Photo: Joshua Kim
Sublime are officially working on a new album with Bradley Nowell's son Jakob. The project will be their first full-length album since 1996's self-titled. Jakob shared the news in a new interview with Rolling Stone, revealing that he spent a week in the studio with blink-182's Travis Barker and producer John Feldmann.
“Travis is an old-school fan and scholar of the Sublime catalog,” Jakob said. “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.”
"I grew up on Sublime. 40oz. to Freedom changed the way I listened to music," Barker said in a statement. "I’m so honored to be working with the guys in Sublime. Creating music for this album has been so fun and exciting. Bradley comes through his son Jakob while writing in the studio and performing. Chills every day in the studio when he sings and plays guitar. This is going to be really special."
Jakob isn't just writing new music, he's also scouring his dad's studio archives. “We’re combing through and trying to distill down what makes a Sublime song a Sublime song,” he explained. “It’s been this fun learning process to get close to and get to know my lost family member in a spiritual sense. I think we leave so much of ourselves, like this blueprint of our DNA, in the work that we create and put out there. So really it’s been also a fact-finding mission.”
Although the hope is to record a full album, Jakob emphasized that they're going to feel out fan reactions on a single or two first. “If it feels threatening and lame and just not a cool thing to do, we probably won’t continue onwards,” he admitted. “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 [Gaugh] and Eric [Wilson]’s job, man. It’s what they know how to do.”
The news comes nearly a year after Jakob made his debut as Sublime's frontman during a set at Coachella last April. The first single is expect to drop this summer.