrong Way.”
Now, after decades in which the group's music only continued to find new fans, Jakob has joined his dad's former bandmates, drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson, to front a new version of Sublime. The trio is set to perform in public for just the second time at the upcoming Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which will also feature a reunion by Sublime's old pals in No Doubt — perhaps the other defining act of mid'90s SoCal alternative rock.
“I call Bud and Eric my uncles, and I'm happy they've accepted me into their band,” says Jakob, who sings and plays guitar and who was only 11 months old when Bradley Nowell died. “I'll never look at it as my band. Sublime is my dad's band, and I'm helping out, that's all.”
Says Wilson: “This is like a second beginning.”
Formed in 1988, Sublime quickly became a staple of the Long Beach house-party scene with its rowdy yet laidback blend of reggae, hiphop, punk and ska. Bradley's witty and empathetic songwriting distinguished the band, as did his flexibility as a vocalist: In an era of one-note barkers, here was a guy who could croon, growl, toast and rap; he could even sing convincingly in Spanish, a reflection of the deep cultural diversity of the town that also gave us War, Snoop Dogg and Jenni Rivera.