The reformed Sublime, featuring Jakob Nowell in place of his late father, Bradley Nowell, is working on new material toward possibly putting together an album.
Jakob tells Rolling Stone that he’s been in the studio alongside blink-182‘s Travis Barker and producer/Goldfinger frontman Jon Feldmann ahead of a planned recording session with original Sublime members Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh.
“Travis is an old-school fan and scholar of the Sublime catalog,” Jakob says. “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.”
“This is going to be really special,” Barker adds. “Bradley comes through his son Jakob … Chills every day in the studio when he sings and plays guitar.”
Jakob describes the new material as an “epilogue” to Sublime’s original run, which ended following the death of Bradley in 1996, less than a year after the birth of his son.
“[It’s] something that explores my lifetime relationship with this amazing body of work from a figure that I really never even got to meet, a figure who inspired so many music listeners and musicians around the world,” Jakob says.
An album would mark Sublime’s first since their 1996 self-titled album, and Jakob says they plan to test the waters with singles first.
“If it feels threatening and lame and just not a cool thing to do, we probably won’t continue onwards,” Jakob says. “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 and Eric’s job, man,” he adds. “It’s what they know how to do.”
